A veritable slow burner, This Is The Kit have been showcasing their music for a decade now, but it’s only been in the last couple of years or so, that the band have been deservedly getting the recognition for their folksy acoustica that includes touches of electronica and psychedelic rock , spearheaded by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kate Stables, possessor of a lilting, songbird voice. Part of a loose post-millennial zeitgeist that includes the likes of Marika Hackman, Rachael Dadd, Dark Dark Dark and Serafina Steer, her softly spoken, yet enunciated voice, is deceptively serene, on record and on stage, where the band can morph from a folksy acoustic duo to a more psychedelic folk-rock tinged five piece, usually with fellow singer songwriter Rozi Plain at her side.

A long time favourite of the likes of Elbow’s Guy Garvey, Tom Ravenscroft and many other BBC 6 DJ’s, This Is The Kit made an early impression when Rob da Bank’s Sunday Best included their Two Wooden Spoons song on their scene setting 2006 compilation Folk Off. Ironically, it was about this time that Stables and her long time life and musical partner Jesse D Vernon set off for France where they have been based ever since… “When we first moved out to France there was more there,” says Kate. “it was busier there. But then, classically, the weight shifted and it started working well it the UK. That didn’t bother me. You need things to be a bit difficult, then you learn stuff,” she says, highlighting her quietly steely determination to forge a life as a songwriter and musician. “We’ve just met amazing, significant, excellent people and musicians, and learned a huge amount about ourselves and the world. I say ‘we’, I am out there with my family. The royal we! she says referring to her partner and young child. “The aim is to have fun playing with people whose work I really like. The more you exchange and share with people the better things get and the more you learn.”

Two Wooden Spoons was subsequently released as a single on Sunday Best, and the the band released their debut album in 2008, Krulle Bol, on a small French label. Although it was produced by PJ Harvey’s collaborator John Parish it failed to make much of an impression, except with the likes of Guy Garvey who became one of their very first high profile fans, and who vigilantly extolled their delights on his radio show. A second album, Wriggle Out The Restless was a similarly low key release, but eventually the band started to gain some real traction as the nu-folk scene started to hit its stride. Moreover, Brassland, the label set up by The National’s Dressner brothers, took This Is The Kit under their wing and re-released Wriggle Out The Restless in 2013. And in 2014, the band started work on their third album, Bashed Out, this time with Aaron Dressner at the production helm. Their ‘breakthrough’ album, it wasn’t made without difficulty, as Kate explains: “The album bashed me out in the making of… it was strenuous and drawn out. But for that reason, it was a great experience. I am a stronger and wiser person for it. There was planetary interventions, more internal reasons then external,” she says rather cryptically. “With two busy lives on opposite sides of the Atlantic, it just makes it really complicated to finish an album. I don’t think there is anything wrong with doing it that way. I just think sometimes in your life you are going to have a hard time no matter what you are doing.”

Where did you make the album? “We started it off in Brooklyn, in his garage.” I hazard a guess that he has a big garage… “It’s not that big, but it’s got a lot of quality stuff,” she laughs. “But a year or two passed when everyone was busy touring, and I finished it later.” With contributions from her usual collaborators, as well as Aaron’s brother Bryce, and members of Sufjan Stevens extended family of musicians, The Walkmen and Doveman, Bashed Out has received universal praise, including from number one fan Guy Garvey: “I love This Is The Kit because there is a simplicity to the song-writing, a lightness of touch. They are natural; it’s like they’ve been found these songs in the ground. There is a real honesty to them. I believe every word she sings,” he has eulogised.

Born and raised in Winchester, where she grew up with Rozi Plain, Kate was immersed in music from a young age, learning guitar and trumpet, and often singing to herself. “I started This Is The Kit when I left sixth form, writing music and songs, and doing gigs – a lot of open mics – but always doing odd jobs. When I moved to Bristol I upped the music side of things and lowered the job side of things. When I moved to Paris I stopped ‘other’ jobs altogether,” she laughs.

How about the band name, where does that come from? “When I stared off, messing around with music, I didn’t know where I was going to go, or what I was going to do with it. I did know that I wanted to do gigs and not use my name, and for it to be a band. It is also my name, because some people call me Kit, and also because I ramble around from place to place with bits and bobs… I am a sort of ‘this is the kit’ sort of person. What you’ve got in your bag! it’s quite difficult for French people to say, they just can’t say it. ‘Zis iz Za kit” she laughs,”

Does she think of her music as folk? “I’ve got parents who like listening to folk music, and I like listening to folk music, but it’s not easy to define what exactly the kind of folk music it is. It’s people music. Sam Lee is someone I really like. For me that is folk music, because for me the word ‘folk’ means people. He is meeting people and learning from people and exchanging ideas and songs. What he does is fusion folk.”

I note that she’s wearing a skull and crossbones t-shirt, heavily hinting at a more rockier side to This Is The Kit. “It’s from a venue in Hull, my Hulladephia,” she says referring the legendary Hull venue, The Adephi. Plus, she’e wearing a hat with similar symbols woven in… “It’s not very rock’n’roll,” she laughs. “It’s Arthur Ransome, it’s Swallow and Amazons! It has pirate flags on it… It is easy to mislead people with the name of folk; I don’t want anyone to turn up at our gigs and feel worried or tricked. Sometimes it gets loud, and sometimes it’s quiet, but not folk. Anything goes…”

Prolific, and experimental by nature, This Is The Kit often re-work their songs, with new arrangements, new sounds, and sometimes even use different singers on the same song. They also like to get remixers involved, providing a more electronic and dancey side to the band. With that in mind they are about to release a new EP, which at its heart features a re-imagined version of Magic Spell, an aptly titled song that is more psychedelic rock than folk, but still retains that subtly hypnotic, ’Slow Music’ quality that infuses much of her work. It’s a… “result of tours all crammed in the car and listening to re-releases of old African groove compilations and Hugh Tracey field recordings. That and a summer or two playing to festival crowds (including Latitude, Green Man and End of the Road) who were well-up for a bit of a dance.” The EP also includes a re-worked version of Cold and Got Colder and their version of past collaborators Francois & The Atlas Mountains’ Les Plus Beux. Accompanying Magic Spell is a beautiful, hand crafted video by Sam Wisternoff, who painstakingly traced live footage of the band onto paper, using the commuter monitor as a lightbox, changing colour for each drawing and editing it together into a homage to Kate and the band. Made in Paris, and with Le Plus Bleux sung in French, Paris and France are obviously in the forefront of her mind, music and otherwise. I talked to her in between the Charlie Hebdo and November atrocities… “Being there, I had never experienced anything like it, just to see that amount of solidarity, Paris and France was just so supportive of each other. There are crises that happen all the time where that doesn’t happen. In a way it was a privilege to see that all come together, have a march and support each other. In other countries, where tragedies happen you, can’t react like that… It was a powerful and sad time.”

Jeff Hemmings

Website: thisisthekit.co.uk
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