International collaboration, man. It’s a beautiful thing. Like when American singer and guitarist Jad Fair (of Half Japanese), French free-rock open quartet Hifiklub, and Anglo-German producer/musician kptmichigan (a.k.a. Michael Beckett) first came together way back in 2012 for an EP called Birdhouse on Joyful Noise? I was tearing UP!
Now, an appropriate four years on, this “Olympic Games of Weird Pop Music” (my term) resumes with the trio’s first full-length on Joyful Noise. It’s called Don’t Give Up, and its pretty unique, torch-passing collaborative process went down like this: over the course of one weekend, Hifiklub went and “composed and recorded a series of 18 musical pieces,” which he then passed (in the impassioned manner of a true Olympian) across the pond to Jad Fair, who sang over them in a few hours. Then, the results got “deconstructed and reassembled” by kptmichigan, who had no idea what sounds would be coming his way.
Luckily, though, we aren’t going to have that same problem by the time the wild results of these collaboration efforts come our way. Cuz the scrappy, unlikely relay team is premiering the lead single from their new album… today! It’s called “Magic Town” (an obvious reference to the “Olympic Villgage”), and in addition to plenty of highly competitive wordplay, it also features a delightfully psychedelic animated clip, which Fair created himself.
Check out the gold-medal results down below, and stay tuned for news about the whole record’s release later this summer on Joyful Noise.
More about: Hifiklub, Jad Fair, kptmichigan
