In his 9 out of 10 PopMatters review of Pattern Is Movement’s 2014 self-titled LP, Thomas Britt writes, “Pattern Is [Movement’s] soulfulness isn’t yoked to a brand or marketing strategy. For Pattern Is Movement, music is music.” Unfortunately, the music won’t be music for much longer, as the Philadelphia band — comprised of Andrew Thiboldeaux and Chris Ward — announced this year will be their last. In addition to their farewell tour, the duo took to a church to record one of their final tunes, “Save Me”, at the behest of the Weathervane Music.
Weathervane is a non-profit organization devoted to supporting independent music around the world; at the moment, their member and supporter network spans over 100 countries. Pattern Is Movement teamed up with Weathervane for their Shaking Through video series, which Weathervane describes thusly: “Each year we give ten awesome independent musicians a challenge: Record one song in two days. First take to final mix. No extensions. No safety net.”
Ward tells PopMatters, “We originally were going to turn down the Shaking Through episode because we were planning to end the band. It just seemed like a good opportunity, but at the wrong time. However, one night, I was at a show, and I ran into Peter English (of Shaking Through) and I just blurted out — ‘Would you all be into an episode about a band ending?’ The thought wasn’t fully formed just yet for me — it was just my instinct. I’m happy I followed through on that instinct because the ending of this band, without this episode, wouldn’t be as meaningful. To have the Weathervane crew help us capture and memorialize the end of this band means the world to the both of us.”
Watch Pattern Is Movement’s Shaking Through episode below. If you become a member of Weathervane (more on that here), you can also download the stems of “Save Me” and make your own remixes, in addition to all of the songs made as part of Shaking Through.
A behind-the-scenes production video for the episode is also available:
“Save Me” is available as a free download via BandCamp. Find out more about the creation of the song and the Shaking Through project at the official page on Weathervane.