“It sounds like the fucking Singularity touched down.” — Warren Ellis
Last fall, Apple did a promotion with Facebook, offering up free music samplers each week for free to anyone who was a member of the Apple Facebook group. (I’d say the promotion was successful, the group currently has a little over 411,000 members.) Each week, they covered a different genre of music, and in the process of this, I was introduced to The Go! Team through their song “Junior Kickstart”. It’s a great, energetic British band that hopefully we’ll see a lot more of. I would like to point out, however, that due to the nature of how I gained this song, I have no direct link for free download: if you want to hear it, I’m afraid you’ll have to spend a buck. Trust me when I say it’s well worth it.
“Junior Kickstart” is an entirely instrumental song, opening with an urgent guitar riff before moving into an explosion of instrumental grooves, replete with horns, drums, guitar, bass, tambourine, and harmonica (created through a blend of live instruments and excellent sampling). It’s hard to describe precisely why, but the feeling of the song feels very much like out of a soundtrack where the heroes suddenly turn things around and proceed to kick some serious ass. The pacing of the song is very energetic, and sonically there are a variety of layers for your ear to explore, or you can simply let them all fuse together into an avalanche of aural pleasure. I will say this: your enjoyment of The Go! Team increases exponentially the better your sound system. Their sound has a lot of tonal variety, so you’ll get more out of the music if you’re using a system that can really accommodate that. (Even the difference between my iPod headphones and a better set of over-ear headphones is noticeable, playing the same song at the same volume and equalization.)
If you’re looking for music that gets you excited and energized, “Junior Kickstart” is a great choice. It has a good deal of complexity to it, yet can still be enjoyed as a more simplistic amalgam. The Go! Team really delivers on the promise of blending synthetic and more traditional instruments, creating a great sound whether in the studio or live. If you haven’t heard them yet, please, go look them up.
[The Go! Team Live at KEXP Free MP3]