Spotlight On: THIS IS THE KIT

ABOUT this week’s podcast guest + radio hour featured interview:

This week’s guest got me thinking about (among many other things) the physical nature of music making, especially songs. Not only how it feels to strum a guitar for example, but how words feel, both spoken and sung, and how that can become another tool for expression of an idea or emotion. British-born, Paris-based musician Kate Stables, who records and performs as This Is The Kit, is a master and a devotee of this kind of wordplay and language. For rhythm’s sake and as a conduit for contemplating the duality and complexity of thoughts, relationships, and the human condition. It's what’s drawn me to her music for the past decade. Like many, I first discovered This Is The Kit in 2015, on their breakthrough third album, the Aaron Dessner-produced Bashed Out, which was the follow up to 2010’s Wriggle Out the Restless, and the John Parish-produced 2008 debut, Krülle Bol. Parish also produced This Is The Kit’s critically hailed 2017 album, Moonshine Freeze, their first for Rough Trade Records. Next came 2020’s Off Off On, with Josh Kaufman of Bonny Light Horseman in the production seat. Yet another gorgeous and critically hailed collection, it was a top 25 album upon its release in the UK. And now Kate Stables is back with her sixth album, Careful of Your Keepers, produced by Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals. We'll talk about the new album, Kate's journey thus far, and so much more, as we welcome Kate Stables aka This Is The Kit as this week’s SHERO in the Spotlight.

A condensed version of our This Is The Kit interview is featured this week during the SHEROES Radio hour. Here’s what else you’ll hear:

New songs from Mitski, and The Japanese House.

And we celebrate some SHERO BIRTHDAYS:

• Laura Lee aka Leezy (of Khruangbin) 10/14

• Laura Nyro 10/18

Listen to the syndicated public radio SHEROES Radio hour, below: