THIS IS THE KIT ANNOUNCES SEVENTH STUDIO ALBUM
This Is The Kit announce seventh studio album ‘Ghost Coat’, to be released via Memphis Industries on Jan 15th, 2027. Recorded at Rockfield Studios in the Wye Valley, south-east Wales, friendship and community are at the heart of the album which features collaborators, Richard Dawson, Sam Amidon, Ben Howard, guitarist brothers Valentin and Marceau Portron (of Portron Portron Lopez) and Emma Broughton AKA Blumi. “I was really keen to not only ask people to sing on the album,” says Paris-based bandleader Kate Stables, “but to make sure that you can hear their individual voices. When you hear the voice of someone that means a lot to you, it can destroy you (in a good way) or can make you feel amazing. It makes me happy hearing all the voices, especially because of the themes of friendship.” Throughout, the voices we hear also include long-standing bandmates Rozi Plain (bass, keys), Neil Smith (guitar), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums, keys) and Jesse D. Vernon (guitar, keys).
Photo credit: Ed Miles
Lead single ‘Skim A Stone’ is out this week, Kate explains her thoughts behind the song, “What are the things that we wish on. An eyelash? More than three skims of a stone? A folded crisp? What magical thinking do we employ in the hope that things will be ok and go our way. What repetitive behaviour do we notice. How does it calm us down. How do we explain why things happened and then decide it’s ok to move on in life.”
Video director Stewart Baxter on the song’s video; “What I loved about making this was that we didn’t go into it trying to explain the song. We had this idea of ‘practising at life’ and a loose collection of actions, objects and spaces, then allowed Kate to interact with them and see what happened. There’s something in the song about the strange little rituals and behaviours we repeat as we try to connect, understand things or make something happen. I wanted the video to leave those ideas open rather than resolve them.”
The concept of home haunts the album as a whole. “I was interested in exploring our relationship with home,” says Kate. “Where home is, or was, where we come from, where we’re going. Sometimes it’s just where you put your bag down, especially for someone who travels a lot. Maybe it’s less to do with a place, and more who you’re with – people that make you feel like you’re at home.” ‘Ghost Coat’ captures the feeling that, no matter where we are in the world, homesickness can strike at any moment. “Quite often, if I find myself in a new place,” says Stables, “I’ll be really happy to be there, but then I always miss somewhere else which is tugging me away.” A sense of yearning for someplace just out of reach infuses the album, which grapples with themes of human connection and the complex intertwining of loneliness, solitude and isolation.
Language, as ever, is as part of the musicality on the album as any of the instruments: repetition, free association and impressionistic imagery give the record a hazy, dream-like quality. References to invertebrates and friendly garter snakes sit alongside quotes from cult mockumentary Best in Show (“catch a big one”).
The ghostly garment of the title was inspired by a shadow cast by the staircase in Stables’s new home: the phrase appeared in her head and has been echoing around it ever since, like echolalia. “Ghost coat” could refer to “a layer, a garment, a disguise, a memory” – a mysterious presence that guides and watches over us, though its intentions are unknown. The song ends with the mantra-like repetition of “gwennu betsu”: a soft, looping sound of Stables’ own invention that she associates with soothing qualities. “I’ll often walk around with the same sentence looping in my head for three hours. That’s what my brain does, so that’s what my songs do.”
It all comes back to the concept of home, and in particular the people we call home. “I hope listeners come away with a sense of shared experience,” says Stables. “I’m someone who is prone to disappearing into a sort of burrow, and it’s hard to know how to get out of the burrow. It’s important that we continue to interact with each other. It’s all about feeling a sense of community with other human beings out there.”
‘Ghost Coat’ will be available on special Indie Exclusive Poltergeist Pink vinyl and a Dinked Editon on Splattered Spectre vinyl, with a signed print plus all the usual formats.
