Newcastle’s Parastatic are back with their third album, and their first new music in ten years – since the release of Recall Fade Return in 2015. The new record, Concrete Reborn will be out 21st February on Workie Ticket Records. It represents an evolution of their sound into the space where post-rock and shoegaze congregate.
Parastatic are three friends from the North East of England with a love for Krautrock, shoegaze and post-rock music. Since their birth in 2010 they have sporadically released music that fuses motorik grooves with thumping synths and magical guitar sounds. Concrete Reborn features the addition of a spoken word performance from Valencia-born, Newcastle-based electronic and spoken word artist Late Girl.
Normally a band of very few words, but with Late Girl’s contribution the record evokes a sense of the magisterial, monolithic power of brutalist buildings and shines a light on aspects of the movement from the raw materials on “A building is a weapon”; the imagined lives going on behind the concrete on “(Dancing to) A modernist beat”; the public disdain for the style on “Tear it down”, or the leading lights of the movement on “Assembly”. The epic nearly-10-minute title track “Concrete Reborn” is the ultimate celebration of the movement’s ethos of balancing function and form. Lead single “With intent” imagines brutalist buildings as entities with agency and intention, for the betterment of society.
Having spent a year as artist in residence at the Glasshouse International Centre for Music, Late Girl contributed their spoken word performance across the record which is sometimes haunting, other times ferocious and always intriguing. As well as enlisting the talents of Late Girl, 2023 saw original drummer Jonnie Halling return to the band after 10 years playing with The Angelic Upstarts.
“We’re dead proud of this one. We’ve had a few bumps on the road getting there but the result is something we’re all thrilled with. Getting Late Girl was a real coup as we’ve admired her work for so long.” Says guitarist, Jon Garrard. “We first saw her years ago and rushed to book her as support on our next show. Since then we’ve played together loads and collaborated at a show a few years ago. We love the extra dimension her vocals add to these songs. We’re also totally buzzing to have Jonnie back in the band – recording his drum parts have given the songs a bit of a harder edge which totally suits the direction we were going in and you can really visualise the buildings that the songs are celebrating.”
Concrete Reborn has been a labour of love for the band, starting recording sessions, shortly before Covid hit, with Sam Grant (Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs) at Blank Studios in their hometown of Newcastle.
