Godspeed You! Black Emperor

[Ufotofu]

Are there any other people on this board who listen to this group? They're probably my second favorite band, behind Underworld, of course.

Their sound is so haunting and powerful, and the spoken-word samples scattered throughout their work are so memorable, even from the first listen.

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 is the valley of death
I open up my wallet
and it's full of blood

[dubman]

dammit, i thought this was a post saying a new album would be coming

but yeah, they're completely great. as sick as i should be of the whole build/crest/calm/crescendo thing, them and mogwai have hung in there that i fall in love everytime i hear "storm" or "moya" or "9-15-00". as much as i liked the last silver mt. zion album, i think it's becoming more of an excuse to stop focusing and just let fly instead of having to write something so friggin gorgeous again
or maybe its time has just come and gone y'know. it's not like mono and 65 days of satic have done anything interesting recently *ducks*

[thee carp dreamer]

"albanian" and "gamelan" are fucking lush. gybe should just record those two in the studio and chuck it out as an ep.

[Scott Warner]

like their music but not a fan of their agenda or way they conduct themselves.

[Ufotofu]

I've got to agree about their conduct. I read a response from Efrim to the press, after an interview, and while I agreed with some of his points, I thought his demeanor was overly condescending and rude.

Still, they make great albums. Were "Albanian" and "Gamelan" live-only songs? Or are they components of tracks from their albums?

[Strangelet]

but he apologized!!

[Ufotofu]

That was the response I was talking about...

"easier to dismiss us as hypocrites than to actually engage us in a debate or a conversation"?

"we did an interview with a liar"?

"so,
maybe from now on we keep our mouths shut some more, yeah?
leave the talking to the talkers,
keep our heads down and lips buttoned, yeah?
ok."

I mean, who says that?

[Scott Warner]

I actually corresponded with them after the release of their record that had the chart linking entertainment companies to the military industrial complex. Turns out that the project I was working on at the time - a military training simulation that became 'Full Spectrum Warrior' - was included as part of that chart under the label 'Future Combat Systems'. This was partially correct but under the name they listed that we were involved in things that we weren't so I emailed them and basically said "Hey, like your music but this is incorrect." What I recieved was a lecture on how I should educate the people around me about the horrible things we were up to... and it's like, look guy, I know you like your half assed Internet Research Conspiracy Diagram but not only is it incorrect, some of the links between the companies you are making are stretches at best. In our case, they made a link between Sony and the Army which given the whole package makes things look convieniently dark n' sinister but at the end of the day the total Sony involvement in the project was a handful of artists and animators.

They never corrected the diagram.

[Strangelet]

it sounded like you got off easy. While I admire the UR type response to the media machine, its always the same everyoneisagainstmeincludingmeownmum shit that just ends in frustrating the art, the fans, and the artist.

Efrim even lowers himself to bash the interviewer, who wrote a strict Q&A of the interview. "You struck me as a lost, weak, lonely man and I felt a fair amount of misguided empathy towards you… I now regret feeling anything at all, and I wish you nothing but continued misery, loneliness and despair…"

link

[Scott Warner]

While I admire the UR type response to the media machine

Me too... but if you always come at people in that middle finger, polarizing kind of way you're destined to preach to the choir and marginalize yourself. Case in point.