Facing the day would be a lot easier with Trash Kit’s jubilant singer Rachel Aggs as an alarm clock. “Get out of bed!” she instructs midway through the nimble post-punk trio’s third album, amid a spaghetti tangle of guitar. She goes on: “Get 10 out of 10!” before a harp glissando cuts in. It’s one of many unexpected musical flourishes – and disarmingly touching moments – on this party record that doubles as a survival manual for the world today.
Being in Trash Kit always looked like it ruled for Aggs, drummer Rachel Horwood and bassist Gill Partington (who replaced former member Ros Murray of Electrelane). The band daubed their faces with neon and pogoed at a dance party in the video for the 2010 anthem Cadets, a spirit that remained when their later music fleshed out their abbreviated, scrapbook-like songs.
That feeling of exuberance permeates Horizon’s centrepiece, Disco, a galloping seven-minute instrumental track on which circular guitar patterns morph, shift and spin gloriously off their axis to give way to James Chance-esque saxophone. Yet the album also makes known that Trash Kit’s celebrations have been hard won. The grungey, guitar-led See Through comes alive with righteous chants – “Transcend!”, “Break through!” – in reference to pressures faced by marginalised people while also refusing to dwell on dumb prejudice.
Aggs, a queer black woman, has said her work is always laced with political intent. It is a spirit shared with her other bands, Shopping and Sacred Paws (who won Scottish album of the year in 2017). Horizon deftly references black feminist sci-fi author Octavia Butler on Coasting, while the choir-bolstered Every Second discusses tokenism in the UK’s improv music scene. “We still have so far left to go,” sings Aggs, with a matter-of-fact note to her voice.
Horizon is a fitting title for an album in which Trash Kit’s musical curiosity finds them gazing increasingly outward. Collaborators include Dan Leavers (of Mercury-nominees The Comet Is Coming) on saxophone, while the influence of the Zimbabwean mbira thumb piano adds a polyrhythmic complexity to Aggs’ guitar lines. Throughout it all, Trash Kit continue to find new ways to help you to shrug off the bullshit and dance.
