southern records

Song Of The Week: Karate - 595 - "The Roots and the Ruins"

First of all, the bad news: Boston-based three-piece Karate who split in the summer of 2005 and thus ended their twelve year long run that consisted of six studio albums and over 700 live performances in over twenty countries all around the world are, sadly enough, not reuniting.

However, the good news is that Southern Records is putting out a stunning live record entitled 595 that lets you witness this amazing band at its peak, not only musically, but especially in terms of performance, clarity and balance. Finally, even greater news is that we're offering you a chance to listen to the record's opening track "The Roots and the Ruins", which is our song of the week this week.

In fact, the album title 595 refers to the band's 595th show, which they played in Leuven, Belgium: a show that the band thought of as nothing more than a usual show at the end of a long tour at first, but after they heard its recording, it became Karate's favorite live document. In fact, the band were particularly surprised and pleased to hear the record's clarity, intensity and balance: qualities they strive to achieve during studio recordings and which seemed so natural on that particular live record. "The Roots and the Ruins" demonstrates this perfectly. The song captures the record's very unique character and doesn?t leave any doubt that the most amazing and beautiful thing about Karate was to see and witness them live.

Geoff Farina, Jeff Goddard and Gavin McCarthy ended their collaboration as Karate in 2005 leaving behind an already brilliant discography that is now completed with 595 as evidence of what they sounded like live at their best, on one of their 700 concerts.

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