 |
LIFT YR. SKINNY FISTS LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAV
Godspeed You Black Emperor
(Kranky)
This is a melancholy, disturbing work. It's also very beautiful. If that sounds like it might tickle your fancy, read on.
Like any piece of music that either has or mimics a symphonic structure, this fresh double disc by Godspeed You Black Emperor not only bears repeated listening, it requires it.
At first seemingly lighter and more positive than previous business by this tough-to-define band, around 14 minutes into the first swirling song things get dark and smoky, like the music backing an apocryphal David Lynch movie about an Apache massacre.
Describing these discs note by note would be shooting in the dark, but beyond sounding like classical music played by hell's demons, each and every sample from the real world is what makes this set so cool.
An intercom voice from an AM-PM convenience store reminds customers not to talk to the homeless selling things, some distorted broadcast has slow, sad piano played over it, and it gets even more heartbreaking when a clearly loopy man talks about his near-death religious revelations, and how they will be dubbed as madness, all over more classical playing. The man is mad, but aware that he is, which makes it more touching, especially with the soundtrack. "I went through that last segment where I went through these dark serpentines ... You will believe you have gone insane," he says.
It's creepy, but we like scary movies, so why not music?
OK, not exactly party patrol radio hits, though that all depends what kind of parties you throw. They don't all have to be about drinking beer and making noise. Sometimes things just need to get weird, and this stuff is on the edge. But it's also, as I said, rather beautiful, which redeems the strangeness, if indeed strangeness needs such redemption.
Track Listing
1.Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
02.Gathering Storm
03.Il Pleut A Mourir (& Clatters Like Worry)
04.Welcome To Barco AM/PM
05.Cancer Towers On Holy Road Hi-Way
06.Terrible Canyons Of Static
07.Atomic Clock
08.Chart #3
09.World Police And Friendly Fire
10.The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now
11.Murry Ostril: "They Don't Sleep Anymore On The Beach"
12.Monheim
13.Broken Window, Locks Of Love Pt. 3
14.Baby O
15.Edgyswingsetacid
16.Attention... Mon Ami... Fa Lala Lala La La
17.She Dreamt She Was A Bulldozer, She Dremt She Was Alone In An Empty Field
18.Deathkamp Drone
19.Antennas To Heaven