G_d's Pee at State's End!
Tracked live at Hotel2Tango in October 2020, with found sound back in the mix.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor, 2021
- Released
- 2 April 2021
- Recorded
- 6 to 18 October 2020
- Studio
- Hotel2Tango, Montreal
- Label
- Constellation
The material was tracked live at Hotel2Tango from 6 to 11 October 2020, with edits and overdubs from 12 to 18 October. Jace Lasek recorded and mixed it and Harris Newman mastered it. The release is one 12-inch LP and one 10-inch record. Two long suites sit beside two short pieces: "Fire at Static Valley", and the string piece "Our Side Has to Win (For D.H.)", dedicated to Dirk Hugsam, the band's European tour agent, who died in December 2018. The suites use shortwave radio transmissions, gunfire, birdsong and church bells, bringing back the found sound that had been absent from the previous two albums. The announcement carried another statement of demands, including "empty the prisons" and "tax the rich until they're impoverished".
Before release Constellation sent more than a hundred 10-inch records to independent shops as review copies. On 27 March 2021 the band streamed the whole album from an empty Cinema Imperial in Montreal, with 16mm projections by Karl Lemieux and Philippe Leonard that opened, as at the band's shows, with the word "HOPE". Metacritic gives it 82. Record Collector gave it five stars. Grayson Haver Currin of Pitchfork wrote that no moment in the band's discography was more radiant or galvanizing than the finale of the third piece, "Ashes to Sea or Nearer to Thee".
Track listing
- A Military Alphabet (Five Eyes All Blind) (4521.0kHz 6730.0kHz 4109.09kHz) / Job's Lament / First of the Last Glaciers / Where We Break How We Shine (Rockets for Mary)
- Fire at Static Valley
- "Government Came" (9980.0kHz 3617.1kHz 4521.0 kHz) / Cliffs Gaze / Cliffs' Gaze at Empty Waters' Rise / Ashes to Sea or Nearer to Thee
- Our Side Has to Win (For D.H.)
Personnel
- Thierry Amar electric bass, electric upright bass
- David Bryant electric guitar, MG-1
- Aidan Girt drums
- Timothy Herzog drums, glockenspiel
- Efrim Menuck electric guitar, OP-1, radios
- Mike Moya electric guitar
- Mauro Pezzente electric bass
- Sophie Trudeau violin, organ
- Karl Lemieux 16mm projections
- Philippe Léonard 16mm projections
- Jace Lasek recording, mixing
- Harris Newman mastering
More from Godspeed You! Black Emperor
F# A# ∞ (1997), Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada (1999), Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000), Yanqui U.X.O. (2002), 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! (2012), Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress (2015), Luciferian Towers (2017), No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead (2024)
Sources
- G_d's Pee at State's End!, Wikipedia
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor: G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!, Pitchfork (2021-04-05)