The Go! Team: Nostalgia Never Left
The Go! Team Live @ Neumos (with Skating Polly)
Mar. 30, 2018
By Sam Hardy
Imagine you’re sitting there with Ian Parton in his parents’ kitchen in Brighton, way back in 2004, watching him piece together what would become his band’s debut album, Thunder, Lightning, Strike. One imagines him surrounded by countertops stacked to the ceiling with well-worn tapes of energetic 60s girl groups, California psych rock, garage pop, electro, lo-fi punk,and maybe even his mum’s personally-recorded VHS library of children’s educational programming. And in the middle, Parton and his brother at a vintage reel-to- reel cutting and pasting their way to a Mercury Prize nomination.
The resulting studio record was a masterclass in giving listeners that ephemeral feeling of a lost memory that never was, featuring a sonic pastiche spanning so many influences from so many geographies that it existed from no particular place and no particular time. Cut to 2018, and the Go! Team are returning to Seattle (at Neumos on Friday, March 30) touring a new record of songs that wouldn’t sound out of place on their debut.
The title track “Semicircle Song,” features the band’s patented foot-stomping positivity girded by a naked sincerity that feels even more refreshing today than it did 13 (!) years ago.
In the ensuing years, Parton has rotated a host of featured artists in and out of his crew (Ninja, the band’s original, high-energy MC, is back in full force). On SEMICRICLE, Parton pairs guest vocals from the Detroit Youth Choir with the rhythms of a marching band, creating a high-energy neighborhood block party on each stop of their tour.