This Is The Kit: 2016

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

recent times...

more words and details here...

www.bashedout.tumblr.com

but here are some photos of what's been going down.....

philharmonie de paris...

berlin....

Friday, August 26, 2016

Carrying The Canoe

here's a video we made recently for our song 'cold and got colder'.
here's a wee bit of an explanation i wrote about it:

Carrying The Canoe

Often in life we're struck by the struggle.

our own struggles and also witnessing the struggles of others.

Maybe especially in a modern city society context.

And in relation to this, i also sometimes find myself thinking about the chapter in 'The continuum Concept' by Jean Liedloff, where she talks about the concept of work and the occasions during her time spent living among indigenous amazon tribes when it would be necessary to carry the canoes over land. they're big and unwieldy and it's often quite dangerous and people regularly get injured in the process.

The visitors who were staying with the tribes would always dreadit and complain.

But the tribes people would never complain and would even carry out the task cheerfully and getting on with it and even laughing through injury and mishap.

this is an image/scenario that struck me and has stuck with me ever since.

people just getting on with what needs to be done and cheerfully/amicably/positively. even if it's a heavy load.

i often find myself pondering about things like strength of mind and body and spirit and heart.

to me all of these things seem relevant in the canoe carrying scenario.

making this video was kind of a performance/personal process/nod to anyone who has ever had to carry a canoe across land and through the amazon jungle, literally or metaphorically.

i wanted to go through the process myself of carrying a canoe on my own up and over a hill.

i admit it's not a heavy amazon forest solid dugout wood canoe.

merely a fibre glass scout kayak.

but it still felt good (and difficult!) to do.

since making the video people have also made links between the canoe carrying project and the Werner Herzog film "Fitzcarraldo".

another boat across land through through the amazon jungle story. they just keep on coming! It seems that carrying boats over land is what humans do. Portage. The human condition.

the song itself is about the toll that gets taken on someone whose life and work takes them away from home/family and then throws them back again and then tugs them away again and throws them a few canoes to carry in with the bargain.

sometimes we need a rest and a swim.

in the video i'm wearing my swallows and amazons hat.

partly in respect and reference to the amazon tribes but also because i'm an Arthur Ransome fan.

...and here's the passage in question from

THE CONTINUUM CONCEPT

Jean Liedloff

Some small illuminations did get through to my civilization- blinded mind: for example, some concerning the concept of work. We had traded our slightly too small aluminium canoe for a much too big dugout. In this vessel carved from a single tree, seventeen Indians at one time travelled with us. With all their baggage added to ours and everyone aboard, the vast canoe still looked rather empty. Portaging it, this time with only four or five Indians to help, over half a mile of boulders beside a large waterfall was depressing to contemplate. It meant placing logs across the path of the canoe and hauling it, inch by inch, in the merciless sun, slipping inevitably into the crevices between the boulders whenever thecanoe pivoted out of control and scraping one's shins, ankles and whatever else one landed on against the granite. We had done the portage before with the small canoe, and the two Italians and I, knowing what lay ahead, spent several days dreading the hard work and pain. On the day lye arrived at Arepuchi Falls we were primed to suffer and started off grim-faced and hating every moment, to drag the thing over the rocks. When it swung sideways, so heavy was the rogue pirogue, it several times pinned one of us to the burning rock until the others could move it off. A quarter of the way across all ankles were bleeding. Partly by way of begging off for a minute, I jumped up on a high rock to photograph the scene. From my vantage point and momentary dis-involvement, I noticed a most interesting fact. Here before me were several men engaged in a single task. Two, the Italians, were tense, frowning, losing their tempers at everything and swearing non-stop in the distinctive manner of the Tuscan. The rest, Indians, were having a fine time. They were laughing at the unwieldiness of the canoe, making a game of the battle: they relaxed between pushes, laughing at their own scrapes and were especially amused when the canoe, as it wobbled forward, pinned one, then another, underneath it. The fellow held barebacked against the scorching granite, when he could breathe again, invariably laughed the loudest, enjoying his relief. All were doing the same work; all were experiencing strain and pain. There was no difference in our situations except that we had been conditioned by our culture to believe that such a combination of circumstances constituted an unquestionable low on the scale of well-being and were quite unaware that we had any option in the matter. The Indians, on the other hand, equally unconscious of making a choice, were in a particularly merry state of mind, revelling in the camaraderie; and, of course, they had had no long build-up of dread to mar the preceding days. Each forward move was for them a little victory. As I finished photographing and rejoined the team, I opted out of the civilized choice and enjoyed, quite genuinely, the rest of the portage. Even the barks and bruises I sustained were reduced with remarkable ease to nothing more significant than what they indeed were: small hurts which would soon heal and which required neither an unpleasant emotional reaction, such as anger, self pity or resentment, nor anxiety at how many more there might be before the end of the haul. On the contrary, I found myself appreciative of my excellently designed body, which would patch itself up with no instructions or decisions from me.

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

THISISTHEKIT SUMMER ACTIVITIES.......

Sat 2 July 2016
UK Iona
Iona Village Hall Festival 2016
SOLD OUT

Fri 15 July 2016
UK Wiltshire
Larmer Tree Festival

Sat 23 July 2016
UK North Yorkshire
Deer Shed Festival

Fri 29 July 2016
UK Wiltshire
WOMAD

Sun 31 July 2016
UK Cambridge
Cambridge Folk Festival

Thu 11 August 2016
DE Haldern
Haldern Pop Festival

Fri 2 September 2016
UK Portmeiron
Festival No. 6

Sat 3 September 2016
UK Birmingham
Moseley Folk Festival

8-10 September 2016
UK Isle of Wight
Bestival

Sun 11 September 2016
UK Winchester
SC4M Festival @ Railway Inn

Sun 30 October 2016 UK Bristol
Trinity Centre

Tue 1 November 2016 UK London
Union Chapel

November 2016
Iceland Airwaves Festival

Thursday, April 14, 2016

NEWS FROM ROZI EVERYONE!

Hello happy spring time everyone.

We're releasing an extra release calledFriend Of a Friend that's got some remixes and live sessions and this new song called 'Marshes' which you can stream over on DIY magazine right now:

http://diymag.com/2016/04/06/rozi-plain-shares-marshes-from-new-friend-of-a-friend-collection

If you go a bundle on bundles you can order it as part of a bundle along with the album Friend. Get that from the Lost Map site here: http://lostmap.com/products/rozi-plain-friend-of-a-friend

Or if you can't be baring bundles come and get a copy at one of these live shows near you soon:

Fri Apr 15 - Perranporth - The Watering Hole UK
Sat Apr 16 - St Agnes - The Taphouse UK
Sun Apr 17 - Falmouth - The Gylly Beach Café UK
Tue Apr 19 - Guildford - Boileroom UK
Wed Apr 20 - Southampton - Art House UK
Thur Apr 21 - Ramsgate - Ramsgate Music Hall UK
Sat Apr 23 - Morecambe - Hot House UK
Sun Apr 24 - York - The Crescent UK
Mon Apr 25 - Glasgow - Mono UK
Mon 2nd May - Bristol - Wardrobe Theater UK
Tue 3rd May - Oxford - The Wheatsheaf (w/ Jeffrey Lewis) UK
Wed 4th May - Caen University FRANCE
Fri 6th May - London - The Moth Club UK
17th May - Paris - Badaboum w/ This Is The Kit FRANCE
18th May - Saintes - Theater Gallia w/ This Is The Kit FRANCE
19th May - Brussels - Glimpse Festival BELGIUM
21st May - Brighton - The Great Escape UK

tickets: www.roziplain.co.uk/shows

Thursday, February 18, 2016

CELTIC SPRING

Greetings Friends!

We're very excited to announce to you the shows we have coming up this spring.

From Wales to the Scottish highlands and islands and then over to actual Ireland and then a bit of Gaul and then some nearly Basque country.

here's how it's looking so far...

24 March-The druidstone Hotel, wales
a kate stables show and with ROZI PLAIN

26 March-Tywyn,the maigic lantern cinema
a kate stables show and with ROZI PLAIN

27 March – Cardiff, UK

The Gate @ Wales Goes Pop

(full band show)