Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! LP
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A decade has passed since the release of Yanqui U.X.O., the last album by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Never a band to pay heed to industry wisdom, Yanqui was released shortly before Xmas 2002 with little publicity, no press availability, no marketing plans, cross-promotions or brand synergies, adorned with now infamous back cover artwork diagramming the links between major record labels and the military-industrial complex. Like all GYBE albums, this one did just fine and ‘found it’s audience’: a passionate and committed fanbase galvanized by the group's sonic vision and its dedication to unmediated, unsullied musical communication.
That such simple principles and goals have become harder to maintain and enact a decade later is an understatement. For all the contents and discontents, for all the “content” of our present cultural moment, the idea of circumventing the glare of exposure or side-stepping the careful plotting of media cycles and identity management seems profoundly illadvised, if not futile. But Godspeed is looking to try all the same.
The band wants people to encounter and care about this new album, without telling people they should. They seek to preserve the thrill of anonymous and uncalculated transmission, knowing full well that these days, anti-strategy risks being tagged as a strategy, non-marketing framed as its opposite, and deeply held principles they consider fundamental to health as likely to be interpreted as just another form of stealth.
The band has been carving its own path again since 2010, regrouping as the same self-managed collective entity it has been from the outset, making appearances at a tiny clutch of music festivals, and otherwise just touring its own shows. It's been a disorienting time to resurface, but it has felt overwhelmingly right, honest and good.
That such simple principles and goals have become harder to maintain and enact a decade later is an understatement. For all the contents and discontents, for all the “content” of our present cultural moment, the idea of circumventing the glare of exposure or side-stepping the careful plotting of media cycles and identity management seems profoundly illadvised, if not futile. But Godspeed is looking to try all the same.
The band wants people to encounter and care about this new album, without telling people they should. They seek to preserve the thrill of anonymous and uncalculated transmission, knowing full well that these days, anti-strategy risks being tagged as a strategy, non-marketing framed as its opposite, and deeply held principles they consider fundamental to health as likely to be interpreted as just another form of stealth.
The band has been carving its own path again since 2010, regrouping as the same self-managed collective entity it has been from the outset, making appearances at a tiny clutch of music festivals, and otherwise just touring its own shows. It's been a disorienting time to resurface, but it has felt overwhelmingly right, honest and good.
