The Scene Between

Last album Rolling Blackouts became a natural end chapter for The Go! Team with members splintering off into different musical projects (check Ian Parton’s involvement with new pysch band Whyte Horses and huge Jpop outfit Momoiro Clover Z, Sam Dook’s Cuz with Minutemen’s Mike Watt and Ninja’s solo endeavours), get married, teach, experience real life. Bandleader Parton took the opportunity to return to the working methods he’d used at the origins of the band – crate digging, trying to nail a feeling, writing and recording the album by himself. Unlike debut album ‘Thunder, Lightning, Strike’ though, The Scene Between is an album about singing - about pushing the melodic side of The Go! Team sound. Parton elaborates “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”. Parton had four rules before starting: 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. Matching the song to the right voice wherever that voice was in the World, an outreach programme for bedroom-core DIY artists. Voices you’ll hear include Emily Reo (US), Samira Winter (BR), Atom (CN), Casey Sowa (US), Doreen Kirchner (US), Glockabelle (FR) plus an African gospel choir and an Atlantan vocal trio.

On The Scene Between, Ian Parton has gone back to his original method of composing, recording and producing all of the music himself, save for the vocals, which means he’s purposefully inviting comparisons to Thunder, Lightning, Strike. And yet, the results feel like his most truly songwriterly work yet.

With the dissolution of the group, The Go! Team is no longer much of a team, but the sole remaining teammate has crafted the group’s best album since the release of Thunder, Lightning, Strike back in 2004. Ian Parton has always been the Svengali of the group, singlehandedly creating the first record, and composing the…

For album four, bandleader Ian Parton's once sample-driven project leans more heavily on melody and production tweaks.

Check out our album review of Artist's The Scene Between on Rolling Stone.com.

This is a record trying to bridge light and dark: and that's its best and worst trait.

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With his bandmates pursuing various musical projects, Ian Parton retries the working practices that first made The Go! Team stand out.

The Go! Team have long been a band obsessed with making gleeful noise. 2004's debut Thunder, Lightning, Strike set a blueprint for the band...

Music Review: The Go! Team - The Scene Between

A barrage of vintage sounds and short interludes of strangeness build into an entertaining fourth album

The Go! Team - The Scene Between review: Beware of sunburn.

Without the trademark squalling guitar and brass and jumpy schoolyard chants, The Scene Between balances simple tunes and slick, cacophonous production.