...scenes of desolate forest, urban strip malls, industrial zones, police brutality, stock market tickers and images of technical blueprints
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
13 posts
Taking their time, Godspeed You! Black Emperor slowly assembled on the stage, each taking root to their wares, adding to the prevailing dynamics. The scratched letters of hope jump on the illuminated wall behind the semi-circle of performers. The gathering storm sonically spiring, conspiring, sliding skilfully into view. Haven’t seen Godspeed live since the early 2000s (though I continued to buy their wares) and I’m glad to report they’ve lost none of their majesty. That sad elixir, the stuttering stigmata of that dogged perseverance and explosive deliverance all still razor sharp.
We know what No Title As Of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead refers to, but we also know that it doesn’t have to. Yes, it’s the response to that, but though there’s always been clear signifiers in Godspeed You! Black Emperor releases (including references to Palestine) and even clearer references in their actions, the music has often taken a less dogmatic approach, swapping 'mere' words for rhythmic sweep and crescendo, finding emotional aggregates and passion in the interleaving of string and guitar.
Constellation Godspeed You! Black Emperor are a very self-contradictory band. They draw you in and push you away at the same time. The arcane press releases, the obtuse packaging, all designed to confuse as much as entertain or educate. That exclamation mark in that unwieldy name. Everything about them says “difficult”. But then you bung them on and and they couldn’t be any easier to actually listen to.
Bristol 30 October 2017 Motion in Bristol was home to two giants of the alternative music scene on the day before Halloween this year. The weather was clement, the venue opened on time and the mighty Godspeed You! Black Emperor had brought along friends and fellow sonic travellers Bardo Pond, so we knew we were in for a full on evening’s treat.
Constellation I remember the first time I heard Godspeed You! Black Emperor; having my mind blown by the sheer enormity of the scale of that first album, the bleak drama and the frazzled audacity of it. With the second album, this ragged bunch of Canadians reached the apogee of what could be done using the basic constructs of rock music
London 18 August 2016 In a converted cinema in Elephant and Castle, protected from the outside world by the most stringent security this side of an airport, post-rock revolutionaries Godspeed You! Black Emperor are taking the stage. In darkness, of course, as is their wont.
London 30 June 2015 Godspeed You! Black Emperor, the once-elusive collective from Montréal, are now becoming an almost regular fixture on the live circuit since reforming in 2010. In addition to live activities, we’ve seen them almost double their late ’90s / early ’00s recorded output with the dual whammy of Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend (2012) and Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress (2015).
Constellation Now Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven defined Godspeed You! Black Emperor for me, even more than their début F#A#∞ (1995-1997). Although that album’s “Dead Flag Blues” certainly glows favourably in my head, the rest seemed instantly overshadowed by Skinny Fists‘ scope, its harmonic exhilarations — those soaring crescendos that seemed far richer, more determined, taking the fucked-up economy and . An impression further sealed after […]
Roseland Theater Portland, Oregon 6 September 2013 The double-billing of noise guitar legends Gate, the solo project of Michael Morley of The Dead C, and the newly rejuvenated Godspeed You! Black Emperor on a Friday night at one of the United States’ largest music festivals was an act of bold and challenging programming that should further Musicfest NW‘s reputation not only as a world class music festival, but […]
Constellation I believe it was the great Neil Young who sang “…only Swans can break your arm” back in the dim and distant mists of musical history, and up until now he’s been right. No band other than Michael Gira‘s monolithic spacegod-baiting machine has ever had the capacity to damage limbs simply through sheer heftiness. But all that’s changed now with the arrival of the new Godspeed You! […]
Label: Constellation Format: 2LP,CD Yanqui U.X.O. is a record that demands time and attention to it’s myriad details as they shimmer past in a gathering whirl of music that sounds absolutely and profoundly played, rather than constructed, by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Recorded by Steve Albini with all his usual craftsmanship, this slow-building album coruscates with a stately emotional fire which reflects the band’s personal-political agenda of righteous […]
Label: Kranky (CD)/Constellation (Vinyl) Format: CDS,12″ Perhaps the criminally overused expression “intense” can be used with justification, just this once, to describe the sound of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The mysterious Canadian nine-piece roll out another of those accelerative weighty soundscapes that we’d always hoped Glenn Branca would produce. Discipline and a telepathic, egoless sense of control push the multilayered epic “Moya” into peaks and troughs similar in […]