O novo do Godspeed You! Black Emperor: “Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress”

A Constellation Records acaba de liberar o streaming do aguardadíssimo novo álbum do Godspeed You! Black Emperor, este colosso do post-rock. Maior e melhor banda da história do estilo (e além, se você quiser considerar rótulos semelhantes).

Ouça a potente abertura com “Peasantry, or ‘Light! Inside Of Light!”, 10 minutos da melhor coisa que a banda entrega desde  “Yanqui U.X.O.”, de 2002. No geral, as primeiras audições revelam um disco muito mais poderoso e melhor acabado do que o disco de retorno “Allelujah! Don’t Bend, Ascend!”, de 2012.

Lançamento oficial 31 de maio.

DESCRIPTION

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (GYBE) returns with its first single LP-length release since the group’s earliest days in 1997-99. ‘Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress’clocks in at a succinct 40:23 and is arguably the most focused and best-sounding recording of the band’s career. Working with sound engineer Greg Norman (Electrical Audio) at studios in North Carolina and Montreal, GYBE slowly and steadily put the new album together through late 2013 and 2014, emerging with a mighty slab of superlative sonics, shot through with all the band’s inimitable signposts and touchstones: huge unison riffage, savage noise/drone, oscillating overtones, guitar vs. string counterpoint, inexorable crescendos and scorched-earth transitions.

Following Godspeed’s return from a long hiatus at the end of 2010 to begin playing live shows again, and with the hugely acclaimed ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!release in 2012 marking their first new release in a decade, the group continued to perform regularly on their own headlining tours (and as headliners at many leading festivals), often including a new multi-movement piece in concert over the past couple of years. Known to fans and through live show recordings by the sobriquet “Behemoth”, GYBE has gradually distilled this new work down to a fastidious and uncompromising essence in the studio, with the swing-time swagger of the opening unison riff in “Peasantry or ‘Light! Inside of Light!'” giving way to increasing microtonal divergences and an exhilarating immersion in the harmonic power of massed amplified instruments, before collapsing into some of the most visceral and unalloyed noise/drone the band has yet committed to tape on “Lambs’ Breath” and “’Asunder, Sweet’”. The album closes with “Piss Crowns Are Trebled”, a classic 14-minute piece of vintage Godspeed, where ascending and descending guitar and violin melodies intertwine over gut-rattling distorted bass in 3/4 time, segueing into a pummeling four-on-the-floor series of sparkling, soaring crescendos

‘Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress’ finds Godspeed in top form; a sterling celebration of the band’s awesome dialectic, where composition, emotion and ‘note-choice’ is inextricable from an exacting focus on tone, timbre, resonance and the sheer materiality of sound. The album is available on 180 gram vinyl in a gatefold jacket with printed inner sleeve and insert poster, on CD in a 100% recycled custom paperboard jacket, and on all manner of formats in our fractured digital marketplace.

Thanks for listening.

Release date: 31 March 2015
Running time: 40:23

PACKAGING NOTES

CD comes in a custom gatefold jacket printed on thick 24pt. paperboard with a printed CD dust sleeve. LP is pressed on 180 gram virgin vinyl at Optimal (Germany) and comes in a heavyweight gatefold jacket with full-colour printed dust sleeve, pull-out art poster and download code for 320 kbps MP3 copy of the album.

TRACKLIST

1. Peasantry or ‘Light! Inside of Light!’
2. Lambs’ Breath
3. Asunder, Sweet
4. Piss Crowns Are Trebled

CREDITS

PERSONNEL
Thierry Amar: Bass and contrebasse
David Bryant: Electric guitar, portasound, organs and drones
Aidan Girt: Drums
Timothy Herzog: Drums and drones
Efrim Manuel Menuck: Electric guitar
Michael Moya: Electric guitar
Mauro Pezzente: Electric bass
Sophie Trudeau: Violins and drones
Karl Lemieux: 16mm film projections

Recorded by Greg Norman at Fidelitorium, Hotel 2 Tango and The Pines.
Mixed by Greg Norman and GYBE at Mixart and Hotel 2 Tango.
Masted by Harris Newman at Greymarket.