šŸŽµ How Good Are They Really šŸŽµ Godspeed You! Black Emperor

After this new Remi Wolf album tho cos itā€™s really fun

F# A# āˆž absolutely blew my mind when it came out. I donā€™t think Iā€™d heard anything like it. And Skinny Fists was similarly superb. I played New Zero Kanada on repeat though, mainly for BBF3, which is their masterpiece for me.

Everything after that has been diminishing returns for me though. For some reason I just donā€™t really click with them anymore. A 4 from me for how much they shifted my musical orbit as a young music lover.

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Big fan of their Polaris Prize win:

ā€œThe Canadian band won the award, which recognises creativity in Canadian recorded music, last year for their album ā€˜Allelujah! Donā€™t Bend! Ascend!ā€™ and immediately responded by criticising the event in a lengthy statement, saying it didnā€™t ā€œserve the cause of righteous music at allā€. They later donated their $30,000 prize money to a fund that provides prisoners with musical instruments.ā€

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Listening to that Lift Your Skinny Ball Bags one. Realised Iā€™ve only ever heard it on shit iPod earphones before, likely while on a bus or walking around somewhere.

With headphones on in a quiet office, itā€™s quite good.

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Saw them perform both of these the first time I caught them live (also wished Iā€™d had a seat for this show) - they were absolute monsters! Really rate the reunion albums tbh.

Been listening to G_dā€™s Pee this week actually and this track is great:

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Essentially this :point_down:

In Higher Physics I sat next to a lad called Craig (who now presents a Scottish football telly show wierdly) and throughout the year he fed me cds, some I couldnā€™t get into at all (belle & sebastian) some grew on me (loveless) but Life Yr Skinny Fists was an absolute life changer for me. Iā€™d never heard anything like it. I was confused to what it actually was, was this classical music? Iā€™d never even heard of post rock. But it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I loved it.

When I think about it they were probably a gateway for me to move away from listening to nothing but Green Day, Blink 182, Muse and the like.

I was obsessed with the artwork. The front cover, the insides with the dude getting his hands getting chopped off and the picture of what looked like a hardcore punk band (is this them??). I have the hands tattooed on me.

Think all their work up to Allelujah is stunning (I even like Yanqui). After that itā€™s a bit hit and miss for me but never enough for me to drop them to a 4.

Had to wait about 10 years to see them but when I did it was this show and it was absolutely everything I ever wanted. Goosebumps, shivers, tear in the eye.

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Might up them to a 5, then

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remember seeing them at maybe troxy? as a youngun by myself. got way too stoned beforehand, nearly puked in the horrible toilets, then had to keep my eyes shut to stop the room spinning when the band were playing. ended up being propped up by a couple of massive lads with my eyes shut for an hour and a half.

good times.

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ā€˜seeingā€™

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youā€™ve convinced me theyā€™re a 2/5 actually

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I acknowledge that they are talented and interesting, but for whatever reason they donā€™t completely click for me. Probably a 3.5 but since itā€™s Friday Iā€™ve rounded that up to a 4.

You used your 3rd eye

They are just the fivest of fives :heart::heart::heart:. The best.

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Love the sweeping strings on this:

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Imagine how good the new stuff could be if theyā€™d just parsed some samples through it

Saw them at an early Bowlie/ATP, memory tells me in the little room but my memory also isnā€™t the best. Hadnā€™t heard anything about them before so didnā€™t know what to expect, but remember me and a couple of mates just being completely dumbstruck by them. Listened to the first few records a lot and enjoyed seeing them the few times I have done since then, though like most bands that have been going that long Iā€™ve not kept up with their output, so maybe lucky but never heard anything that I didnā€™t rate.

Also always enjoyed it whenever I was on some grim bus route and theyā€™d pop up on shuffle and add a bit of slow drama to the journey.

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@nicholasurfe is writing an epic I feel, gā€™warn buddyā€¦

Itā€™s a 5.

In hindsight, Iā€™m surprised at myself at just how young I was when I got into them. I remember F#A#OO being included on NMEā€™s ā€œtop 50 albums of 1998ā€ with just a paragraph of text under the album cover. I was 15. I was into Mogwai and Arab Strap and some other stuff that I would put in the same bracket like DJ Shadow and Unkle and Vanishing Point by Primal Scream, that although donā€™t much sound alike, would inspired a certain sense of something that at the time I didnā€™t really understood, but in hindsight were the first indications that I was in a different place mentally that perhaps my friends were, who preferred rocking out to Supergrass and The Bluetones.

Just the cover art and that basic description sold me. At the time my home town only had MVC who couldnā€™t order it. I had to go to HMV in Southampton to order it, some time in early 1999. In hindsight the internet was probably a thing at that time, and I probably could have listened to it, or ordered it online, but we were still on a dial-up connection at the time and I was limited to only being able to use the internet at home for a maximum of 60 minutes a day because of the cost. So I think this was the first time I ever bought a record without hearing a note of it beforehand. They guy in HMV looked at me, and said ā€œblimeyā€ when he saw what I was ordering. I think this guy is, or was a well-known music guy in Southampton.

It took about three weeks to arrive. I canā€™t remember where I was the first time I listened to it, but it was probably in my attic bedroom. What I do remember, is that I had absolutely never heard anything like it . All the field recordings, found sounds or whatever, the fact that it was only 3 tracks spread over an hour. Just incredible. At the time, my favourite part was on track three, the second movement (Iā€™ve never been able to remember the segment names) with the big drums. Come on Die Young came out a months or so after, and I would just alternate between the two albums, listening to them and watching whatever films came on late at night, but with the sound off, subtitles on, and listening to those two albums at the same time. I think the first time I saw Dirty Harry, Taxi Driver and Evil Dead II were soundtracked.

I wasnā€™t regularly buying NME at this point, but I was so enamoured with the recommendation, and that they gave Mogwai a cover story and a good review. So I started buying things by bands NME mentioned in their 'check out these new bands" section, that was called discover, or introducting or something like that.

I had my first part time job by this point, cleaning rooms at a Montessori nursery school as well as at a crappy sports hall located in the same building. I would take the Ā£20 I had at the end of the week, hop on a train to Southampton and buy things NME recommended. I canā€™t remember everything I bought in that time, but I definitely bought Knock Knock by Smog, Spiderland by Slint and On the Wires of Our Nerves and Little Black Rocks in the Sun by Add N to X.

There was also a record fair in Southampton in the Guildhall basement once a month. Originally, I went there with my friends and bought Ash bootlegs, Llama Farmer Cds and Idlewild 7"s, but there was one stall that had all the stuff I wanted. I remember buying a ton of Billy Mahonie singles and stuff by Rothko, Piano Magic, Clinic, etc, as well as the Slint untitled EP. I definitely had this album: Will Our Children Thank Us (1999, CD) - Discogs

I canā€™t remember exactly when Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada came out, but I definitely bought it the weekend after it was released. I bought it from HMV in Southampton and the same guy saw me buying it, and nodded at me in an ā€œI knew youā€™d be back for thisā€ kind of way. I think it was early summer. 1999 was the year I took my GCSEs, and I remember listening to a mixtape Iā€™d made which had ā€˜Moyaā€™ on it walking around the playing fields at school, so it had to have come out before the study break. By the time I was taking my GCSEs, I was listening to The Soft Bulletin by The Flaming Lips. But anyway, Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada is still my favourite Godspeed album, and in hindsight itā€™s kind of weird that I think of that as being a summer classic, and all the others are bleak midwinter affairs.

I never saw any of the bands mentioned above during this time. Apart from an astonishing show at Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms, where Appliance and Hovercraft supported Add N to X. I also saw Dark Star supporting Ultrasound, both of which I was into at the time. Both great shows.

I think it was somewhere around the time when NME had their famous Godspeed You Black Emperor! cover story, with just the lyrics of The Dead Flag Blues printed in an ominous font. Absolutely ludicrous, especially if you consider that a mere three years later, NME would be raving about Dolf De Datsun and having full page spreads about why Craig Nichollā€™s from the Vines was the perfect rock star, with arrows pointing at various parts of his body and why they were perfect.

At some point in 1999, I picked up the Kranky compilation album, called ā€˜Kompilationā€™ which featured Godspeed, but also introduced me to Low, Windy and Carl, and Stars of the Lid.

I saw Mogwai in Brighton in 1999 and at that point, it was the best show I had ever seen. Godspeed played at the Royal Festival Hall, supported by Sigur-Ros. To be honest, I wasnā€™t into it. I donā€™t know what they played, but although the visuals were cool an arresting, I think they were knocked for six by a dodgy ferry crossing from Ireland, turned up late, Fly Pan Am had to cancel and the whole thing was a bit underwhelming.

Roll on a year and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas came out. By this time we had a better internet connection, so I used to stay up all night listening to Godspeed. Because itā€™s much longer, it took me longer to get into, but it was perfect for lengthy online sessions, which I mainly spent in a Manic Street Preacherā€™s chatroom, which for the most part, seemed to be mostly populated by people who preferred other music.

I finally saw Godspeed again in 2002, at the Shellac ATP. This was my first ATP. I remember being absolutely wasted, but I also remember Godspeed being absolutely incredible that night.

I also went to the ATP that was curated by Slint. There was one evening, after the bands finished. I was pretty drunk. I canā€™t remember at what time of night it was, of it was early morning. But it started snowing. Someone started playing ā€˜Stormā€™ by Godspeed at full blast out of their chalet window. A bunch of people, drunk, high, or just lost in the moment came out of our chalets while the song was playing, with the first flakes of snow coming down. We all just stood in a circle together in silence during the first part of Storm, and then as it built and built we all just collectively lost our shit.

I think this is where my narrative fits in with others in this thread. I bought Yanqui UXO the day it came out. I listened to it twice, and felt absolutely nothing. Iā€™m still not sure if itā€™s just not that good, or if between the releases I had changed from a 15 year old, alienated and depressed, to whatever I was when I was a student 19/20 or whatever (the fact that I canā€™t remember what year it came out tells a lot about my connection with i) - mostly an arrogant prick with a bad faith attitude towards people who liked certain music, who considered himself an expert in music because I wrote for the uni rag. I had a lot of friends at this point, and for a few years, I felt like that guy in HMV, who was just into stuff and people wanted to know what I thought about music, even if I went about it in a dickish way sometimes.

I think the fact that they have released anything all since then is a miracle, and Iā€™m thankful that new msuic by them in the last 10 years even exists. Itā€™s funny that the intervening years between Yanqui UXO and the first comeback album, I went from being a pretty popular student guy with opinions, back to a loner again, living in Poland and literally nobody I could talk to about music again. I had somehow retuned to how I felt as a teenager. As a result, the surprise (to me) release of Allelujah, Donā€™t Bend, Ascend! was a curious wonder, and I found myself listening to it on headphones as the snow started falling for winter, and it reminded me of that time at Camber Sands when everyone was dancing in snow to Storm.

The last three albums. I just listened to them, thought ā€˜Glad this band are still togetherā€™, cherry picked my tracks and left it at that. And I have left it at that.

5

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My Adrian Gurvitz prediction came true!

This is incredible. What a post

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