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Apr 04, 2023 By Mark Redfern Photography by Cedric Oberlin

This Is the Kit, the Paris-based project led by British-born singer/songwriter Kate Stables, has announced a new album produced by Gruff Rhys, Careful of Your Keepers, and shared its first single, “Inside Outside,” via a music video. This Is the Kit have also announced some UK and EU tour dates. Careful of Your Keepers is due out June 9 via Rough Trade. Hannah Owen directed the “Inside Outside” video. Watch it below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover artwork, as well as the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Staples had this to say about “Inside Out” in a press release: “What makes things happen? How much choice do we have? Electricity and chemistry that is out of our control? Chewing. Choosing. Internal forces or external ones? Do we just behave the way people expect us to behave?

“Or do they pre-empt what’s happening? Before it’s happened? Because they can see it in us before we know it ourselves? Big change that has been brewing for longer than we realize. Were we just ignoring it? Was it so deeply buried? Or did we see it all along but chose to ignore it? How much does anything change? Or is it just the way we see it that changes?”

Careful of Your Keepers follows 2020’s Off Off On, also released via Rough Trade, and 2017’s breakthrough record, Moonshine Freeze, which was their first album for the label. Staples also had a stint performing with The National and sang guest vocals on their 2019 album I Am Easy to Find.

The band also features Rozi Plain (bass/vocals), Neil Smith (guitar), and Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums).

“The album was nearly called Goodbye Bite. And in a way it still is,” says Stables in the press release. “I went for Careful of Your Keepers in the end. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album, a song that for me holds the general feeling of the album as a whole. The fragility of things. Of situations. Of relationships. Of humans. What we do to look after each other and ourselves. The passing of time and what that does to us, and how we live our lives going forward.”

Rhys is the Welsh frontman of Super Furry Animals and also an accomplished solo artist. In February he released the soundtrack for the film The Almond and the Seahorse, also via Rough Trade. Stables says his role was being a “tonesetter.”

“I’ve always loved the idea of working with him somehow, and when this album started getting planned, I realized that maybe this was my chance to reach out and see if he was up for working together,” Stables explains. “And he was! As if that wasn’t enough, he was also up for doing a bit of singing on the record, which totally blew my mind and made my year. His way with harmony and melody and the tone and quality of his voice is a totally killer combo.”

Rhys had this to say: “They are so ridiculously talented—and every member is a great producer in their own right—so it was just a matter of trying to capture the magic they make when playing live together. Their playing is by default so thoughtful and complimentary in terms of respect to each other’s parts and to the integrity of the songs themselves that it creates a beautiful foundation of often cosmic interplay that’s always in aid of Kate’s voice and vision as a songwriter.”

Read our 2017 interview with This Is the Kit.

Careful of Your Keepers Tracklist:

1. Goodbye Bite
2. Inside Outside
3. Take You To Sleep
4. More Change
5. This is When The Sky Gets Big
6. Scabby Head and Legs
7. Careful Of Your Keepers
8. Doomed Or More Doomed
9. Stuck in a Room
10. Dibs

This Is The Kit 2023 Tour Dates:

05/19/23 - Portcurno, UK - Minack Theatre, Matinee Show
05/19/23 - Portcurno, UK - Minack Theatre, Evening Show (SOLD OUT)
06/16/23 - Kent, UK - Black Deer Festival
07/16/23 - Hertfordshire, UK - Folk By The Oak
07/27/23 - Warwick, UK - Warwick Folk Festival
07/29/23 - North Yorkshire, UK - Deer Shed Festival
09/20/23 - Antwerp, BE - De Roma
09/21/23 - Amsterdam, NL - THT/Tolhuistuin
09/22/23 - Nijmegen, NL - Doornroosje
09/23/23 - Hamburg, DE - Reeperbahn Festival
09/24/23 - Copenhagen, DK - Hotel Cecil
09/26/23 - Berlin, DE - Frannz Club
09/27/23 - Leipzig, DE - Connewitz
09/29/23 - Munich, DE - Milla
09/30/23 - Zürich, CH - Bogen F
10/01/23 - Lyon, FR - Epicerie Moderne
10/03/23 - Lille, FR - Aeronef
10/05/23 - Reims, FR - Cartonnerie
10/06/23 - Paris, FR - Trabendo
11/08/23 - Worthing, UK - Assembly Hall
11/09/23 - Cambridge, UK - Junction
11/10/23 - Reading, UK - St. Laurence Church
11/11/23 - Cardiff, UK - Tram Shed
11/12/23 - Birmingham, UK - Glee Club
11/14/23 - Bangor, UK - Neuadd Ogwen
11/16/23 - Cork, IRE - Cyprus Avenue
11/17/23 - Galway, IRE - Roisin Dubh
11/18/23 - Dublin, IRE - National Concert Hall
11/19/23 - Belfast, UK - Mandela Hall
11/21/23 - Edinburgh, UK - Summerhall
11/22/23 - Gateshead, UK - Sage
11/23/23 - Leeds, UK - Irish Centre
11/24/23 - Manchester, UK - Academy 2
11/25/23 - London, UK - Barbican
02/03/24 - Bristol UK - Bristol Beacon

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