With her cathartic folk-rock project This Is the Kit, Kate Stables intuitively navigates 2020’s ups (recording and touring with the National) and downs (creative processes slowed by COVID-19). “It’s hard to remember that the cycle of good will return,” she writes, “but it will be back.” For Off Off On, Stables and her band harness those fleeting silver linings in a luminous sound bath of nylon-stringed guitars, piano, horns, and lyrical soul searching. “Was Magician” references powerful figures like Ursula K. Le Guin and Greta Thunberg, while “Keep Going” channels the grounded performances of Bill Callahan. “Started Again” charts a course through the “rocks and water” of emotional baggage—of who we’re tied to and made to love, even if it’s just ourselves. –Erin Wolf
This is the Kit
Off Off On
(Rough Trade)
This piece originally appeared in the Winter 2021 print edition of BUST Magazine. Subscribe today!
More from BUST
Ani DiFranco’s New Memoir Tears Down Walls: BUST Interview
Julia Jacklin’s “Crushing” Offers Something For Everybody
Helado Negro’s “This Is How You Smile” Is A Dreamlike Journey
