Godspeed You! Black Emperor - The return!

Excellent news! Godspeed You! Black Emperor are back! (click on the image to read)
First show: The Nightmare Before Christmas, ATP festival

Zoom-in: A Silver Mt. Zion

A Silver Mt Zion is a Canadian band from Montreal Quebec, Canada, formed in 1999. The band started as a side project by three members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Efrim Menuck, Thierry Amar and Sophie Trudeau, but their fanbase has expanded since then, and they are no longer seen merely as an offshoot of GYBE but as a unique and separate entity.

The initial scope of A Silver Mt. Zion was a project in which Efrim Menuck hoped to learn how to score music. Menuck would like to communicate better with his fellow musicians by getting familiar with music theory. This idea was soon abandoned as Menuck realised that he preferred not knowing precisely what he was doing when writing, opting to "fumble" instead. Finally, A Silver Mt Zion's debut album was born out of a desire by Efrim Menuck to record something for his dog Wanda, who died of cancer while Godspeed You! Black Emperor were on tour.

A Silver Mt. Zion’s music was initially centered around Menuck’s plaintive piano themes, supported by Amar’s first forays into upright acoustic bass playing and Trudeau’s swirling violin cascades. Their early releases were mostly instrumental albums but, recently, their music often features lyrics and vocals. In fact, the last few albums they have released contain no purely instrumental tracks.

A Silver Mt Zion released five full-length albums and one E.P. so far at the influential record label Constellation records. They use different variations of the name on different releases. The group expanded to six members after their debut in late 2000, with the addition of Rebecca Foon (cello), Ian Ilavsky (guitar) and Jessica Moss (violin), while they are now seven musicians with the addition of Eric Craven (drums) before their most recent release.

Although I personally prefer their first mostly instrumental albums, their lyrics are great, very powerful political words. Excellent band, one of the most influential of the zeros.

More info: Official Website, Last.fm, MySpace, Wikipedia, Constellation records
Live performances: archive.org

Discography:

1. He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms… (2000)



Released as "A Silver Mt. Zion", their debut is a quiet album of beautiful and hypnotic melancholy. Dedicated to Efrim's late dog, Wanda.

Tracks:
1. Broken Chords Can Sing a Little
2. Sit In the Middle of Three Galloping Dogs
3. Stumble Then Rise on Some Awkward Morning
4. Movie (Never Made)
5. 13 Angels Standing Guard 'round the Side of Your Bed
6. Long March Rocket or Doomed Airliner.
7. Blown-out Joy from Heaven's Mercied Hole
8. For Wanda


2. Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward (2001)



Released as "The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band", this album is stunningly, heartbreakingly beautiful in its unfolding, devastating in its beauty and ghostly in its articulation. In my opinion, this is Silver Mt Zion's best album! Absolutely brilliant from the beginning to the end! Only a couple of songs have feature lyrics, but when they do the are great. From "Built Then Burnt (Hurrah! Hurrah!)":
"Dear brothers and sisters
dear enemies and friends
Why are we all so alone here
All we need is a little more hope, a little more joy
All we need is a little more light, a little less weight, a little more freedom..."

Tracks:
1. Sisters! Brothers! Small Boats of Fire Are Falling from the Sky!
2. This Gentle Hearts Like Shot Bird's Fallen
3. Built Then Burnt [Hurrah! Hurrah!]
4. Take These Hands and Throw Them in the River
5. Could've Moved Mountains
6. Tho You Are Gone I Still Often Walk w/ You
7. C'mon Come On (Loose and Endless Longing)
8. The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes


3. "This Is Our Punk-Rock," Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing (2003)



Released as Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-la-la Band with Choir, this time the band is joined by a 22-member choir. A great album, similar to their two previous releases! Again some great lyrics (from "American Motor Over Smoldered Field"):
"Bullets in the bellies of babies
Sleeping in the strangest places
...
This fence around your garden won't keep the sky from falling..."

Tracks:
1. Sow Some Lonesome Corner So Many Flowers Bloom
2. Babylon Was Built on Fire/Starsnostars
3. American Motor Over Smoldered Field
4. Goodbye Desolate Railyard


4. The "Pretty Little Lightning Paw" E.P. (2004)



Released as Thee Silver Mountain Reveries. Many of the band members switched instruments for this recording. For example, Sophie Trudeau, who can usually be found playing violin, plays the bass guitar and Ian Ilavsky, usually one of the band's guitarists, plays drums.

Tracks:
1. More Action! Less Tears!
2. Microphones in the Trees
3. Pretty Little Lightning Paw
4. There's a River in the Valley Made of Melting Snow


5. Horses in the Sky (2005)



Released as Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, this is their first album to feature lyrics on every track. The lyrics here are at their top level! An example from "Horses in the Sky":
"Though we was born defeated
Worried, tired and scared
And monsters build mean robots
Launching rockets into the air

And the wealth of our nations
Fed on angel blood
And our cities shot with moneyed schemes
Built on twigs and mud

And our schools look like prisons
And our prisons look like malls
And downtown's just a sick parade
Where no-one cares at all"

Tracks:
1. God Bless Our Dead Marines
2. Mountains Made of Steam
3. Horses in the Sky
4. Teddy Roosevelt's Guns
5. Hang on to Each Other
6. Ring Them Bells (Freedom Has Come and Gone)


6. 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons (2008)



This is their most recent album and (surprise surprise!) they kept the same name as their previous release. It consists of an instrumental intro, split into twelve very short untitled tracks, and four full songs, which had been played live on recent tours. It's the first time that the album package contains the song lyrics. In the highlight of the album, BlindBlindBlind, the band expresses once again their love for punk music/ideology:
"We want punks in the palace
'Cause punks got the loveliest dreams..."

Tracks:
1-12. [untitled]
13. 1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound
14. 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
15. Black Waters Blowed/Engine Broke Blues
16. BlindBlindBlind

Check the comments to listen before you buy!

Zoom-in: Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Canadian experimental, post-rock group from Montreal, Quebec, one of the greatest bands of the past 15 years, highly influential within the post-rock genre. The band formed around 1994 with three members (Efrim Menuck, Mauro Pezzente and Mike Moya), but its lineup has changed frequently. The group has had as many as twenty members at one time, but has tended to settle down to a group of nine. Their name was taken from a little known 1976 Japanese black-and-white documentary by director Mitsuo Yanagimachi, which follows the exploits of a Japanese biker gang, the Black Emperors (IMDb).

In 1994, GYBE recorded their first self-released cassette, "All Lights Fucked On The Hairy Amp Drooling", limited to just 33 copies. Since then, they released three full-length studio albums and one EP, at Constellation records and Kranky. Working with orchestrated arrangements, the nine-piece group created tracks with wide dynamic ranges, a highly evocative use of instrumentation and sounds and uncompromising long form compositions. Each release usually consists of an entire piece divided into movements, mostly between 15 and 25 minutes, sometimes eponymously specified in the liner notes. Their engrossing use of art and visuals in both album packaging and live performances create an enigmatic aura.

There is a strong political component to the band's music. For example, the liner notes to Yanqui U.X.O. describe the song "09-15-00" as "Ariel Sharon surrounded by 1,000 Israeli soldiers marching on al-Haram Ash-Sharif & provoking another Intifada," and the back cover of that album depicts the relationships of several major record labels to the military-industrial complex. Several of their songs also incorporate voice samples which express political sentiments, most notably "The Dead Flag Blues" (on F♯A♯∞) and "BBF3" (on Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada).

GYBE announced an indefinite hiatus in 2003. Members of the group have formed a number of side-projects, including A Silver Mt. Zion, Fly Pan Am and Set Fire to Flames.

More Info/Listen: Official Website, Last.fm, MySpace, Wikipedia, MiC (greek)
Labels: Constellation Records, Kranky
Live performances: archive.org

Discography (more info/downloads here)

1. All lights fucked on the hairy amp drooling (1994, cassette)



Released in 1994 when GYBE was a three-member group, this is a very rare album. If anybody has this one, please post the link!

Side A
1. drifting intro open
2. shot thru tubes
3. three three three
4. when all the furnaces exploded
5. beep
6. hush
7. son of a diplomat, daughter of a politician
8. glencairn 14
9. $13.13
10. loose the idiot dogs
11. diminishing shine
12. random luvly moncton blue(s)
13. dadmomdaddy

Side B
1. 333 frames per second
2. revisionist alternatif wounds to the hair-cut hit head
3. ditty for moya
4. buried ton
5. and the hairy guts shine
6. hoarding
7. deterior 23
8. all angels gone
9. deterior 17
10. deterior three
11. devil's in the church
12. no job
13. dress like shit
14. perfumed pink corpses from the lips of ms. celine dion


2. F♯A♯∞ (1997)

Initially limited to 500 numbered copies, GYBE's debut studio album was released by Constellation records in 1997 and a year later it was re-issued by Kranky records, remastered and changed in some areas (and with different artwork). One of the best albums of the nineties!

The band contributed the song "East Hastings" to the UK film 28 Days Later, directed by Danny Boyle, though the song was heavily edited; this was an unusual step for the ensemble. However, the track is excluded from the CD soundtrack, due to group ethics.


Tracks (1997 release, Constellation):
1. Side A: nervous, sad, poor
2. Side B: bleak, uncertain, beautiful


Tracks (1998 release, Kranky):
1. The Dead Flag Blues: the dead flag blues (intro); slow moving trains; the cowboy; (outro)
2. East Hastings: nothing's alrite in our life / dead flag blues (reprise); the sad mafioso; drugs in tokyo / black helicopter
3. Providence: divorce & fever; dead metheny; kicking horse on brokenhill; string loop manufactured during downpour; j.l.h. outro

3. Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada (E.P., 1999)

Slow riot: two words that describe perfectly the music of GYBE. Two tracks, thirty minutes of top class music! The front of the album contains Hebrew characters, in transliterated form, "tohu va vohu" (תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ), a phrase used in the Old Testament and carries no agreed-upon meaning among theological circles. It could mean "wasteland" or "nothingness". The back of the EP contains a diagram with instructions in Italian on how to make a molotov cocktail.

Tracks:
1. Moya
2. BBF3

4. Lift yr. skinny fists like antennas to heaven (2000)

This is my favourite GYBE album. A double album, absolutely brilliant from the beginning to the end. Beautiful artwork by William Schaff (and here).

Tracks:
1. Storm: lift yr. skinny fists, like antennas to heaven; gathering storm; "welcome to barco am/pm..." [l.a.x.; 5/14/00]; cancer towers on holy road hi-way
2. Static: terrible canyons of static; atomic clock; chart #3; world police and friendly fire; [...+the buildings they are sleeping now]
3. Sleep: murray ostril: "...they don't sleep anymore on the beach..."; monheim; broken windows, locks of love pt. III. / 3rd part
4. Antennas to Heaven: moya sings "baby-o"; edgyswingsetacid; [glockenspiel duet recorded on a campsite in rhinebeck, n.y.]; "attention...mon ami...fa-lala-lala-la-la..." [55-St.Laurent]; she dreamt she was a bulldozer, she dreamt she was alone in an empty field; deathkamp drone [antennas to heaven...]

5. Yanqui U.X.O. (2002)

This is the most recent GYBE album, recorded by Steve Albini in 2002. Yanqui is the Spanish word for Yankee. The liner notes also refer to Yanqui as a "multinational corporate oligarchy", while "U.X.O." stands for "unexploded ordnance". The packaging of the album contains an arrow diagram purporting to represent the links between four major record labels (AOL Time-Warner, BMG, Sony, Vivendi Universal) and various arms manufacturers. This chart accompanied a photograph of falling bombs. One more excellent album, hopefully not the last one!

Tracks:
1. 09-15-00
2. 09-15-00 (cont.)
3. rockets fall on rocket falls
4. motherfucker=redeemer
5. motherfucker=redeemer (cont.)

Check the comments to listen before you buy.