Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Classic or Dud?

still though...they seem to be coming out with better music when not doing things that are gybe specific (i.e. do make say think, a silver mt. zion)...the new album is kinda blah..but whatever.

So, classic or dud? Uh. Mind you I did like the one piece of e-mail I got after the review I did, a GYBE fan (mark that) writing in to say "you take yourself too seriously".

- First of all, nothing repulses me. Nothing is unpleasant.
- The whole thing feels very much like it was structured as a film score of some sort. (So much post-rock always felt like it was trying to be a score for some public TV family drama! This kind of does too.) It makes sense that they apparently play with films.
- It's cool that they're trying to incorporate a wider range of instruments, including some more traditional folky kinds of sounds
- The moments that are more dense and textural without a beat are nice. However, they tend not to last for very long.
- Much of the rest of the album seems to consist of very slow simple melodic passages, some of it a long guitar solo, some of it a more folky thing with other instruments. These passages are sometimes pleasant but do feel extremely simplistic and perhaps limited in terms of both melody and rhythm, more so than almost any mainstream rock or pop music. The drummer maintains a totally even totally straight slow 4/4 'beat' throughout these passages. When there are tempo changes, they are performed at a totally even rate as to be completely predictable. The guitarist seems to tend to almost always play right on the beat, which is bizarre. This seems to contradict such a basic musical principle that it must be a conscious aesthetic choice but I don't understand what it is. This might possibly makes me similar to people who don't get why Indian music has no chord changes. Why a pulse is even introduced here with hardly any rhythmic tension is what I wonder. It is possible that it might make more sense with further listening but it just seems to make things almost totally predictable now. Like I said, not overtly offensive or even not-pleasant or anything, but it also fails to achieve much more than this. It seems like it has potential that it doesn't realize.

It is a certain kind of music, and I find it interesting that some people say "I couldn't sit and listen to it". I guess that depends on what one looks for when putting on music to listen to. For me, GYBE is faboulous music to write, draw and even program to (well so my partner tells me). It is about immersing oneself in another place. The music moves through moods, peaks and troughs, shadows and light. It has some mindblowingly moving bursts of wall-of-noise guitar, and some beautifully melancholy quiet moments (fave quote from "Dead Flag Blues" - we're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine... and the machine is bleeding to death)

Uhh... yeah. I love them.

POCXY FULE SEZ HEDHEGOF

Nick OTM

Search: First one (where is the hash key on a Mac?), Slow Riot For Zero Kanada

Destrrrrrrrroy: Levez..., Yanqui UXO

sterling clover wrote:
I think that I would be impressed to see any live band do just one long ninety-minute build-up fuck-off track.

search: Physics -- a veritable who's who of san diego indie rock circa 1992 did this live several times, attempts at minimalism ("in E") and post-branca-isms.

I saw Dirty 3 live once and hated them. Droning, boring, dreadful wank. And I love GBYE and Mogwai so go figure.

One of the few regrets I do have, as their music deserves to be experienced live (preferably in a small- to medium- sized joint).

Search: Tortoise, Disco Inferno, Trans Am, Mogwai
Destory: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (as I believe they call themselves, the fucking wankers), Sigur Ros

Search: Tortoise, Disco Inferno, Trans Am, Mogwai, Bark Psychosis
Destory: Godspeed You! Black Emperor (as I believe they call themselves, the fucking wankers), Sigur Ros

Henry Cow are more interesting to me but both of 'em have this dry sound.

yes yes lovely sentiment and all

found the album a bit boring tbh. then put on Yanqui UXO again and it was like leaping into 3D

i listened to this and yanqui back-to-back and it reinforced how strongly i feel about the new one

the drone tracks are freaking incredible

I like toying with the listening order.

the riffs in the longer suites are both lovely and unexpected and are impeccably layered with the other elements... the drums are really good... just keep getting transfixed and blown away by this thing

Loving the new album and the broadcast they did the other week of Karl Lemieux & Philippe Leonard's 16mm projections was fantastic.

They just announced a raft of tour dates for early 2022. Ticket bought for the Barrowlands here.

i don't live there so no skin off my back but why is there not a Montreal date lol

Venues are all closed at the moment.

I’m not keen on how this is mixed. It doesn’t sound good in comparison to the BCNR album. I may get over this. I hope I do.

pomentiful, i assume they won't still be closed in 2022? or are they not even taking any bookings?

I thought they weren't but I checked just now and some of them clearly are, so… the plot thickens.

looking at those dates, it seems likely to me they have something in the works for Montreal when they get back ... either a GYBE show(s) they can't announce yet, or maybe there's a festival there that summer or something. idk, that seems to often be the case when bands announce big tours w/ no hometown date.

I didn't know this band *did* anything after Yanqui...

Where to start? Admit that I only really care for the first two records.

Haven't had a chance to play the new on yet, but I highly recommend the 2012 "comeback" record, 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!. That's been my favorite of the new ones, with Luciferian Towers coming in second.

the one they put out after you stopped listening, Yanqui U.X.O., is quite good

Oh, I know up to Yanqui— I was still into them in 2002.

I'll try Allelujah.

The first time I remember crying to music was the first time I heard "Storm."

allelujah is excellent. they played "mladic" when i saw them in 2012 before the album came out and it totally reinvigorated my interest in them

yeah mladic slaps

Cosigned.

In the roll-out to Allelujah I remember thinking I was going to check it out from a sense of loyalty, but that I was probably long past my need for GY!BE in my life. I was quickly proven wrong. Reception for the two following that though, seems a little more mixed. I like both of them, but there doesn't seem to be nearly as big of a consensus on either.

While we're talking about that era, seeing them perform in Big Sur under the stars in front of maybe 200 people at a camp ground, walking to the stage from our site merely a few dozen meters away, is probably a top 3 concert experience. Aidan Girt stopping by our post show camp fire, partaking in our whisky and shit talking the band's experience playing Coachella was absolutely a topper of a memory too

I don't think any music will ever make me feel the way GY!BE did when I was a teenager listening to F♯A♯∞ and Slow Riot... in the dark, but idk I listen to the new album and it's fine I guess?

Yeah, this is great. I think this might be the best of the "comeback" records. Weird to think that they've now put out more full lengths since coming back from the hiatus than they released during the initial run.

The revival has lasted longer than the initial run in terms of years, too.

Not sure anything on the new one pushes my buttons quite the way Mladic does, but that’s a pretty unique thing anyway. New one is very good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmgDLGpl9ME

For a little context

Bro holy shit. The lost Godspeed You! Black Emperor tape is now available.

A random dude on 4chan dropped the full tape where there are only 33 copies of it left and how it used to be a lost media but now it's here today it's crazy. pic.twitter.com/wTmimhTFBo

— Psycho (Like Limited) Lad (@LadPsycho) February 4, 2022

https://www.discogs.com/release/218865-God-Speed-You-Black-Emperor-All-Lights-Fucked-On-The-Hairy-Amp-Drooling

And from the notes on that Discogs page:

Jeanette Leech wrote in "Fearless: The Making Of Post-Rock" (Jawbone Press, 2017) on Page 302-303:
"Menuck was 'doing this four-track thing in my house, usually at three in the morning, coming home from a bar, just doing something quickly, and then trying to turn it into something the next day'. In 1994, as 'a young man's formal experiment', Menuck self-released a cassette, in an edition of thirty-three: All Lights Fucked On The Hairy Amp Drooling.
'The idea was this would be the last thing I would ever do,' Menuck says. 'A big dramatic gesture that nobody would care about. It was a private thing, let's get this out of my system, and then figure out something else to do with my life. It's pretty ragged, and there are some shared qualities with what Godspeed became, but I don't know if those similarities would be evident to anyone but those of us on the inside.' The tape was mostly just Menuck, but Mauro Pezzente also plays on a couple of tracks; the biggest difference between this material and Godspeed, Menuck says, is, 'There's singing on it. I can't really listen to it objectively, and it's not like I listen to it a lot. I think the last time I listened to it was six years ago. I think it's interesting.' Despite many hoaxes, to date the cassette hasn't been leaked on the internet or offered for sale on the open market. 'For years, I've been saying it's gonna get out there someday, and people are gonna be pretty disappointed, because it's of the time,' Menuck says.

😮

reminds me of when someone found the "By Request Only" album from Ken, it's okay but way more fun as a lost media piece

Wow!

Menuck was correct, it's pretty horrible

Huh! Seemed guaranteed to be a fake but someone on Twitter says it's real so.

Listening now.. I actually think this is pretty good? It's just not really a Godspeed album, it's something else. But it might be better than Menuck is giving it credit for (if it's real that is).

After listening, I think that this is the real thing, rather than an elaborate hoax. It's better and more interesting than I was expecting, at least as an artefact of the pre-history of the group. The mythology and mystery of it being totally lost for so long was great, but I'm happy to finally have the chance to hear it.

It's got some great atmosphere and a couple great moments, but yeah - it's a bit of a slog to get through.

Now can we have Carnival of Light and all those early Boards of Canada pressings (Acid Memories, Play By Numbers, etc) leak too?

I know this reflects poorly on me, but I can remember this being "leaked" on 4chan's /mu/ board literally 10 years ago. It's just doing the rounds again.

No opinion on its legitimacy, but weird that this is being claimed as a "new leak" when it's not. Actually I do have an opinion! That fact makes it pretty shady to me

a convincing rip of the whole thing hasn't turned up before, it's new. two tracks were uploaded in 2013 and this new upload that claims to be the entire album includes what appears to be a new rip of those two previously uploaded tracks. this doesn't confirm that any of it is legit though.

i'm not on music torrent sites anymore, but someone can just check whatever the equivalent of what.cd is now. in the old days there was an ENORMOUS bounty for the godspeed thing, and the previous leaks didn't cut it. i heard that the new leak is the real thing, but who knows

i'm not on any of the private trackers these days but i've heard they're waiting for proof of legitimacy before they allow it

True ufo, did not realise that.

the new what.cd is Redacted. Had an account but think it's been disabled due to lack of use (whoops)

yeah redacted has accepted it as real. bounty was 3TB at the end.

GY!BE have released All Lights Fucked officially.

https://godspeedyoublackemperor.bandcamp.com/album/all-lights-fucked-on-the-hairy-amp-drooling

amazing.

I never thought I’d ever hear this, and yet am listening to it now. Wild.

Nice way for them to respond to it finally appearing too.

seeing them for the first time today
pretty stoked

Enjoy! I'm heading to the Glasgow gig tomorrow.

awesome.

I bought a new vinyl copy of f#a#infinity recently and was quite amused to find that constellation still included all that ephemera inside, crushed penny and all

Heard BBF3 for the first time in ~20 years and it held up...