Review Summary: “It’s a parallel dimension where it’s possible that Roxanne Shanté can jam with Kevin Shields, that a Bollywood string section could play a Sonic Youth wigout.”
The above is a paraphrased quote from an interview with Ian Parton, referring to the genre cross-pollination he has been taking part in going on two decades now. With
Get Up Sequences Part One, he and his cohorts deliver a tightly knit package where every little thing inside has to count, and by nearly every measure The Go! Team succeed. 2018 brought us
Semicircle, and with it the return of The Go! Team as a full-fledged band. The effort before that was a 'solo' effort that focused heavily on finding memorable vocal melodies, and that has since bled into the groups repertoire when it comes to creating tunes. And you can definitely still hear it in 2021!
Whether it be through sing-song rapping or replicating jangle-pop with some extra bells and whistles, Ian Parton continues to have an ear for finding amateur vocalists and bringing the best possible vibes out of them. Take single “Cookie Scene”, for example. Parton once again collaborates with the DYC (that's the Detroit Youth Choir, if you don't know), specifically young rapper Indigo Yaj, who delivers some semi-personal verses related to heartbreak and self-worth. They're backed wholly by a contagious set of flutes and some funky drumming that lend the whole song a playful feel, even when delivering lines like “I want everyone to feel like me, broken!” Maybe it's because that chorus, filled with stuttered 'phenomenals' and 'unstoppables' remind us to try and have some kind of self-esteem.
In a roundabout way, self-esteem certainly feels like an underlying theme of Get Up Sequences Part One. In short, in the middle of recording this record Ian Parton fell victim to Meniere's disease, which is accompanied by a loss of hearing, something he experienced entirely in his right ear. One can only imagine how devastating this kind of thing can be to a musician, and Parton himself has called this a 'life-raft' record. One need only listen to the vivacious heart of opener "Let The Seasons Work" to experience this. The song does kind of invoke 'Loveless' in its silky female vocals fighting for space with the instrumental. But the song oscillates between that and a simply triumphant rallying cry of a horn section. The back and forth feels unique, even in their left-of-center discography. An underlying current of exuberance (the drums) carries the whole thing forward, with the vocals and horn sections working together to drag the listeners upward onto that metaphorical raft.
Elsewhere on the album, spoken word breakdowns pop up in several songs. They act as passages related to love, whether it be falling in it or moving on from it. It's ultimately all framed positively by the vocalists, a reminder to keep your head up whether you feel like you’re drowning or living in a world on fire. There's even a quarantine jam found in closer "World Remember Me Now", a song dedicated to the mundanity of everyday life that we all find ourselves in now and then. Frontwoman Ninja is still here too, taking center-stage on "Pow!", spitting something fierce over a feisty, busy instrumental studded with a 'Breaking News!' like sound effect.
Ultimately, every tune with a developed vocal melody lands a solid blow, and that’s a pretty good portion of the album! The one criteria that just misses the mark here are the instrumental songs, of which there are three. Mind you, this is a thirty-one minute album so the team doesn't have much room for dawdling. None of them are quite bad, but two of the three instrumentals feel like they could've used more fleshing out. I will give a plus to "Tame The Great Plains", which sounds like a commercial for Colorado, perhaps a theme song for a sitcom about wilderness rangers.
In some ways,
Get Up Sequences Part One functions as a Side B to
Semicircle. The fascination with steel drums is still there and young female voices from youth choirs are scattered across the runtime. You could likely intertwine the two records to great effect. But the songs on
Get Up Sequences seem to harbor more urgency, and they do their best to leave no second wasted or empty. I say this with the smile this band always plasters on me –
Get Up Sequences Part One is yet another cheerful offering from the genre defying marching band from across the pond.
