The whole world is in turmoil at the moment, and there’s really no way around it. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it. But if there is one thing to collectively pull each and every single one of us through these tiring times, it’s music. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside to see how artists and bands are doing their best to provide us with the means to escape and endure the global situation, even though the current climate takes an exceptionally heavy toll on them in particular. There’s been countless ‘isolation’ releases, whether it’s new, old, or live renditions of songs; experimental art rock group Parachute For Gordo from Germany/United Kingdom are the latest addition to that grand design.
“Snakes for the Blind” is taken from their recent album Best Understood By Children And Animals, a highly acclaimed, expansive, and genre norm-breaking effort that dropped in February through Beth Shalom Records. The album is a heartwarming journey through a multitude of sonic tableaus, best enjoyed in high but healthy volume while basking in the glow of the spring sun. “Snakes for the Blind” does well at representing the album as a whole, which probably made it a no-brainer to pick it up as the lead clip for the full ‘live from isolation’ gig. You can now enjoy this preview piece in all its DIY spirit and positivity-inducing glory below:
Here’s a blurb from the band’s bassist John Harvey about how this session came into existence:
‘2020 was going to be a huge year for us. It marks about 7 years as a band, and we had just released our fourth LP, Best Understood By Children and Animals via Beth Shalom. We had a couple of tours planned for the year, and our first big festival slots. But like every other band right now, 2020 is cancelled. I found it inspiring to see so many solo artists putting on shows in the early days of lockdown and I missed my bandmates who had moved to Berlin recently, living in a shared flat in a far flung lockdown similar to my own. As a band, we make a lot of videos but we rarely put ourselves in them, and our last official live videos are from when I had hair and when Mark was ten years older and called Johnny. These days Mark (drums, production) has a brand new studio for his job and Laura is also there working on her PhD, so I came up with the idea of cheatingly multitracking a live session.
To really put things in hard mode, Laura and Mark played their parts alone with no bass which is apparently kind of tricky (some might say “dumb”). I then recorded my bits onto my iPad in my garden on a sunny afternoon and sent over the files for the dudes to work their magic on. If anyone is thinking of starting a band, get musicians who are also experts in audio/video production, it’s very handy. The result sounds quite a lot like us. We hope that people who wanted to see us play this year enjoy this little taste and we look forward to seeing everyone in the flesh, eventually.‘
Things tend to run their course, and here we are. The full array of these live-ish videos brought together by the magic that is technology will be made available at 8pm BST next Monday. If you enjoyed the uplifting and all-encompassing vibe of the above produce, make sure to tune in on Parachute For Gordo‘s Facebook to catch it straight away when it all goes live. Also, do yourself a favour and listen to Best Understood By Children And Animals, as well as the band’s other releases on their Bandcamp.
