Instrumental post-rock trio Parachute For Gordo are taking things up a gear with their new album Best Understood By Children And Animals, immersing themselves in a professional studio environment for the first time to expand and develop their sound. We caught up with guitarist Laura Lee to find out more about the band, including their influences, what to expect from their live show and more.
Firstly, tell us a bit about yourself and your band.
I am Laura, the guitarist and all round tech nerd in PFG. Our band started in the glamourous streets of Aldershot, although drummer Mark and I have moved to the much less exciting Berlin. We are an art rock, post rock, post-punk band who make the music we love to make with the hope others come on the journey with us.
How did the band form and how long have you been together?
Gordo formed as a side project from a band nobody heard of where we were kind of bogged down with bedroom studio blues. We formed PFG with the aim to make it as fun and easy as possible to play live, a concept we have kind of discarded in the years since. We have been together about 6 years now.
Can you remember the first time you realised you wanted to make music?
I had a Casio keyboard as a kid and I would listen to all the rhythm tracks in the evening. I would imagine making some banging pop tracks and I would have a little dance. A sort of escapism. From then, I knew I wanted to make music.
Who and what are the band’s main influences?
The band recently have been on a nostalgic journey listening to lots of David Bowie, Talking Heads and Krautrock this year, exploring longer form music and basically going “wasn’t 1978 to 1982 really great?”. Drummer Mark is also a techno DJ and has a very eclectic style, bassist John is more of an indie pop fan. Personally, I obsess over Bjork’s music and how she pushes the boundaries. We are kind of math-rock adjacent and have loved playing with bands like So I Watch You from Afar, Gallops and Adam Betts.
What do you aim to achieve as a band?
Primarily we just want to make music that impresses us and gets us excited. Our dream is to play as much as possible in UK and Europe and try to do festivals like Arc-Tan-Gent and 2000 Trees. We are now releasing our third vinyl and hoping it gets a spin on 6 Music.
For those who are yet to see you live, what can they expect from a Parachute For Gordo show?
We pride ourselves on our live shows. They are intimate, not just in the not-many-people-there way, but that there’s so little boundary between us and the audience. We’re not pretending to be cooler than you, we’re just having a blast playing our music and we want the audience to feel that, to feel like they’re in our club. We can get fairly ambitious too, in the past we’ve had live art, projected visuals, fully improvised performances as well as a straight up gigs. It is all about the journey and losing yourself on stage and trying make a gig experience special.
What’s next for Parachute For Gordo?
Parachute for Gordo are about to release our next album Best Understood by Children and Animals with Beth Shalom Records. We recorded with the genius Mark Roberts (Mark #2) at Brighton Electric a little while back and are super excited to let it out in the world. We are doing a few UK tours this year to promote with our shiny new vinyl and hope that Brexit doesn’t f**k us too hard.
Parachute For Gordo‘s new album Best Understood By Children And Animals is due for release on 14th February via Beth Shalom Records, available to purchase HERE.
See Parachute For Gordo live at one of the following dates:
February
Thu 13th – BIRMINGHAM – Centrala
Fri 14th – LONDON – Slaughtered Lamb
Sat 15th – ALDERSHOT – West End Centre
Sun 16th – BRIGHTON – Prince Alberts (matinee show)
