By Berlinda Recacho
In high school my friend Laura was a band geek. She played the clarinet and the French Horn and would show me the sheet music she had to learn for the next game. The most "current' tune I remember was "Colour My World" by Chicago. The band provided the soundtrack to pep rallies, pied-pipering us through the hallways to the gym, where I barely participated in the obsequious rituals of our football-centric culture. I never thought much about how it takes a certain amount of talent to play music live in time with other people while donning a heavy uniform and marching in formation on a playing field between halfs, an impressive undertaking, no matter what it actually ends up sounding like. Flash forward to present day, where The Go! Team is a cool facsimile of that high school band (albeit one across the pond, in Brighton, England) fortified with synthesizers, drum machines, and samplers, as well as myriad guest vocalists, with all of this led by a drum major with enough eclectic music influences to sound as if they are broadcasting from an alternate dimension. I've loved them ever since 2010's "Buy Nothing Day" single, with Best Coast's Bethany Cosentino contributing lead vocals for the soaring eponymous track and a cool B-side cover of Betty and Karen's 1966 song "I'm Not Satisfied". But how would this joyous, joyful, danceable music fare in the face of a global pandemic?
Someday, someone is going to write a thesis on how COVID-19 affected music – the making and enjoyment of it – when the crisis seemingly had no end. I was afraid that we might never have live concerts again. I listened to music, and it helped me through, but it was an anesthetic rather than a salve. I blocked out much of daily life in that first year and a half. Everyday was like Sunday, and Sunday, and Sunday. There were no distinguishing events, or maybe it was all just one big neverending event? I was so distracted I barely noticed when new music came out, so I completely missed the release of The Get Up Sequences Part One. Cheerful does not mean mindless. Upbeat does not mean ignorant. It's somewhat miraculous that producer and bandleader Ian Parton and crew layer in clever words and witty asides so seamlessly into their beat-driven electronic extravaganzas. So I set out to see how they survived the pandemic by exploring these two volumes. I figured they wouldn't have titled this The Get Up Sequences Part Two if it wasn't meant to be listened to in relation to Part One so that's what I did.
When Get Up Sequences Part One dropped on July 2, 2021, the first two doses of coronavirus vaccine were available, but not widespread. We were all still barricaded in our homes, masked and socially distanced, avoiding group contact. Slow and mournful are not part of The Go! Team's vernacular, and the rhyme and rhythms that drive their music were there in good measure. But I couldn't help thinking that Part One was rife with as much worry as the band might be able to admit. The sound is still undeniably them, but the approach is more subtle, a bit more subdued. In fact, four of the 10 tracks are instrumentals, including the brightly looping opener "Let the Seasons Work". "Cookie Scene" is a cheekily assertive rap, but loss is evident in "A Bee Without Its Sting", with lyrics that go, "They say the thing with power/is once that you feel it/You'll do anything that you can do to keep it" and "We Do It But Never Know Why": "What'll it be?/Just let me know/Say the word/And we'll never be lonely". "I Loved You Better" cloaks regret with the past tense:"Let me tell you about it/You see/When you left every night/for weeks and weeks/counted tears/instead of sheep." The album closer "World Remember Me Now" is a plea haunted by the daily ritual of that uncertain time: "Just another year of doing fine/just another year of getting by… Who's the person I can really be/If the galaxy believes in me… Watch some TV, I'm asleep by ten/Seven hours and do it all again."
[Kenixfan: Check out Donzig's review of Get Up Sequences Part One from 2021 here]
Two years later, much has changed, but all is still not well. Get Up Sequences Part Two, released February 3, 2023 is surer and wiser, very much in the present tense, but more referential and aware of its influences. "Gemini" mirrors the unapologetic self-possessed rap of "Cookie Song from Part One: "Don't forget it baby/I'm kinetic/Here comes my bulletin/call me when you get it/Galaxies, galaxies/Got 'em all aligned/Made a universe to my design." A canny take on Motown, "Getting to Know (All the Ways We're Wrong For Each Other)" irreverently lists the pros and cons of starting – or ending – a relationship. "Stay and Ask Me in A Different Way" calls to mind the cool trip-lounge of Stereolab and Broadcast, while "Whammy O" takes cues from Scritti Politti's hip-hop-influenced Anomie and Bonhomie (1999). The quirky "Going Nowhere" could easily pass for a tune by The Magnetic Fields: "I used to want to go places/Now I know that this is all there really is/And if life is just going nowhere/Well there's nobody I'd rather go there with."
While there's no shutting out the world and its woes, this time The Go! Team is ready. "But We Keep On Trying" rallies against failure: "Yeah, didn't get the votes this time/yeah didn't make the mayor resign... Yeah, didn't get equality/Yeah, didn't take the bourgeoisie... So what if the plans didn't go to plan/So what if we didn't stick it to the man". "Divebomb" is a manifesto by way of mantra: "Sensitized, alive/yeah I'm fully down/Taking notice, got focus/never slowing down/No permission/tuition, yeah no supervision/Go again/it's repetition/repetition." "Train Song" longs for physical escape: "Take me anywhere/and make it nowhere near/so take me/I just don't care/As long as it's not here", while "Baby" takes issue with emotional disconnection: "I wasn't there/felt invisible forever/But now I see/Living through you's not enough/When you and me were supposedly together/I never felt ever really more than just someone to have around."
The last three years have put us through the ringer, but these two albums seem to confirm that since we're still here, maybe we should follow the band's lead using these Get Up Sequences as a directive to grab a groove, fall into step and march right through our fears and insecurities.
Get Up Sequences Part Two by The Go! Team is out now via Memphis Industries.
[Photo: The Go! Team Bandcamp]