If you were like me, you’ll probably remember shambly Brighton, UK six-piece power indie group The Go! Team being all kinds of awesome 11 years ago. But also, if you’re STILL anything like me, you probably read this news headline and thought to yourself “whoa, haven’t thought about that band in ages; those dudes are still a THING? Huh…”
Well. First off: congrats on being a little like ME. That’s awesome for you. Secondly, though, yes! Those dudes are still a THING! Although, technically, I guess they haven’t been much of a thing for almost five years running now, which is about when they released the album Rolling Blackouts before “splintering off into different musical projects, getting married, teaching, experiencing real life.” Yuk. And also, by “those dudes,” I guess we’re really talking about frontman Ian Parton, who, according to the nice and neat, hindsight-is-20/20 narrative concocted by his press people, took the band’s dissolution as an “opportunity to return to the working methods he’d used at the origins of the band — crate digging, fooling around by himself, trying to nail a feeling.” Hey, great. That’s what I’ve been doing since college!
But I guess all that is to say that Parton has apparently finished his crate digging and soul searching and whatnot, cuz he’s returning as The Go! Team on March 24 with a new album entitled The Scene Between on Memphis Industries. Writing, performing, and producing everything by his lonesome, Parton says he committed himself to the following four rules for the album: “melody would guide the song, samples would be treated as an instrument rather than a basis for the song, the production would vary across the song like flipping the dial on a radio and the singers must all be people he’d never previously heard of.” He elaborated, “I wanted to make an album driven by melody and song writing because catchiness is the hardest thing you can do. Brill Building hooks but permeated with a kind of wobbly VHS feel.” (Okay, wait; again: didn’t he already do that???)
Anyway, you can pre-order the thing now on vinyl and CD over here and digital-style over here. All orders also come with instant download of the title track, which, DUH, you can also check out down below right now for free, because it’s 2015 and this an online music magazine and there’s embed codes and shit.
The Scene Between tracklisting:
01. What D’You Say?
02. The Scene Between
03. Waking the Jetstream
04. Rolodex the Seasons
05. Blowtorch
06. Did You Know?
07. Gaffa Tape Bikini
08. Catch Me on the Rebound
09. The Floating Felt Tip
10. Her Last Wave
11. The Art of Getting By (Song for Heaven’s Gate)
12. Reason Left to Destroy
• The Go! Team: http://www.thegoteam.co.uk
• Memphis Industries: http://www.memphis-industries.com