This Is The Kit Share Safety Valve Single From GHOST COAT

This Is The Kit have shared their new slow-burning single 'Safety Valve,' featuring vocals by Richard Dawson. The track is the opening song of the band's anticipated new LP Ghost Coat, out January 15th via Memphis Industries.

The Paris-based group also debuted the song's full-band live performance counterpart via FLOOD Magazine. The video is the first of the 'Ghost Coat in the Washing Machine Live Session' series, directed by Lemon Thief, and finds the band of Kate Stables, Rozi Plain (bass, keys), Neil Smith (guitar), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums, keys) and Jesse D. Vernon (guitar, keys) in lockstep and recording live at Bedford Esquires.

'This is a song dedicated to friends who come to your rescue. A helping hand. Someone who listens and doesn't judge. And getting out on your bike and feeling better,' Stables explains. 'Speaking of kind, non-judgemental people, I had been dreaming of asking Richard Dawson to sing on the new record and somehow managed to pluck up the courage to ask him to sing on this track,' she adds of the collaboration. 'He graciously accepted the challenge and it immediately turned it into one of my favourite songs on the album. Absolute legend. Finest pipes in the business.'

Recorded at Rockfield Studios (home of the first recordings of The Stone Roses and Motörhead, as well as several Oasis hits and Queen's A Night at the Opera), Ghost Coat is a polyphonic LP, incorporating the voices and contributions of various other friends and collaborators, including Sam Amidon, Ben Howard, guitarist brothers Valentin and Marceau Portron (of Portron Portron Lopez), and Emma Broughton AKA Blumi. 'Safety Valve' follows the album's lead single 'Skim a Stone,' which earned early praise and support from Pitchfork (Selects), Stereogum, Guitar World (Best Songs of the Month), Under the Radar (Best Songs of the Week), WNYC Soundcheck (Weekly Tracks), The Needle Drop, and more.

The band is also set for an extensive 2027 headlining spring tour across North America, Europe, and the U.K. The U.S. dates across the East Coast will see the band make their debut at Knoxville, TN's Big Ears festival, including shows in NYC (Le Poisson Rouge on March 24th), Chicago (Constellation Room on April 8th), and more, before returning to Europe for more dates, and ending in their biggest headlining London show to date at the Roundhouse on October 7th, 2027. Ghost Coat is available for pre-order.

The ghostly garment referenced in the title of This Is The Kit's latest album was inspired by a shadow cast by the staircase in Kate Stables' new home. The phrase appeared in her head and has been echoing around it ever since, like echolalia. 'Ghost coat' could refer to a layer, a garment, a disguise, a memory–a mysterious presence that guides and watches over us, though its intentions are unknown. Stables points to an eerie Ben Folds Five lyric describing a similar invisible force ('I've faith that there's a soul somewhere / That's leading me round / I wonder if she knows which way is down.'). This haunting presence sits at the heart of her tender and thoughtful seventh LP: a meditation on home (both at peace and under threat), her friendships, and her ever-expanding community.

Raised in Winchester, UK, Stables has lived in Paris for 20 years, but kept being drawn back to the imagery and myth-making of the place where she grew up. A reflection on homecoming, the song 'Ghost Coat' references 'votive candles from the altar… Cromwell and the pilgrims.' 'Living in a cathedral city growing up, the building has got magic powers: some dark and scary, and some relating to community,' she explains. 'I was interested in exploring our relationship with home. Where home is, or was, where we come from, where we're going. Sometimes it's just where you put your bag down, especially for someone who travels a lot. Maybe it's less to do with a place, and more who you're with–people that make you feel like you're at home.'

While home is a constant source of comfort for Stables, the looming threat of Earth's climate crisis puts it at risk, setting an ominous and anxious urgency to many of the tracks. The jagged post-punk of 'Fiver' inveighs the 'fine line between using and wasting,' while the softer, 60s-tinged 'Lovely Grub' touches on the ever-growing demands of capitalism and the slickly seductive aspects of modern life that ultimately harm us. The mesmerizing album closer 'Not Enough Is Enough,' featuring Amidon on fiddle and vocals, advocates being content with what you have (it almost provided the title of the album). 'It's easy to compare our lives to others,' says Stables. 'Whether it's material, emotional, or in terms of what we're making and achieving and feeling pleased with. That's a sticky area–it's not always helpful to compare. The song is about what's reasonable to expect from people in your life, but also from the world.' This grace is one of the throughlines of the LP: finding peace in the way things have turned out, even if it isn't what we had planned, and accepting the situations we find ourselves in.

It all comes back to the concept of home, and in particular the people we call home. 'I hope listeners come away with a sense of shared experience,' says Stables. 'I'm someone who is prone to disappearing into a sort of burrow, and it's hard to know how to get out of the burrow. It's important that we continue to interact with each other. It's all about feeling a sense of community with other human beings out there.'

This Is The Kit 2027 Tour Dates

11/20/26 - Geneva, CH - Les Créatives @ Salle Grand-Salève

11/21/26 - Vienna, AT - Bluebird Festival

12/13/26 - Bruges, BE - Duyster Festival @ Cactus

01/26/27 - Glasgow, UK - Celtic Connections @ Fruitmarket

01/30/27 - Bristol, UK - Bristol Beacon

03/10/27 - Sheffield, UK - Crookes Social Club

03/11/27 - Gateshead, UK - The Glasshouse

03/12/27 - Liverpool, UK - Hangar34

03/13/27 - Coventry, UK - Coventry Central Library

03/14/27 - Cambridge, UK - Junction 1

03/23/27 - Kingston, NY - Tubbys

03/24/27 - New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge

03/25/27 - Boston, MA - Warehouse XI

03/26/27 - Burlington, VT - Higher Ground Showcase Lounge

03/27/27 - Montreal, QC - Fairmount

03/29/27 - Toronto, ON - The Garrison

03/30/27 - Ann Arbor, MI - The Arc

04/01/27 - Knoxville, TN - Big Ears Festival

04/04/27 - Minneapolis, MN - Turf Club

04/06/27 - Stoughton, WI - Stoughton Opera House

04/08/27 - Chicago, IL - Constellation Club

04/09/27 - Pittsburgh, PA - Warhol Theater

04/10/27 - Washington, DC - Songbyrd

04/23/27 - Schorndorf, DE - Manufaktur

04/24/27 - Zurich, CH - Bogen F

04/25/27 - Basel, CH - Kuppel

04/28/27 - Heidelberg, DE - Karlstorbahnhof

04/29/27 - Berlin, DE - Frannz Club

05/01/27 - Copenhagen, DK - Vega

05/02/27 - Hamburg, DE - Knust

05/04/27 - Paris, FR - Maroquinerie

05/06/27 - Antwerp, BE - De Roma

05/07/27 - Amsterdam, NL - Tolhuistuin

09/24/27 - Dublin, IE - Button Factory

09/25/27 - Galway, IE - Roisin Dubh

09/26/27 - Cork, IE - Live at St Luke's

09/28/27 - Cardiff, UK - Tramshed

09/29/27 - Leeds, UK - Brudenell Social Club

09/30/27 - Leeds, UK - Brudenell Social Club

10/01/27 - Manchester, UK - New Century Hall

10/03/27 - Birmingham, UK - The Crossing

10/07/27 - London, UK - Roundhouse

Photo Credit: Stewart Baxter

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