The calm of each passing breath, ephemeral, flickering hesitant lights pouring in from the skies, mutating machinery and twisting construction yards, a black kite\u2019s turn for redemption. We stand on the precipice as a species and loving one another has never been more important. Fractured ink blots over images of bombs dropping from the heavens. The noise never stops and we don\u2019t want it to. Days seem like hours, hours seem like minutes, minutes turn into the very semblance of time itself until it\u2019s pulverized and nothing becomes everything. Transmission detritus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That bit of prose may read like a one off from a madman who has disregard for most things, or perhaps love for everything, and maybe it is, but it\u2019s also a testimonial, an account of my encounter with Godspeed You! Black Emperor, one of the progenitors of post-rock\u2014a shapeshifting genre which continues to spawn new bands, seemingly out of thin air. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
They played the first show of two at MTelus (a place the band commonly refers to as the Telephone Venue) and the merch was an anarchist book fair on on side and various vinyls spanning their illustrious career on the other. That\u2019s with no word of hyperbole: they\u2019ve made seven records since their genesis in the late \u201890s. The latest is G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END!<\/em> <\/em><\/strong>which homes in on the heavy tenacity and experimentation of this Montreal eight-piece. About a year before its official release in 2021, I heard an early pressing of this album in an Edmonton record store before moving to Godpseed\u2019s home of Montreal. The clerk would only tell me, \u201cIt\u2019s a new Godspeed record, but I can\u2019t dare<\/em> say more.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n This album might be the band at their most fractured and angry since Yanqui U.X.O.<\/em> It was written on the road during a tour that was halted because of the pandemic, which in a way presented a twisted opportunity for musicians to reconcile with why they make music in the first place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 16mm projections created by Karl Lemieux & Philippe Leonard were as much part of the show as the eight musicians sitting and standing on stage. Incandescent alabaster sculptures took the scenery by surprise and footage of dog fights were filtered through tones of dirty craven yellow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There was no pageantry. The members of GY!BE took their seats (or stood in the case of the string section which includes a thundering bass guitar) and slowly began \u201cHope Drone,\u201d a song that has been in a state of metamorphosis since its live debut in San Francisco in 2013. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The final moments of \u201cHope Drone\u201d dripped into \u201cFirst of the Last Glaciers\u201d which, despite its obscurity, is one of the heaviest songs GY!BE has ever conceived (though it\u2019s really part two of the song \u201cA Military Alphabet,\u201d from G_d’s Pee<\/em>). I know, it\u2019s hard not to think of the person writing this as some pretentious twit who hides in his basement and only listens to Godspeed records, but it\u2019s important to give proper credit to art. And that\u2019s what this is. ART. This band has its own mythology and it\u2019s hard to not get consumed by it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n