“It’s a dance song for reluctant wallflowers.”
That’s how Children’s Hour cofounder Andy Bar neatly sums up “Dance With Me,” the second teaser single from Going Home, the Chicago cult outfit’s long-lost sophomore album. Sea Note will release the LP on February 23, more than 20 years after it was recorded over a single afternoon in Shelbyville, Ky.
Products of the close-knit Windy City music scene, Bar and Josephine Foster formed the Children’s Hour in the early 2000s, releasing a self-titled debut EP in 2002 and the well-received SOS JFK full-length a year later. Billy Corgan became an instant fan, bringing them along as an opening act on a massive tour for Zwan, his short-lived supergroup. Onstage, Zwan guitarist David Pajo (Slint, Tortoise, Gang Of Four) filled in on drums for the Children’s Hour. Back in Shelbyville after the tour, Pajo joined Bar and Foster for the Going Home session. They planned to revisit the songs at a later date—one that never came.
Decades later, Palace Brothers’ Paul Oldham found the tracks on an old hard drive, reaching out to Pajo. The songs were recorded in haste, none of them “flawless,” as Pajo notes. Still, there’s an unassuming, wide-eyed grace to “Dance With Me” (and the rest of Going Home, for that matter) as it admirably attempts to reconcile indie-rock impulsiveness with a craftier singer/songwriter aesthetic.
“‘Dance With Me’ might well be my favorite song on Going Home,” says Pajo. “It documents a sweet moment I think we all can relate to.”
We’re proud to premiere “Dance With Me.”
—Hobart Rowland
