The Go! Team

With t-shirts like that, ya gotta love 'em!

The Go! Team is the brainchild of Ian Parton of London. Parton started buying old obscure records, stripping down the tunes into the individual instrument tracks, distorting the tracks and using the resulting clips to build brand-new tunes. (That'll keep the copyright lawyers busy for years.) He then went out and put together a band to play these new songs he had created.

The sound is a mix of rock and R&B but with the feeling of TV cop show themes from the 80's. It sounds weird but it's the best album (title: Thunder, Lighting, Strike) I've bought in the last six months. It was released in Europe last year but US copyright laws have prevented it from being released here yet. However, you can download it from iTunes for a bargain low price of $9.99 (considering that most imports run well over $20, that's a mighty fine deal).

Parton is actually working on re-mixes of the tunes to make them legal in the US. Hopefully, the re-mixed versions will live up to the greatness of the originals.

In the meantime, check out the tune "Junior Kickstart". You can also listen to a few other tunes and watch the video for "Ladyflash" here.

UPDATE: Pitchfork reported today that The Go! Team just signed with Columbia to release "Thunder, Lighting, Strike" in the US. The deal is only for this album (future albums wil revert to their current indie label Memphis Industries) and will require some small changes to the tunes to manage the avalanche the royalties on samples they'll have to pay. The album will be slated for release the first week in October and may inlcude additional tracks. It'll be tough to top this one for album of the year.

UPDATE: Here are two other available tracks:

The Go! Team - Huddle Formation
The Go! Team - Bottle Rocket