The latest album from The Go! Team, SEMICIRCLE, saw frontman Ian Parton move to Detroit for its recording, working with a marching band and the Detroit Youth Choir.
The recording also saw Parton stack up sousaphones, glockenspiels and steel drums, microphoning them all from a distance to recreate the sound of a gymnasium band rehearsing. That album was released last month via Memphis Industries and can be purchased here.
"With SEMICIRCLE I was trying to take the technicolour feel of a marching band into a more psychedelic place, reclaiming that sound from patriotic or sporty bullshit and harnessing its toughness and power," Parton says. "Brass which takes your head off, bouncy xylophones, offbeat handclaps and toms hopping in the gaps – I hoped it would be recognisably The Go! Team but unlike any song we’d done before."
Expanding on the Detroit influences that lie throughout the album, he has put together a mix of Detroit-centric music exclusively for us, which you can hear above. The mix takes in music from the likes of The Jackson 5, The Supremes and J Dilla amongst others, and is also interwoven with local Detroit radio and TV jingles.
Writing about the mix and his decision to relocate to Detroit for the recording of SEMICIRCLE, Parton says: "Detroit has always been an interesting place to me because it exists in that venn diagram overlap in my mind where noise and soul meet. It kinda embodies what I’m into and what The Go! Team are about: grit and bubblegum, trash and sass, the best things for me about black and white music.
"When I was thinking about the voices for the new G!T album, for some songs I was imagining a community choir – something not too pro, a bit rough around the edges but with personality and enthusiasm. I figured teenagers was the way to go. I came across the Detroit Youth choir. It was basically a choir to keep the teenagers off the streets. No audition policy – just how I like it. The choir leader – an amazing fella called Mr White said ‘I believe in your vision’ and I flew over (with my cameraman next door neighbour who filmed everything) and made it happen. Probably a hundred of them turned up with their mums and dads, brothers and sisters. A proper family day out. An amazing thing to be part of…
"This Motor City mix features dirty sunshine funk, some Motown stars selling out, garage rock that sounds like it was recorded in a garage and stuff from my favourite moment in time when soul went a bit psychedelic. Beware – some of the audio quality is like a third generation VHS left on the backseat of a MODEL T."
Click through to the embed above for the tracklist, and check The Go! Team on tour around Europe starting in Glasgow tomorrow and finishing up in Amsterdam early next month. You can find the full list of dates here.
