There's a case to be made for the re-adoption of the classical forms of titling (as in 'Opus 59 No.1'), especially when confronted with music that comes freighted with as much intellectual ballast as this. How different would the experience of listening to this latest album from the Montreal nine-piece be if it were called, say, "Einstein on the Beach", and each track simply numbered?
'yanqui u.x.o.' comes laden with righteousness. It's impossible not to bring
to the listening the knowledge that u.x.o. stands for 'unexploded ordnance',
that the hand-drawn chart on the sleeve links every major record label with
the arms industry either directly or through their investment portfolio, or
that the title of the first track (09-15-00) represents the date on which
Ariel Sharon provoked the second, current Palestinian intifada. It's cool
that the collective is so upfront about its anti-capitalist, anti-war stance
- o that there were more like them! - but is that position really represented
in the music? Does sloganeering in the artwork turn standalone music into
agitprop? Hmm. At a push, you can hear anger here, but the overall emotional
trajectory is more a kind of sad, desultory fatalism. Epic fatalism. Sublime,
Dostoyevskian fatalism. But not, I think, a critique of realpolitik.
What's distinctive about these five lengthy tracks is the sheer scale of the
sonic architecture they invoke - between the cramped one-room sparseness of
a violin and a chime at one end and the sheer awesomeness of that cathedral
wall of sound built up from guitars and percussion and strings and god knows
what else at the other. The space between these extremes is a kind of historic
plaza littered both with disillusion and endless allusion (notably to a haunting
folk-hybrid of Iroquois drumming, Yiddish wedding band combos, and Weill-like
cabaret riffs), but illuminated overall by a passionate, fiery, unquenchable
optimism - the kind that takes no prisoners.
Unlike some post-rock, godspeed you!'s music is not just a set of arid cerebral
exercises - it's visceral, too, and almost lyrical at times - there are even
a few memorable melodies (!) - although the lyricism will always ultimately
be concealed behind the trademark tone-guerilla-mask. Don't be intimidated,
though - they're careless guides, and their minds might be on other things,
but the scenery's breathtaking.
