Godspeed You ! B. E. Yanqui U.X.O.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Canadian post-rock band which originated from Montreal, Quebec in 1994. They were the first outside act to release their recordings through Constellation, an influential independent record label also located in Montreal.

After the release of their debut album in 1997, the group toured regularly from 1998 to 2002. In 2003, the band announced an indefinite hiatus in order for band members to pursue other musical interests. In the intervening period the group was occasionally rumored to have broken up,but the band finally reconvened for a tour in late 2010 and early 2011.

The band took its name from God Speed You! Black Emperor, a 1976 Japanese black-and-white documentary by director Mitsuo Yanagimachi, which follows the exploits of a Japanese biker gang, the Black Emperors.

Although various members of the band are often pinned down as anarchists, no one in the band has explicitly subscribed to this label;however, there is a strong political component to the band's music.For example, the liner notes to Yanqui U.X.O. describe the song "09-15-00" as "Ariel Sharon surrounded by 1,000 Israeli soldiers marching on al-Haram Ash-Sharif & provoking another Intifada," and the back cover of that album depicts the relationships of several major record labels to the military-industrial complex. 

It was produced and recorded by musician Steve Albini at the Electrical Audio in Chicago, Illinois in late 2001.  

Lacking both the group's characteristic interwoven field recordings and specifically named movements, the recording was instead described by the band as "just raw, angry, dissonant, epic instrumental rock."

Yanqui U.X.O is the band's most divided record critically. While some, such as Allmusic,praised the release as the group's finest album yet, others, like Pitchfork Media, derided it for its "sluggishness and a lack of invention."

Kort Incredibly Lonely

Kort - Incredibly Lonely (Live in Paris) from zack spiger on Vimeo.

Beach House Lover of mine

Wire On Returning 1977-1979

 

















Wire is an English rock band, formed in London in October 1976 by Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Bruce Gilbert (guitar), and Robert Gotobed (drums). They were originally associated with the punk rock scene, appearing on the Live at the Roxy WC2 album—a key early document of the scene—and were later central to the development of post-punk.

Inspired by the burgeoning UK punk scene, Wire is often cited as one of the more important rock groups of the 1970s and 1980s. Critic Stewart Mason writes, "Over their brilliant first three albums, Wire expanded the sonic boundaries of not just punk, but rock music in general."

Wire is arguably a definitive art punk or post-punk ensemble, mostly due to their richly detailed and atmospheric sound, often obscure lyrical themes and, to a lesser extent, their Situationist political stance. The group exhibited a steady development from an early raucous punk style (1977's Pink Flag) to a more complex, structured sound involving increased use of guitar effects and synthesizers (1978's Chairs Missing and 1979's 154). The band gained a reputation for experimenting with song arrangements throughout its career.


Wire's debut album, Pink Flag (1977), 'perhaps the most original debut album to come out of the first wave of British punk', according to AllMusic, contains songs which are diverse in mood and style, but most use a minimalist punk approach, unorthodox structures . "Field Day For The Sundays", for example, is only 28 seconds long.


Chairs Missing followed in 1978, and found Wire stepping back from the stark minimalism of Pink Flag, with longer, more atmospheric songs and synthesizer parts added by producer Mike Thorne. The experimentation was even more prominent on 154 (1979).Many of the songs had bassist Graham Lewis on lead vocals. In 1979, creative differences pulled the band in different directions, leading to the Document and Eyewitness LP (1981), a recording of a live performance that featured, almost exclusively, new material, which was described as 'disjointed', 'unrecognizable as rock music' and 'almost unlistenable'.

1		1.2.X.U.	1:56
2		It's So Obvious	0:52
3		Mr Suit	1:25
4		Three Girl Rhumba	1:24
5		Ex Lion Tamer	2:18
6		Lowdown	2:27
7		Straight Line	0:46
8		106 Beats That	1:13
9		Strange	3:58
10		Reuters	3:02
11		Field Day For The Sundays	0:29
12		Champs	1:47
13		Feeling Called Love	1:22
14		I Am The Fly	3:07
15		Dot Dash	2:24
16		Practice Makes Perfect	4:06
17		French Film Blurred	2:35
18		Another The Letter	1:08
19		I Feel Mysterious Today	1:56
20		Men 2nd	1:42
21		Marooned	2:20
22		Sand In My Joints	1:51
23		Outdoor Miner	2:51
24		A Question Of Degree	3:11
25		I Should Have Known Better	3:50
26		Two People In A Room	2:09
27		Blessed State	3:28
28		The Other Window	2:09
29		40 Versions	3:28
30		A Touching Display	6:55
31		On Returning	2:06