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| Track list: 1. Misunderstanding 2. Silver John 3. Spores All Settling 4. Magic Spell 5. Bashed Out 6. All In Cahoots 7. Nits 8. Vitamins 9. We Are In 10. Cold and Got Colder Running time: 37 minutes Released: 2015 |
Another new release sneaking in, this one I only found out about this week, though it has been out just over a month. I cannot recall where I first heard This is the Kit, but I gather they are championed on BBC 6 Music these days (I don't listen to the radio; I've got too much here that I fail to listen to as it is!).
It has, again, been a week since I got down to one of these posts, and I should have been doing Bentley Rhythm Ace, but that is over an hour long and I am not sure I have enough time to squeeze that in. This, at sub 40-minutes, is more palatable. It is also a completely virgin listen - I didn't hear any of it as I ripped the CD.
Soft guitar and light percussion open us up, I cannot quite place who this sounds like, but it might have echoes of Sigur Rós in some of the sliding structural change. When the vocal joins in it is a bit odd initially - something about the timbre and the timing of it joining jolted me a bit - but settles quickly. A soft voice, to join the soft and fluffy soundscape. There is not that much going on here, but what there is builds a nice warm safe space. It is very nice without having much heft. Misunderstanding is also the longest track on the disc - I expect things to change as we move to shorter snappier pieces.
Change it does, as Silver John has more purpose, more thrust. Less nurdling, more driving. Not exactly strident, and still trading on the same warm enclosed sound, this song nevertheless has a pace and direction that was lacking in the gentle build and maintain of the first track. I think it is thoroughly unobjectionable, without commanding any real attention. Ah, but as that track ends and the banjo comes in to carry the main melody of Spores All Settling, this... this is infectiously good. A gentle canter picked through the strings, twanging pleasantly against another warm background and a vocal that comes across with intimacy. Yeah, this reminds me of the sound that had me pick this record up once I did find out about it. The voice recording feels like it is deliberately "surrounding" the listener, I find this very effective even as I listen through a single portable speaker attached to a laptop.
Yeah, OK. I am already happy with the purchase, and can imagine this album really growing on me if I give it some more time (it heads to the car tomorrow). Magic Spell may be nonsense lyrically but there is a similar welcoming tone, soft backing with some fine strumming, thrumming playing to create a murmur of constant presence and that busy sound is great; it affects me in the same way that louder, rockier tracks do - grabbing me and pulling me into the groove - hearing the song after it has finished, but in this case without actually damaging eardrums in the process!
The title track is less appealing, stripped back from the lush warmth of earlier songs, this has a cold starkness to it and the echo-like harmony on some of the vocal is a mile away from the intimate engagement of earlier. There is less pace, too - not that any of the tunes have had much. Far from being bad, it is just a change that I think makes it weaker that what came before. Thankfully All In Cahoots brings back a warmer and more engaging vocal, a warmer (again! Word of the day - wishful thinking about the weather?) rub from the arrangement. Yes, I think it could perhaps be argued that there is a lot of similarity in the pieces making up this album so far and those similarities could be thrown at it as a criticism, but - and I don't know if this is evidence of my mood just now - I find that consistency, that coherence is actually a boon. It feels more like an album and less like a collection of songs that happened to be released together and there is something pleasingly old fashioned about that these days.
Nits has just ended, Vitamins commences. This is stripped back again but not colder in the way Bashed Out was. No, this starts light, more distant than most of the other tracks, but the same reassurance comes through from the main melody, and when the arrangement kicks up a notch or two in places there is definitely a pulse like a little squeeze of joy and colour being injected into a monochrome image. The best points of the track though, I think, are contained within Kate Sables' vocal, slight tremors, delivery suited marvellously to the arrangement. The moments in this track which are just musical are lacking compared to those where the song is in flight.
We Are In starts rather lacklustre, the voice not quite functioning as well in the context of what it has to work with here - just a very floaty, ambient backing. It picks up a bit when the arrangement improves but the song is as close to a non-event as the album has been. Thankfully it is a one off as the final track is more driven again, a compellingly simple guitar, and the same channelled, cultivated aural glow - sound behaving like a gas, coming out of the speaker and expanding to fill the vessel of my living room, cloaking it in a pleasant atmosphere.
This has been a wonderful find, an early shout for album of the year for 2015 - though I will couch that in caution as a) I have hardly listened to some of the 2015 purchases I have made yet (and many will not show up here this year, for sure) and b) there is still more than half the year to go. I do, however, think it might be quite hard to beat the feeling of contentment that came with this disc though. Bashed Out is anything but; very classy.
It has, again, been a week since I got down to one of these posts, and I should have been doing Bentley Rhythm Ace, but that is over an hour long and I am not sure I have enough time to squeeze that in. This, at sub 40-minutes, is more palatable. It is also a completely virgin listen - I didn't hear any of it as I ripped the CD.
Soft guitar and light percussion open us up, I cannot quite place who this sounds like, but it might have echoes of Sigur Rós in some of the sliding structural change. When the vocal joins in it is a bit odd initially - something about the timbre and the timing of it joining jolted me a bit - but settles quickly. A soft voice, to join the soft and fluffy soundscape. There is not that much going on here, but what there is builds a nice warm safe space. It is very nice without having much heft. Misunderstanding is also the longest track on the disc - I expect things to change as we move to shorter snappier pieces.
Change it does, as Silver John has more purpose, more thrust. Less nurdling, more driving. Not exactly strident, and still trading on the same warm enclosed sound, this song nevertheless has a pace and direction that was lacking in the gentle build and maintain of the first track. I think it is thoroughly unobjectionable, without commanding any real attention. Ah, but as that track ends and the banjo comes in to carry the main melody of Spores All Settling, this... this is infectiously good. A gentle canter picked through the strings, twanging pleasantly against another warm background and a vocal that comes across with intimacy. Yeah, this reminds me of the sound that had me pick this record up once I did find out about it. The voice recording feels like it is deliberately "surrounding" the listener, I find this very effective even as I listen through a single portable speaker attached to a laptop.
Yeah, OK. I am already happy with the purchase, and can imagine this album really growing on me if I give it some more time (it heads to the car tomorrow). Magic Spell may be nonsense lyrically but there is a similar welcoming tone, soft backing with some fine strumming, thrumming playing to create a murmur of constant presence and that busy sound is great; it affects me in the same way that louder, rockier tracks do - grabbing me and pulling me into the groove - hearing the song after it has finished, but in this case without actually damaging eardrums in the process!
The title track is less appealing, stripped back from the lush warmth of earlier songs, this has a cold starkness to it and the echo-like harmony on some of the vocal is a mile away from the intimate engagement of earlier. There is less pace, too - not that any of the tunes have had much. Far from being bad, it is just a change that I think makes it weaker that what came before. Thankfully All In Cahoots brings back a warmer and more engaging vocal, a warmer (again! Word of the day - wishful thinking about the weather?) rub from the arrangement. Yes, I think it could perhaps be argued that there is a lot of similarity in the pieces making up this album so far and those similarities could be thrown at it as a criticism, but - and I don't know if this is evidence of my mood just now - I find that consistency, that coherence is actually a boon. It feels more like an album and less like a collection of songs that happened to be released together and there is something pleasingly old fashioned about that these days.
Nits has just ended, Vitamins commences. This is stripped back again but not colder in the way Bashed Out was. No, this starts light, more distant than most of the other tracks, but the same reassurance comes through from the main melody, and when the arrangement kicks up a notch or two in places there is definitely a pulse like a little squeeze of joy and colour being injected into a monochrome image. The best points of the track though, I think, are contained within Kate Sables' vocal, slight tremors, delivery suited marvellously to the arrangement. The moments in this track which are just musical are lacking compared to those where the song is in flight.
We Are In starts rather lacklustre, the voice not quite functioning as well in the context of what it has to work with here - just a very floaty, ambient backing. It picks up a bit when the arrangement improves but the song is as close to a non-event as the album has been. Thankfully it is a one off as the final track is more driven again, a compellingly simple guitar, and the same channelled, cultivated aural glow - sound behaving like a gas, coming out of the speaker and expanding to fill the vessel of my living room, cloaking it in a pleasant atmosphere.
This has been a wonderful find, an early shout for album of the year for 2015 - though I will couch that in caution as a) I have hardly listened to some of the 2015 purchases I have made yet (and many will not show up here this year, for sure) and b) there is still more than half the year to go. I do, however, think it might be quite hard to beat the feeling of contentment that came with this disc though. Bashed Out is anything but; very classy.
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