Off Off On

This Is The Kit, the alias of musician Kate Stables, are pleased to announce their new album Off Off On which will be released by Rough Trade Records on October 23, 2020. This is the second album by the band for Rough Trade, and the follow up to 2017’s critically acclaimed Moonshine Freeze. 

Stables worked on the new record with producer Josh Kaufman, a New York-based musician, Hold Steady collaborator and member of Bonny Light Horseman and Muzz. The two met when working with Anaïs Mitchell on a cover of the Osibisa song "Woyaya", their paths later crossing at the PEOPLE residencies in Berlin and Brooklyn.

“We were on the same page about a lot of musical ideas, as well as doing things I wouldn’t do musically. It was a lovely mixture of ‘you’re exactly in my brain and exactly at the opposite end of my brain.’” The band – completed by Rozi Plain (bass/vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), Jesse D Vernon (guitar, keyboards), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drum/vox), – headed to Real World Studios in the UK to record the record, finishing just in time for everyone to get home for lockdown.  

Kate explains the meaning behind lead single ‘This Is What You Did’ as “A bit of a panic attack song. The negative voices of other people that are your own voice. Or are they? Hard to say when you’re in this kind of a place. How to get out of this place? Needing to get outside more.  Cosmically topical what with these recent days of inside all the time. Knowing the things, you should do because they’re good for you and make you feel better but for some reason you still stay inside and fester in your own self-doubt and regret and self-loathing. Fun times! We all get into negative mind loops sometimes. Especially when you’re not getting the fresh air and outside time you need to stay healthy.”

Since 2008’s debut album Krulle Bol, This Is the Kit have unpicked emotional knots and woven remarkable stories. Off Off On is a beautifully clear distillation of Stables’ song-writing gifts, inspired by Stables time on tour with The National in 2018 and 2019, a continuation of the role she took on their album I Am Easy to Find. 

“I think it did me loads of good,” laughs Stables of touring with The National. “It was so brilliant when I was writing to be away from my songs and the responsibility of overseeing a band or a project - just to forget about that for a while and be a minion in someone else’s band was brilliant, I loved it. I think it really helped my writing and my getting through whatever I needed to get through.”