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Githead ‘Waiting For A Sign’ Streaming in Full at Impose Magazine

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December 3, 2014
Waiting for a Sign’ marks the return of Githead after a five-year break from recording and is set for release on December 8th via swim~ to coincide with the band’s performance at this year’s DRILL Festival in Brighton. ‘Waiting For A Sign’ is streaming in a full a week before the release date at Impose Magazine. Impose Magazine says, “Following up their 2009 album, Landing, Colin, Malka, Max, and Robin pick right up and start creating where they left off in a collaborative tradition founded back (and well before), 2004. ‘Waiting For a Sign’ is a document that attests to the group’s instinctive bond of intuition, recorded ‘tabula rasa’ at Rockfield Studios in Wales through a method of songcraft informed by improvised sessions. The resulting nine song run is made with the kind of sky-glancing wonder that feels like the late nights / early mornings spent waiting to watch the perfect sunrise, or an epiphany from up in the cloudy heavens.” The album is available to pre-order now at the swim~ online store.

Githead also released a video for “Not Coming Down” which premiered on Wondering Sound. Wondering Sound says, “Githead’s lineup is a veritable Who’s-Who of post-punk: Colin Newman of Wire, Malka Spigel and Max Franken of Minimal Compact and Robin Rimbaud, who records as Scanner, but the music they make together has its own distinct, unique power. You can hear all of that in “Not Coming Down,” a song that’s as much mood as it is music. The song begins with a steady, chugging rhythm, repeated again and again until it becomes almost hypnotic. It’s rigid and severe and bass-driven, cutting like the teeth of an old rusted saw. But when the vocals finally arrive – repeating the song’s title again and again – they’re rippling and delicate, the kind of light, gauzy delivery that typically accompanies classic shoegaze.”
Watch the time-lapse video for “Not Coming Down” here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N15hV7idiA

Fans will recognize many of the classic Githead tropes in ‘Waiting for a Sign’: present and correct are the hypnotic, motorik repetition, the weighty bass lines, and the dreamy melodicism that have come to define the band’s aesthetic.

But ‘Waiting for a Sign’ isn’t about sticking with a proven formula: Githead is a group of forward-looking musicians, committed to reinvention rather than recycling. Indeed, this album attests to considerable sonic evolution and transformation, staking out a diverse range of new territory for the band.

Githead formed in 2004, for what was initially intended as a one-off performance at the Swim record label’s ICA-hosted 10th anniversary event. Over the course of preparations for the gig, though, it quickly became obvious to all involved that there was a natural and rare chemistry between them, one that held the potential for significant organic development.

As previous releases such as Art Pop (2007) and Landing (2009) show, Githead‘s forté has increasingly been to bring the synergy and inventiveness of their live performances to bear on the studio process. For this album, however, they upped the ante, arriving at the studio without any written material and trusting that their response to each other’s extemporization, as well as to the mood and the surroundings, would get the creative juices flowing.

“There were no songs. Nothing,” says Spigel. “We didn’t talk about it at all, we just stood in a room and played.”

 
Newman adds, “How the material turned out is at least in part because there was no plan as regards the actual music. The time in the studio was simply the frame; there was no discussion at all as to what kind of thing we’d be playing.”

Ultimately, this is another way of framing ‘Waiting for a Sign’: Newman, Spigel, Rimbaud, and Franken approached the project as something of a blank slate, their minds free of predefined ideas and open to the creativity fostered by their encounter at Rockfield. Waiting for a Sign is their most accomplished release thus far. It’s the work of a band that’s unable to take the easy option and unwilling to repeat itself; it’s a testament to their continued capacity for invention and their ability to surprise their listeners – and themselves.

Githead will perform tracks from ‘Waiting for A Sign’ for the first time at Wire’s DRILL (already in it’s third incarnation), which this year is expanding and taking on a new lease of life. Fittingly, this year’s DRILL will take place by the sea at venues across Brighton on 4th – 7th. For more information visit: http://drillfestival.com/

‘Waiting for a Sign’ track list:
1. Not Coming Down
3. To Somewhere
4. For The Place We’re In
5. Air Dancing
6.  Slow Creatures
7. Today
8. What If?
9. Waiting for a Sign
Discography:

* Headgit (Nov 2004)
* Profile (June 2005)
* Art Pop (May 2007)
* Landing (November 2009)

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