godspeed you! black emperor > lift your skinny fists like antennas to heaven

i love this album, plain and simple. it would definitely be on my list of desert island discs. it's kinda like classical music for the 21st century. there are four tracks, each averaging about 18-20 minutes in length. to me, the music on this album conjures up feelings of hope, wonder, sadness, fear and dread. the strings are beautiful in the movement with the preacher's sermon, they really evoke this melancholy, gloomy feeling. (the monologue is transcribed here, if you'd like to check out the original page.)

...prepared in innocence to meet our king of glory
and so we have this
you have it in your secret windows
and you're understanding to understand it and to bring it forth
it takes minute detail
it takes a holy life
it takes emotions
it takes dedication
it takes dedication
it takes a death
and only god can allow it
and you couldn't do it if you're not the seed of god
and so the path through the great corridors
these are corridors unto his perfection
that is which the prophet and the oarman summoned has penetrated
that through this great sea of blackness
that i penetrated through these corridors
and i went through that last segment
where i went through these dark serpentines
i passed through that corridor
where they sat
where they are
and when you penetrate to the most high god
you will believe you are mad
you will believe you've gone insane
but i tell you if you follow the secret window
and you die to the ego nature
you will penetrate this darkness
oh yes there's many a man or woman
that's been put in the insane asylum
when this has happened to them
and they're sitting there today, people think they're insane
but they saw something that's real
and they see it when they're on drugs
the only thing is they see it
not through the light of god, and the way i show you
i show you to see it through the light of god
and the understanding of god
because when you see the face of god you will die
and there will be nothing left of you
except the god-man, the god-woman
the heavenly man, the heavenly woman
the heavenly child
there will be terror under this day of night
there will be a song of jubilee waiting for your king
there will be nothing you will be looking for in this world
except for your god
this is all a dream
a dream in death

and so i went through that window
and the tower of hell and the great serpentines of the highest order
and i went through that when i showed you chart #3
the question is asked and learned and someone who....

my favorite track is the third one, or rather the first track on the second disc. it starts off with a man reminiscing about the old days of coney island. he talks about how people used to sleep on the beach there and also mentions he got lost at coney island as a child. the music fades in and it's like a scene from a movie or something. i can almost visualize this old man thinking about the old days and perhaps wondering how the world got to where it is today. maybe he's sad and he's wondering about the end of things, of his own life. maybe he's thinking about ending his own life. maybe he's thinking of ending it all, but somehow finding hope and strength to continue on. or maybe he's suicidal but too frightened to go thru with it. or maybe i'm a lunatic.

i love how the music hangs ominously, like a dark cloud signaling some sort of impending doom. a guitar (i think it's a guitar) screeches above it all, like the siren of an oncoming ambulance. the song sloooowly builds and, finally, it all comes together around the twenty-one minute mark. the last two-and-a-half minutes are completely fucking worth it. the power of the band really shines in this movement. it almost feels like they're about to lose control and explode, but they ride it out and deftly reel it all back in for a tidy ending.

i feel kinda pretentious, using the word "movement", but i don't know what else to call it. "section" and "part" would apply, but "movement" just feels right. i dunno, i make no claim to being any sort of professional music review writer person, but i can tell you what i like and, most of the time, why i like it.

some gy!be links for you, if i haven't completely put you off them by now:
brainwashed
constellation (the label)
live shows at archive.org (32 shows for you to choose from!)

ps -- check out the letter to gy!be on the constellation site, it's really kinda touching. here's a pic of it...