Song of the Day: The Go! Team - The Scene Between

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “The Scene Between” by The Go! Team from the 2015 album The Scene Between on Memphis Industries.

The Go! Team - The Scene Between (MP3)

Adopting a wide-reaching, patchwork style of merging musical elements from all over the genre spectrum, Ian Parton's work as The Go! Team is both inimitably dense and deceptively immediate. Parton's first work under the moniker consisted primarily of work done in his parents kitchen, creating his 2004 debut Thunder, Lightning, Strike in this manner. The album was met with critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic upon its release, which led Parton to recruit a live band to enable him to play live shows. The band – guitarist Sam Dook, drummer Chi Fukami Taylor, multi-instrumentalist Kaori Tsuchida, bassist Jamie Bell, and rapper/frontwoman Ninja – was a hit on the live circuit and quickly evolved into a fully-functioning studio unit for the band's next two albums, 2007s Proof Of Youth and 2011's Rolling Blackouts. After a few years off, in 2014 Parton announced The Go! Team's return with next month's The Scene Between, which finds Parton returning to his original solitary recording setup with a completely new set of vocalists. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the album's title track sounds like a return to the most glowing, melodic moments from Thunder, Lightning, Strike. With the song's vocals mixed higher than ever in the forefront, "The Scene Between" borders on a twee, C86-style jangle that Parton's never touched before, but it's a winning formula. Less based in hip-hop energy and more in melodic directness, "The Scene Between" swings for the fences and connects with gusto.

So far, The Go! Team's only announced live performances behind The Scene Between are a pair of UK dates, but if they announce any more gigs, that news will be on their Facebook and website. Below, watch the video for "The Scene Between".