Godspeed You! Black Emperor

[cringleman]

I'm sorta new here. I know.

 

I've just been floating about, for the past week, perusing the threads around here and generally making use of the account I registered for over a year ago (for the first time, really, except for asking Matt Good a question in the site-wide interview).

 

In participating in Shortcut to Moncton's Musical Discussion Thread, I noticed that he brought up one of my favourite bands, Godspeed You! Black Emperor (ignore the exclamation point; it used to end their name, and they moved it to the middle just to be esoteric).

 

After making wise use of the site's search function, I realized that only Moncton had ever mentioned them like, ev-errr.

 

Have you people never heard of post-rock (a term coined by Godspeed, and later abandoned by them once the press latched onto it)? (Sometimes lumped into the 'ambient' category.)

 

I'm beginning to ramble, so I will tell you this: Godspeed You! Black Emperor play sweeping, instrumental, quasi-classical arrangements of music using a variety of instrumentation. They were a fiercely anti-establishment group, almost never gave interviews, and left a huge impression on the post-rock genre (which now includes bands as diverse as Set Fire to Flames, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, A Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and countless others).

 

They were also from Montr

Edited August 11, 2006 by cringleman

[no yu begin wher i end]

I remember checking them out a couple years ago, and they really weren't my thing; but times change, so I'll go a-hunting once more. Thanks for reminding me of them.

[mrjones]

Yeah, they had a song called 'Lift Your Skinny Fists..." or something. I remember it was pretty damn good.

[Ravenous megin-sane]

theyre okay

[HoboFactory]

I dig them. Very interesting music.

[Ruettiger]

I really enjoy all of the bands you listed, along with HRSTA (same crew of GSY!BE and ASMZ). This genre of music is really kick ass. That is all.

[somnambulist]

Hmm, pretty cool from their previews on myspace at least. I hate the term post-anything, however. ;)

[cringleman]

Yeah, the 'post-X' terminology is a little nondescriptive for my tastes, too.

 

As far as I recall, I think 'Lift Yr Skinny Fists ...' is a movement from either Storm, Static or Sleep (three of four tracks on the album of that name; the last is Antennas to Heaven).

 

The most famous band of this genre that slipped my mind: Sigur Ros. Who are also awesome.

[Shiri]

They're very interesting. But my favorite instrumental rock band will remain Mogwai.

[MuttersomeTaxicab]

They're very interesting. But my favorite instrumental rock band will remain Mogwai.

Well said.

 

Godspeed is excellent. I think Red Sparowes will forever be my jam, but that's no slight against the instrumental-only folk. There's plenty of post-love to go around.

[borntohula]

i wish they would make another record... because as much as i like a silver mt. zion, yanqui u.x.o. blew my noggin wide open and remains one of my favorite albums of all time.

[Ruettiger]

i wish they would make another record... because as much as i like a silver mt. zion, yanqui u.x.o. blew my noggin wide open and remains one of my favorite albums of all time.

I bought that in Edmonton, and it's a really awesome CD. However, for the most part, Explosions in the Sky have to be my favourite out of that genre.

[Ravenous megin-sane]

i can only listen to those bands sometimes and not continuously. otherwise my head explodes

[cringleman]

You know, it's funny -- I do enjoy ASMZ a bit, but it's never really done it for me in the same way that GY!BE did. They're technically not broken up, though, so they could, one day, release a new album.

 

Personally, my new favourite instrumental band has been The Fussy Part, out of Fredericton, NB. They also play some sort of alt-pop stuff, but their big-build style ambient grooves are just slick. Their drummer also kicks some serious, serious ass. (No album, yet, though -- all the members are in other bands, so it remains a side project.)

[borntohula]

i can only listen to those bands sometimes and not continuously. otherwise my head explodes

yeah. like when im listenning to my mp3 player in my car and a "post-rock" band comes on, i dont usually let it play, seeing as how i dont normally spend more than 20 minutes in my car at a time.

[shade]

I used to be really into post rock:

 

Red Sparowes, GY!BE (and their many side-projects), Mono, Gregor Samsa etc

 

Now it's gotten kind of played out. I still dig the odd listen, especially to the album Malval by Shora.

 

 

Edit: mistake

Edited August 12, 2006 by shade

[Shiri]

i can only listen to those bands sometimes and not continuously. otherwise my head explodes

yeah. like when im listenning to my mp3 player in my car and a "post-rock" band comes on, i dont usually let it play, seeing as how i dont normally spend more than 20 minutes in my car at a time.

It's not really driving music. It's more of studying music. I remember Mogwai and those type of bands were high in my Last.fm charts when I was studying last year.

[borntohula]

exactly. i think the lack of "catchyness", lyrics or repetition surely makes those kinds of bands a lot easier to study to.

[Shiri]

Yeah, otherwise I just end up singing along.

[somnambulist]

I bought From Fiction's Bloodwork. It's kinda like that, not much repetition or catchiness. It's pretty cool though.

[Shortcut To Moncton]

I can't believe I didn't see this thread earlier.

 

I notice that you did make an EDIT but yes, obviously Godspeed didn't coin "post-rock" which is actually a branch off of math-rock. Cringle, you've mentioned A LOT of contemporary "post-rock" groups like Godspeed, Explosions In The Sky, Mogwai, Sigur Ros, etc but those groups all formed in the later stages of the '90s. The true grasp of post-rock died in the mid to late 90s (dare I say 1997? Well I just did).

 

Groups like Slint (listen to the album Spiderland), Tortoise, Chavez, Polvo, June Of 44, Archers Of Loaf, subsequently Sebadoh, revolutionized the post-rock scene in the early '90s. These math-rock bands were more set on creating complex musical arrangements and even had vocals to blend with the songs. Post-Rock of today has really become atmospheric and 100% instrumental while the math-rock scene of the mid 90s was really dependent on guitars and a ton of feedback.

[cringleman]

Interesting -- thanks, Moncton. I didn't know any of that.

 

I find it interesting that early post-rock was very guitar-driven, when the new front of the genre generally sees a large usage of guitars, but in a way that is almost equivalent to strings as arranged in more classical music.

 

Cool.

[chazzer]

I went to see Silver Mt. Zion perform last week. They were excellent. Definitely check out their stuff as well as the Godspeed You! Black Emperor material when you have the chance.