Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Sense-rattling wall-of-sound
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
began with Efrim Menuck, Mauro Pezzente and Mike Moya in Montréal
in the early 90s, playing a handful of shows and recording a
self-released cassette as a trio before beginning to transform the group into a large band. Recruiting numerous Montreal musicians
through 1995-1996, GYBE mounted sense-rattling wall-of-sound performances, featuring as many as 14 musicians and several 16mm film projectors, eventually self-
recording their debut vinyl-only version of F#A#∞,
released on Constellation in late summer 1997. The band's Hotel2Tango warehouse
space in Montréal's Mile-End district was a central
hive of DIY activity, with band rehearsal rooms, silkscreen and wood shops, and weekend shows that took place under the radar.
The
group settled into a permanent
nine-member line-up by late 1998, with Aidan Girt and Bruce Cawdron
on drums, Thierry Amar and Mauro on basses,
Efrim, Dave Bryant
and Roger Tellier-Craig on guitars, and Norsola Johnson
and Sophie Trudeau on cello and violin respectively. The band toured and
recorded continuously from 1998-2002 and gained a reputation for mesmerising live shows marked
by orchestral dynamics, epic rock power
and clunky, beautiful film loops. Following hundreds
of concerts and the release
of four records
- F#A#∞ (1997), Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada EP (1999), and the double
albums Lift Your Skinny
Fists Like Antennas
To Heaven (2000) and Yanqui U.X.O. (2002), GYBE went on hiatus in 2003.
Various GYBE offshoots continued with their own momentum through
the 2000s, most notably The Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band (including Efrim, Sophie and Thierry), Hrsta (led
by Moya), Fly Pan Am (featuring Roger), Esmerine (co-founded by Bruce), 1-Speed Bike (Aidan's solo punk-techno project) and Set Fire To
Flames (led by Dave, and
including Bruce, Moya, Roger and Sophie).
Godspeed returned to live performance
in December 2010, when the band was invited to curate and perform at All
Tomorrow's Parties in the UK. This was followed by renewed and extensive
international touring. October 2012 saw the
release of 'ALLELUJAH! DON'T
BEND! ASCEND!, their first
recorded work in a decade,
to near-unanimous critical acclaim, including a 9.3 rating and Best New Music at Pitchfork and the appearance on countless year-end
lists. The similarly praised 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress' followed in March 2015; this album marked the group's
first personnel change in many years, with Tim Herzog replacing Bruce on drums.
Throughout Godspeed's 'post-hiatus' period, experimental filmmaker Karl Lemieux has been the band's primary creator
(and projectionist) of 16mm film footage and loops;
an array of analog film projectors remains
central to GYBE's
live performances.
Godspeed collaborated with Holy Body Tattoo
on monumental in
2016-2017, performing live to the acclaimed modern dance piece in various
cities around the world. The band also premiered new work commissioned to memorialize the 100th anniversary of the WWI Battle
of Messines at a live
concert event on the
site of the massacre at Heuvelland, Belgium in June 2017.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
released their third
post-reunion album (and seventh record
overall) Luciferian Towers on 22 September 2017 on the band's self-run label, Constellation.
- website:
- http://www.brainwashed.com/godspeed/