The Go! Team have released a new video for “Semicircle Song,” the first single from their new album SEMICIRCLE out January, 19th on Memphis Industries. Co-directed by Team leader Ian Parton along with his neighbor Bosie Vincent, the video was partially filmed during the album recording sessions in Detroit and features several guest singers of The Detroit Youth Choir. As Ian explains: “We were looking to make something that takes the marching band feel of the song and puts it through a kaleidoscope – something trippy and Technicolor, making geometry out of everyday patterns. I found this marching band in Jacksonville who had the best bright purple and red costumes and we arranged to film with them just a week before the floods hit. The vocals for “Semicircle Song” were recorded in Detroit with a bunch of teenagers who we were filming as they were singing – so the footage in the video were the actual takes that made it onto the record.”

For SEMICIRCLE, the Brighton-based, melody-obsessed Ian Parton had the vision of a marching band going rogue and chucking away their sheet music to blast out Northern soul stompers, Japanese indie-pop swooners and old-school hip hop jams. But his extensive sample library could only take him so far. So Ian made a pilgrimage to Detroit — city of Motown and The Stooges, of musical (and actual) revolution — where he hooked up with The Detroit Youth Choir. “Semicircle Song” was one of the resulting collaborations.

SEMICIRCLE finds Parton collaborating with current live players Simone Odaranile (drums) and Angela ‘Maki’ Won-Yin Mak (vocals), as well as two original members, guitarist Sam Dook and rapper Ninja. Annelotte de Graaf (aka Amber Arcades), previous collaborator Julie Margat (aka Lispector), and a crew of unexpected musicians feature throughout.

In keeping with the album’s marching band theme, Ian stacked up sousaphones, glockenspiels and steel drums, mic’ing them all from a distance to recreate that gymnasium sound. The effect is a kaleidoscopic cacophony, almost as if the sound itself is bent and refracted in the metallic curves of a trumpet; comforting and intoxicating at the same time. Ian is keen to emphasise that the vibrant utopia he and his cohorts have conjured up on their fifth album is not an escapist fantasy but a potentially achievable goal. “It’s about reminding yourself of the good things in life,” he says. “We don’t want to be dumbly optimistic and say, ‘Hey, isn’t everything great!’ but there’s something to be said for just getting on with it, for getting organised and not letting the fuckers get you down. Party for your right to fight!”

The Go! Team 2018 Tour:
02/09 – Glasgow, UK @ Oran Mor
02/10 – Leeds, UK @ The Wardrobe
02/11 – Brighton, UK @ The Haunt
02/15 – London, UK @ Electric Ballroom
02/16 – Newcastle, UK @ Riverside
02/17 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
03/24 – Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom
03/25 – San Diego, CA @ Casbah
03/27 – San Francisco, CA @ Independent
03/29 – Portland, OR @ Doug Fir
03/30 – Seattle, WA @ Neumos
03/31 – Vancouver, BC @ Fox
04/03 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club
04/04 – Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
04/05 – Detroit, MI @ El Club
04/06 – Toronto, ON @ Great Hall
04/08 – Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
04/09 – New York, NY@ Le Poisson Rouge