Canadian Summer, irgendwann in den Nullerjahren dieses Jahrhunderts

GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR!
ARTROCK REVISITED

by Martin Büsser – originally published in Intro No. 78

1.
Not exactly light fare. We are confronted here with a work recorded by a group with the not particularly catchy name Godspeed You Black Emperor! Four tracks are spread across two CDs or, alternatively, four LP sides, which not only expand formally, but also proclaim with full force through their song titles: Here comes weight! – Here manifests Monument! While pop usually relies on catchy slogans that customers can remember so that they don’t have to stammer in the record store, but know right away that the object of their desire is called “Thriller,” GYBE (abbreviated as such in future) throws all the rules of recognition out the window. Every single track on their new album “Levez Vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas To Heaven” is already marked as a multi-part epic in its title. Pay attention and stand still! This is no longer about pop, about “fast and fleeting,” about sexiness and the snappy quoting of symbols, no longer about postmodernism, neither postmodern irony nor postmodern cynicism—this is about “real” feelings, about slowness, about intensity, and about the return of the classic narrative in rock format. Furthermore, it’s about God, death and the devil, reverence, longing, grace, and the forces of nature. In short, it’s about the so-called last things.

The first track on the first CD or the first side of the LP is called: “Storm – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven – Gathering Storm – Cancer Towers On The Holy Road Hi-Way.” The piece itself is instrumental and recorded without any discernible breaks or interruptions, but the title suggests a stage direction, conjuring up images, images with strong connotations. This music is not meant to be listened to like pop, but like a symphony, like a festival—hands folded in your lap, no ecstasy, just reverence.

2.
Before I discovered my burning passion for punk, I was one of those late bloomers who, even in the early eighties, at a time when punk was already history in Britain itself, locked themselves in their rooms to listen to all six sides of the “Yessongs” album in total darkness. At the time, I couldn’t relate to classical music in the traditional sense, because it reminded me of back pain in worn-out concert seats and all the authorities, parents and music teachers who voluntarily subjected themselves to such pain. I preferred to discover my own “classical music” for myself, namely as rock adaptations by bands such as Yes, Van Der Graaf Generator, and Alan Parsons Project. Today, twenty years later, I know that all of this was just a rather naive pseudo-distinction. Listening to Yes and the like in my darkened room, I surrendered myself to the same emotions and belief in “absolute,” “sublime” music that my father surrendered to when he conducted Beethoven symphonies in the living room with his eyes closed, not wanting to be disturbed by the family.

Fortunately, shortly afterwards I discovered my passion for punk. This led to my first real generational conflict, my first real experience of subculture outside my own darkened room. Back then, as a punk, you had to hate art rock in the style of Yes. Now that punk has become as much a part of history as art rock did before it, I get strangely sentimental when I listen to Godspeed. For years, I forbade myself from listening to Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and the early, dramatic King Crimson again out of self-censorship, because it reminded me of my prepubescent period of indulgent boyhood loneliness. And now, with GYBE, it all comes back in one fell swoop. All the stuffiness of symphonic rock music, including nine instrumentalists, violins, cello, timpani, and organ. And yet there is a difference. Here, no singer whispers about elves combing their blonde hair by the stream, no violinist imitates Paganini, and fortunately, no keyboardist plays Bach and Beethoven themes. No, GYBE are more like art rock, or even worse, classic rock, picking up on a genre long declared dead and at the same time learning from its false pathos.

3.
According to their own statement, GYBE from Toronto also have a punk past behind them. The core members of the band still play the old instruments they bought as teenagers. In the beginning, there were only three of them, playing two guitars and a bass. The band was formed rather by chance: “Someone offered us a gig, so the three of us formed a band and decided together that each of us would play a chord for half an hour. We did that, and about three or four people liked it, so we thought we should maybe continue like that.” (Zitty Magazine online)
But it wasn’t to remain just individual chords and drones reminiscent of Spacemen 3. More and more people joined the band—at one point, GYBE even consisted of twelve people—including many who actually mastered their instruments. This resulted in a juxtaposition of minimalism and attention to detail. Thanks to the very open musical atmosphere in Toronto, the numerous musicians in GYBE came together from a wide variety of scenes—from jazz to electronic. Experiments with sampling and tape recorders are an integral part of their records and live performances, yet it is important to the band that much of the “wall of sound” is played by hand. With their third release to date, they have come closest to their own musical vision: repetitive, in wave-like movements, individual layers of guitars, violins, and cellos build on each other. With their third release to date, they have come closest to realizing their own musical vision: repetitive, wave-like movements in which individual layers of guitars, violins, and cellos build upon each other and then ebb away again. “We work in a very cinematic way,” GYBE once said in an interview, “at least our music is often compared to films.” However, these cannot be contemporary films. Only old, very slow-paced films come to mind, such as Tarkovsky’s “Solaris.”

4.
In the mid-1990s, Roger Behrens declared art rock and progressive rock to be a “timeless unfashionable trend.” This was part of a “Testcard” issue that dealt with the inflation of retros and revivals in the nineties. According to the internal laws of pop in the nineties, pretty much everything from disco soul to easy listening could be revived, but art rock alone was taboo, as uncool as Beethoven, Bach, and Vivaldi. The exaggeratedly emotional, big-screen form of art rock lacked groove, glamour, and sex appeal, values that had become essential again in nineties pop. Roger Behrens’ thesis was therefore that art rock was never really out, always had a small, loyal fan base, but at the same time, this music will no longer succeed in returning to the pop world as hip and somehow relevant. And now this: musicians such as Sigur Rós, Radiohead, and GYBE are making a comeback with extremely dramatic, emotionally charged, and at times elegiacally detached albums that are receiving euphoric press coverage. GYBE are clearly at the forefront in terms of detachment and otherworldliness, giving almost no interviews because they claim their music is too abstract to be put into words. And suddenly, such a band is loved for its eccentricity by all those who, two years ago, could not have dreamed of once again getting excited about music that structurally has a lot in common with things like early Genesis or Kate Bush.

There is one difference, however. Although GYBE pull out all the stops when it comes to symbolic overload, their music always remains subtle, avoiding symphonic triumph. Instead of Beethoven, if we’re going to make classical comparisons, it’s more like Gustav Mahler. So there is a constant restraint of overly strong and overly concrete feelings, dissonance and noise in the midst of passages where GYBE, in the midst of a minor key turn, become aware of the danger of becoming too explicit. This new form of art rock distrusts the merely superficial glamour of virtuosity that bands like Yes once indulged in. That’s why GYBE’s music consists of numerous breaks. It has, in a sense, learned from history, gone through the school of post-rock and improvisation, and now builds on a completely new form of art rock. Technical skill is no longer used as a triumph to show how complex rock music can be, but is used to create long, extended, chiseled soundscapes that revolve around their own axis. Ambient in an almost orchestral format. Instead of creating complexity, the sense of time is stretched and slowed down.

For years, pop music was associated with speed, colorfulness, and urbanity. But now a counter-movement is emerging. Images of landscapes are conjured up—it’s no coincidence that Iceland, the home of Sigur Rós, is booming—calm returns as the music paints the sky gray and heralds the arrival of autumn. This new form of art rock must also face accusations of escapism. This music no longer addresses social issues; it is contemplative and detached from the world, wishing for nothing more than to leave even the last remnants of the city behind. However, there are more reprehensible things than music that turns its back on the hype surrounding MTV and MP3 and, contrary to all the market laws of pop, demands the right to work solely from within itself, from the musical material. The images that arise in the mind are not predetermined. They are as free of ambiguity as the music itself.

Thirty years after the first big art rock boom, there is finally music again that makes you want to turn off the phone and retreat to a darkened room. Not to imagine bombastic wars between worlds and gods, but to let yourself drift peacefully. Thanks to this band.

Nacht über Montreal