Horizon

The clean glittery melodies of South African pop inform the post-punk trio's expansive third. Trash Kit are Rachel Aggs (guitar, vocals), Rachel Horwood (drums, vocals) and Gill Partington (bass). Three deeply creative individuals who play in a multitude of other groups including Bas Jan, Sacred Paws, Shopping, and Bamboo, united by a shared decade of spry musicality that surges through their bodies, hearts, and heads with Trash Kit.

Their songs, once succinct, patchwork post-punk numbers of an honest diary-like nature, now tussle more with long-form songwriting, expeditious polyphony, and cascades of sung-spoke vocals. This new focus began with their last album Confidence (2014) and has now grown into something exhilarating and rapturous. New songs like "Disco" have had their very fabric stretched into smart new shapes, allowing the band to run away with refrains and unlock the dancefloor.

Although Trash Kit have their forebears in bands like Sleater Kinney, The Ex, and The Raincoats, their sound is still very much their own take on facing forwards and relies as much on the naturalism of an internalized folk music as on their sincerity of vision.

Since forming in 2009, Trash Kit has released two albums for Upset The Rhythm and a selection of singles. This July, however, they make their most majestic move yet with their resoundingly huge Horizon album. For this album, carefully crafted through years of playing out live, the band has chased down the distance between what they wanted the record to sound like and its realization.

They've augmented these songs with choral arrangements, piano, saxophone, harp, viola, and cello. Pulling ideas from everywhere between the earth and sky to push themselves further, to go beyond. Aggs' guitar playing for this album was informed by her love of guitar music from Zimbabwe, her cyclical motifs billow with lean Mbira rhythms. Horwood has similarly approached her drum kit with an untamable freedom, allowing it to breathe as a vivid lead instrument.

Trash Kit's music is woven with silence and punctuation, and this is where the resonant, driving bass of Partington fits in. The bass has become central to shaping the melody of this new collection of songs.

CD - Digipack in Reverse Board Sleeve with booklet featuring Lyrics and Drawings.
LP - 180 Gram Black Vinyl in Reverse Board Sleeve with booklet featuring Lyrics and Drawings.
LP+ Limited 180 Gram yellow Vinyl in Reverse Board Sleeve with booklet featuring Lyrics and Drawings.