'Hotter Colder' from Moonshine Freeze by This Is the Kit
This Is The Kit were new to me in 2017, spotlight shone on them thanks to opportune posts from friends whose tastes I trust implicitly. In an idle moment of intrigue I clicked a link and instantly I was scratched deeply and deliciously. The video for ‘Hotter Colder’ immediately reminded me of my dear friend Megan Calver and her friends’ artworks where they mimic seals on a beach or read poetry to trees. By which I mean that in both there is sense of a deep connection to nature and the earth that is almost entirely unsentimental and where spirituality is implied instead of being drearily obvious. This sense of connection seeps through the entirety of Moonshine Freeze but it is strongest and surest on ‘Hotter Colder’, a song where Pentangle meets Essential Logic, where Pram collides with Alice Coltrane. It is a whirling dervish that dips, turns, spins… AND… pauses in mid air like Big Flame covering Vashti Bunyan. Or Vashti Bunyan covering Big Flame, whichever feels most apposite. This Is The Kit are surely a group in the tradition of Folk music, where traditions are kept whilst simultaneously taken apart and updated to keep pace with the times, slowing time down to go backwards in seductive slips and tentative skips. I admit that an admittedly brief foray into the back catalogue proved somewhat disappointing, which suggests Moonshine Breeze to be something of a giant step into a future where chaos is embraced as an equal to harmony and peace. I’m intrigued to see where This Is The Kit go next, to see if Moonshine Breeze proves to be a magnificent oddity or whether it lays foundations for further explorations into the cosmos. Regardless, this album, and especially ‘Hotter Colder’ will stand as a captivating snapshot of an English Folk music lovingly dismantled and put back together splendidly skew-whiff.
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