GODSPEED! YOU BLACK EMPEROR

GODSPEED! YOU BLACK EMPEROR
YANQUI U.X.O. (2002)
320 KBPS

When I heard what GYBE! (or GY!BE if you prefer) produced with Lift Your Skinny Fists..., I was convinced they'd foreseen the apocalypse and I wondered what they could do next. And shook with fear just a little. But somehow they upped the ante on every front with Yanqui U.X.O. It's even more dynamic, better produced & sequenced, and more peaceful/soothing in spots - and utterly terrifying in others - than before. The intense total-entropy sections are overwhelming, and still the flow between the quiet and crashing parts never quite seems contrived. It still amazes me how GY!BE can continue with the same methods they've showed on past albums and still avoid sounding like they're merely rehashing.
For those who haven't heard it - there aren't songs per se, but unstructured melodies that drift and groove and explore all kinds of rich aural textures as they go along. The musical sensibility & writing style is somewhere between classical and minimalist, though the instrumental lineup adds guitar, bass and drums to the strings, spiced up with random samples and non-instrument noises. All the sounds are blended into a richly textured mix that's simple and grand all at once. There's plenty of variety.. quiet muted strings building beds of soft clouds, thunderous roars of symphonic evil to scare the unsuspecting listener senseless, and everything in between.. but they wander from one extreme to the other gradually, taking five or ten minutes at a stretch. Unlike before this disc flows through its whole 75 minutes continuously, rather than moving from one definite section to the next with buffers and transitions between.
It's hard to form a real idea of the whole thing until after a good few listens. Some parts are so quiet and dreamy that keeping your mind from wandering is all but impossible. And on the other end of the scale some parts simply cannot be ignored, any more than you could ignore an earthquake as it collapses your house all around you. One way or another it draws you in, if you let it (and sometimes if you don't). It conveys powerful emotions, from wonder to calm to horror, with no words at all. How they can make sounds convey so much so clearly is still a marvel to me, but it's there to be felt and experienced, not analyzed.

1. 09-15-00
2. 09-15-00
3. rockets fall on Rocket Falls
4. motherfucker=redeemer
5. motherfucker=redeemer

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