Something came into alignment during the Charleston City Paper’s interview with Matt Calonius and Mitchell Cassaday of the Athens, Georgia–based band KIT.
We sat on a back porch in the Lowcountry talking about KIT’s newly released debut EP, SYZYGY (titled for the alignment of opposing forces, often the sun and the moon), sharing laughs as a full moon rose in the night sky. It could have been a scene from ten years ago; the three of us grew up playing music together here in Charleston, and the interview was a reunion of sorts.
The band officially formed last year when Calonius (vocals, guitar and keyboards) and Cassaday (bass) joined forces with Athens–based musicians Jeff Webber (guitar and synths) and Cameron Kelly (drums). The four piece hit as many stages as they could, and the introspective psychedelic-pop songs that Calonius and Cassaday had been developing for years finally found a live audience.
However, by the summer of 2023, Calonius had grown restless. He longed to record these songs and release a project he and the band could be proud of creating.
“I really felt the pressure,” Calonius reflected. “I’ve always wanted to do this, and I knew I was going to regret it forever if I didn’t try to get these songs out in some way right now.”
So they made it happen — all with a little help from their friends.
SYZYGY
Calonius and Cassaday called in fellow Charleston–bred musician Ben Sewell — he and Calonius used to play in the indie rock band Heartfelt Hinges back in their high school days at Academic Magnet — to track drums for a batch of five songs at Racquet Recording in Athens. From there, the band took the next seven months to record and mix the rest of the EP in their own home studio. Calonius spent three of those months just on vocals, sequestering himself in his room inside a giant blanket fort dubbed The Shame Chamber.
“I told everybody I knew that they probably wouldn’t see me for the next few months,” Calonius said, laughing. “Everyday I got home from work, went into my room and recorded until midnight.”
The meticulous method behind the madness of SYZYGY is apparent in the quality of the EP’s production and composition. The songs are warm and expansive; reverb-kissed guitars, synths and vocals weave in harmony over a backbone of punchy drums and Cassaday’s playful basslines.
The EP kicks off with the disco-tinged psychedelia of “IT’S OVER,” a dancey cut with a not-so-dancey message.
“People thought it was a breakup song,” Calonius said. “I’m talking about ‘it’s over’ as in the end of your life. ‘Your life is over. Did you do everything that you wanted to? Are you happy with what happened?’ ”
It’s a dichotomy that colors the EP: As per the band, these are “songs about death disguised as dance songs.”
“One More Ticket” and “Happiness” continue this thread with lyrics detailing fleeting love and the quest for emotional fulfillment. These indie rock-leaning cuts are total psych-pop ear candy, splashed with acid wash and tie-dye, injected with just the right amount of funk rhythms to keep the listener on their toes.
“The music accentuates the lyrical theme of change,” Cassaday said of the band’s varied sound. “There’s a lot of stark differences in parts. You go from a poppy verse into a dancey bridge into a rockin’ chorus. It’s breaking the typical structures while still keeping it fluid and palatable.”
“Feel Love” is a piano-forward meditation on the duplicity of emotions, and “Zuzu’s Petals,” the EP’s epic closer, narrates the beginning of the end and our responsibility to find what we’re grateful for in a self-consuming world. It’s done with the assuredness of veteran bands like MGMT and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, both significant influences for KIT.
Growing up in Charleston
Another lasting influence on Calonius and Cassaday is their time spent growing up in Charleston as budding musicians. Whether the venue was Awendaw Green, King Dusko or a high schooler’s house free of parents for the weekend, attending and playing shows and riffing with other young musicians during the 2010s DIY scene paved the way for the duo’s future in music.
“The small-scale nature of the Charleston music scene back in the day drove us together in terms of collaborating with the people that do play music and spending time learning and experimenting with other musicians,” Cassaday explained.
“It put the fire in our bellies to do it now,” Calonius added. “We had all these cool experiences on stage as kids and then we grew up and that kind of went away. You realize, ‘Oh, I want to have fun like that again.’ It feeds into the now-or-never thing.”
As the interview drew to a close, it inevitably circled back to where it began: a group of friends. It’s fitting given all the talk of alignment. The full moon continued its arc skyward as Calonius and Cassaday recalled times spent writing lyrics with friends, late nights in college stumbling upon parts that would end up on the EP years later and all those necessary moments in between. “These songs are a scrapbook for the things we’ve done together over the years,” Calonius said. “That’s really the most important thing. We’re documenting our friendships.”
Stream SYZYGY by KIT on Spotify, Apple Music and other streaming services. The band plans to release new music in the coming months.
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