Moonshine Freeze

Moonshine Freeze is an indie folk album by This Is The Kit. This album was produced by John Parish, who is best known for his work with PJ Harvey (and also Eels and Aldous Harding). The production is great and the influences of these artists is clearly there, but in a good way. The compositions are original, beautiful orchestrated. My only complaint about this album is its cover. Thanks for having something left to nag about!

Hot Dang! What is is with you clued-in people? This is so up my street and lifted me up this morning. It's wonderfully diverse with lots of interesting noises. I loved it.

Everything is better with brass, especially a diverse jazzy alt rock album

Yeah, this is actually pretty good in a background music, not really having to listen to it sort of way.

Really nice album! Soothing… made the traffic I was driving in so much less stressful! Lovely!

What a great start to my day. They got Joni Mitchell and John Coltrane in the studio together. That being said, it does sound refreshingly original and unique. I enjoyed every song immensely. I have a rule where I never rate an album five out of five if I’ve never heard of it, but this one comes really close. It’s just really strong with no misses. Great suggestion. Happy to know it. 4/5

*Moonlight Freeze* sees This Is The Kit splitting the difference between Suzanne Vega and Aldous Harding, with a bit of late-career PJ Harvey thrown in for good measure. John Parish produces this, and so applies the tasteful sheen he also routinely uses for Harding and Harvey, to excellent results overall. The first side is stellar, with the adventurous-yet-also catchy "Bullet Proof", "Hotter Colder" and "Moonshine Freeze" shining especially bright. The second side loses a bit of momentum ("Empty No Teeth" and "Two Pence Piece" don't do much for me). But "By My Demon Eye" is another highlight that must not be missed there, thanks to its main vocal hook sung in an African language (?) I would be hard-pressed to identify. Those subtle afrobeat influences, also very noticeable in the brass-laden "Hotter Colder" and "Moonshine Freeze", bring a more singular identity to some of the key tracks of this record. So you can't really say the album never goes out of its comfort zone. Great suggestion overall. Kate Stables is a folk / folk rock artist I am not overly familiar with, and this album makes you want to dig further. Besides, only now do I realize there are not enough musicians playing the banjo on either list, or at least ones trading their guitar for it on many songs (is there even *one*? Can't remember...). So this suggestion could even fill a hole I had not thought of until today. 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 4. 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 for the musicianship and production values + 3.5 for the artistry) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 117 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 122 (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 271 ---- Émile, *quatre* nouveaux messages pour toi au dessus, du *Solid State Survivor* de Yellow Magic Orchestra au *Atrocity Exhibition* de Danny Brown

I had never heard of This Is The Kit before listening to this, but I'll be back for more after this album. Bullet Proof and Solid Grease are the highlights for me

Album cover: 2/5 It doesn't fit the album content and style. Album: 4/5. Really enjoy this smooth sounding album. Very nice to listen to over and over again. Standouts:

Very good neo-folk/roots style music with thoughtful lyrics. The voice is the main event here and it does carry the show.

This is the kinda indie folk bullshit I like. Surprised I hadn't come across them before. My personal rating: 4/5 My rating relative to the list: 4/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No

Never heard of them before. Good addition to the list.

Delicate and accessible without being cloying or over-produced at all (if anything a bit of the opposite wrt production). It's a nice gentle listen - I will say that occasionally her voice approached being a bit much for me - I think a lot of it is how dry it is; right in your head - but it's a very good piece of work overall and the music is just interesting enough to make it worth repeat listens. 7/10 3 stars IMO: Belonged in the book? No.

Good record. Not sure 1001 worthy.

It was fine

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: All written out in numbers

Indie folk. Ni fu ni fa.

Twee, pretty.

Shout out Winchester

The songs are maybe all a bit to alike. Otherwise, this was a fine listen

Sweet sweet indie folk

I think I've heard this exact same album but in a different name and album cover at least 6 times on here. (It's pretty good)

Once again I seemed to enjoy the songs this album generated after it had finished more than the album itself.

Annoying, repetitive, grey sludge

Of two minds on this one, the instrumental variety and overall compositions were beautiful, but the songwriting felt pretty tortured. You can only resort to one or two verses of 'doo-doo-doo, la la la' before your lyrical credibility comes under question, and there was way too much of this kind of meandering on the LP for it to feel coherent. A track can be more about the journey than the destination, but the journey should have at least some kind of drive to it for a decent listen.