Free Electricity. The Go

Free Electricity is a new album, well, from 2000. Long lost that is called, but reading up on it, it's more like the people who were responsible for releasing it back then, decided to bury it as deep as possible, never to be heard again. In hindsight, it was the right album at the wrong time.

When I listened to the mp3s I was sent for the first time, I had no idea. What I heard was an inspired band that is belting out psychedelic rock as if there is no tomorrow. There are so many bands trying to emulate what came before, that The Go fitted into that long, long list with ease. The sound is like second half 1960s psych rock, especially the singing, but the recording sound definitely isn't. 2020s Anyone?, sure!

And then I read the bio before I started writing, something I do not always do. That would have brought a nice surprise after writing, wouldn't it? A band that comes to mind while listening to Free Electricity, is MC5. The approach of it's most famous song, 'Kick Out The Jams', can be found on Free Electricity regularly. The energy coming from songs like the title song and 'All Dimensions Are Loose' is tremendous, like, well, free electricity. The Go doesn't hold back for a single second.

The Go formed in 1996 in Detroit and one of its first guitarists was Jack White, who of course went off on his own to global fame. He hadn't forgotten his band mates as he took them on tour with The White Stripes in 2003 on the 'Elephant' tour. The band folded after a final album in 2013.

Back to Free Electricity. It is stressed that the album was a total departure from the garage rock of 'Whatcha Doin' released in 1998, after which Jack White left the band. More experimental, with psychedelia, some eastern influences and free jazz, as the bio says. I hear a lot on Free Electricity but not the peep-oink (translation of the Dutch 'piep-knor') music I associate with free jazz. In general the songs are trippy but mostly straight forward. Okay, in 'Blood Red Sun' things do get a bit wild, but this is still rock and loud rock at that; and experimental, alright.

The songs were all recorded in one of at most two takes, after which the band went in search of extras that the available recording time allowed for. The result is an album that has captured the energy of those almost live takes and the extras that make a song more interesting (at times).

Come 2026, someone at Sub Pop found the tapes, recognised the quality and decided to release the record any way. Something like  that it seems. Today, I can imagine that a label having to come off of the unexpected and huge success of Nirvana and grunge, could not handle Free Electricity at the time and certainly not after an album that, it is said, as I'm not familiar with it, was so different in style. It also shows that someone needs to hold out an open ear, as this album, let's face it, is released 26 years too late. It would have led the pack of psych bands and now is obliged to come late to the party and too late for The Go, as there is no band of that name in existence since 2013.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

 

You can listen to and order Free Electricity here:

https://listentothego.bandcamp.com/album/free-electricity