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<< The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows
The government is corrupt
And we're on so many drugs
With the radio on and the curtains drawn
We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death
The sun has fallen down
And the billboards are all leering
And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles
It went like this:
The buildings tumbled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies picked through the rubble
And pulled out their hair
The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze
I said: "kiss me, you're beautiful
These are truly the last days"
You grabbed my hand and we fell into it
Like a daydream or a fever
We woke up one morning and fell a little further down
For sure it's the valley of death
I open up my wallet
And it's full of blood >>
If you want to know why I don't like labeling music into genres, the answer is right here before your eyes.
The Godspeed You! Black Emperor have long been considered one of the most influential and fundamental groups of ''Post-Rock''. A genre I infinitely appreciate, but which, between us, ends up often delivering works that are too similar to each other. A sort of remix of the same old soup, constantly drawing inspiration from classics of twenty years ago like ''Young Team'' by the dear Mogwai.
This album too - ''F# A# ∞'' - is from twenty years ago. But do you want to know the difference? No one, even today, is capable of playing like Godspeed You! Black Emperor managed to play on this record.
The term ''Post-Rock'', then, is as ambiguous as it gets when defining a musical genre. Essentially, with ''Post-Rock'', we mean an innovative/non-traditional use of instruments usually employed in the Rock domain.
Within ''F# A# ∞'' we won't find the reheated same old soup. Instead, we will find pure, genuine, unique, and unclassifiable music.
The unwillingness to conform to any musical trend, simply the desire to express their own music ideology, this is what led GY!BE to release one of the most memorable debuts of the last thirty years of history and, if I may, ever in the Rock domain.
The flux of the Canadians is as challenging as it gets to express in words: a meeting point between minimalist avant-garde, rock, classical music, electronics, and pure experimentation.
The atmospheres are dark, mystical, foggy. The listening is individual and deep. It strikes, it scrapes. In short, it hits the point, where many contemporaries have failed multiple times. And it does so in a manner as upsetting as it is unique.
''F# A# ∞'' is like the slow and deep narration of a gloomy event: the superb arrangements are placed in small, well-chiseled spaces, some spoken parts, poems, dialogues, monologues, and finally silence and noise. Then, once again, it's Rock that dominates, with a strong nod to the use of drones and string instruments.
(The version I'm reviewing is the CD version released one year later. It presents some differences in arrangements and track division compared to the vinyl version published the previous year.)
The album is thus divided into three long suites:
- The Dead Flag Blues - lacerated musical poetry.
- East Hastings - eclectic Rock.
- Providence - Probably the real masterpiece of the album. Hard to describe in words. It's the perfect synthesis of what I tried to express before in words. Within this long suite of almost half an hour are all the ingredients previously described, skillfully mixed together.
A work of art. Perhaps a last flicker of genius, capable of revolutionizing and resizing a musical scene as troubled as it is in need, of artists, and minds like those of Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
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