Effortless storytelling is at the heart of This Is The Kit. And the stories the band’s only permanent member, Kate Stables, weaves are profound but sweet with a tone that quietly reels you in.
“Bullet Proof” is the opening song at the Tiny Desk – and the opening track on her fourth album, Moonshine Freeze – a song that sees the darkest challenges in life as a way to begin again. “Everything we broke today/Needing breaking, anyway,” Kate Stables sings as she’s picking on her banjo with tides of percussion and bass flowing in. It takes two minutes before the perfectly punctuated guitar hits but completely worth the wait.
That gradual unfolding is the strength of these songs and this band. “Moonshine Freeze,” the last one they perform at the Tiny Desk, is the title track to the new album produced by John Parish. It’s a song taken from a children’s clapping game: Say “moonshine” three times, then freeze. But the song takes these images deeper, looking at patterns in the repetitive words, specifically patterns of three, which in Kate’s mind forms a triangle or a delta and it just gets deeper.
Lovers of Sufjan Stevens will appreciate the gentle ways Kate Stables can touch a heart with a song. And the band she plays with here is tightly in touch with how best to support these tunes.
Set List
- “Bullet Proof”
- “Hotter Colder”
- “Moonshine Freeze”
MUSICIANS
Katherine Stables, Rosalind Leyden, Jamie Whitby-Coles, Noil Smith, Adam Schatz, Jonah Parzen-Johnson
CREDITS
Producers: Bob Boilen, Morgan Noelle Smith; Creative Director: Bob Boilen; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Morgan Noelle Smith, Bronson Arcuri, Alyse Young; Production Assistant: Salvatore Maicki; Photo: Jennifer Kerrigan/NPR
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