Go! Team Talk New Single, LP

In an interview with Pitchfork on Thursday, the band's de-facto leader, Ian Parton, revealed that the Team have just finished recording the single "Doing It Right", which is tentatively scheduled to be released in September. The track, which has been performed live a number of times and is described by Parton as "quite heavy on the 60s girl-group, Northern Soul kind of feel, Phil Spector-y, but with chanty vocals in it as well," will be accompanied by two B-sides. One of the B-sides is a cover of Sonic Youth's "Bull in the Heather." (It can be heard on the band's MySpace page right now.) The single was produced by Parton and his brother Gareth at Fortress Studios in London. A video is also planned.

As for the new album, the Go! Team plan to camp out in a recording space in Brighton beginning next week. When asked what direction the record will take, Parton replied that three tracks give an indication as to where the band is headed: the aforementioned "Doing it Right", a recorded version of the "Ladyflash" B-side "The Wrath of Mikey", to which the band plan to add vocals, and "Titanic Vandalism". The last track in particular is a potential "blueprint" for the new album, with its soundtrack atmosphere and "car chase" mood.

Though Parton said that the band's cheekiness and sassiness will remain firmly intact, he envisions the album "to be more experimental in a way. It will still sound like the Go! Team, I think, but there'll be more stuff like feedback and a kind of bigger production. A bigger sounding record in a way, but still in a lo-fi style. I don't really want it to sound super slick or anything like that. I think having that kind of homemade feel to it is essential. I want to possibly get a more violent feel to it in some ways, something a bit like Public Enemy."

He added, "I just want to get a bit more angry. It's kind of a mix between a blaxploitation soundtrack kind of feel with a discordant guitar-y sort of thing as well."

The Go! Team lineup has undergone a change since last year, with Kaori Tsuchida replacing Silke Steidinger. Discussing Tsuchida's noise-band background and unusual vocal style as complementing that of lead singer/rapper Ninja, Parton said, "That's kind of what I want to do, is mix that kind of noisy, riot grrrl-y type feel with more of an old school kind of hip-hop feel and a kind of 60s Phil Spector-y kind of feel as well. That, for me, are all my favorite things rolled up into one." Hey, ours, too!

The Go! Team will hit the road in July, with a bunch of festival dates, and a brief U.S. tour scheduled. The highlight of the summer, however, will be their shows supporting Sonic Youth. Performing with the New York legends is a "personal dream come true" for Parton. When asked how the dates came about, Parton is mystified: "I don't know, actually. I think they'd heard of us, anyway. We befriended Mike Watt. He was playing with the Stooges when we did the Big Day Out, this festival in Australia. He watched us quite a few times and kind of played with us on stage actually in Australia and he did again the other day in Coachella. So he was kind of bigging us up to Thurston I think because he's always in touch, so that might've helped. We gotta thank Mike for that."

You too can thank Mike, at these dates:

07-08 Punchestown, Ireland - Oxegen Festival
07-09 Balado, Scotland - T in the Park
07-22 Bristol, England - Ashton Court Festival
07-28 Twin Lakes, WI - Hedgepeth Festival *
07-29 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre *$
07-30 Lawrence, KS - Granada Theatre
07-31 Omaha, NE - Sokol Underground
08-02 Indianapolis, IN - Music Mill
08-03 Cuyahoga Falls, OH - Blossom Music Center (Kuyahoga Festival) *#
08-04 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick
08-05 Chicago, IL - Grant Park (Lollapalooza) *$#
08-06 Milwaukee, WI - Pabst Theatre #
08-08 Toronto, Ontario - Kool Haus #
08-19 Chelmsford, England - Hylands Park (V Festival)
08-20 Staffordshire, England - Weston Park (V Festival)

* with the Flaming Lips $ with Ween
# with Sonic Youth