Marisa Anderson, originally from Portland, Oregon, opened the night with songs about the American frontier. She focused specifically on the beautiful, unique swaths of canvas in the sky that blankets those landscapes. She played songs about love, and about death. Anderson laced the performance with themes of spirituality and natural wonder. She picked at the notes on her overdriven telecaster, and they resonated like images of a lonely traveler, accompanied only by the surrounding scenery. 

Godspeed You! Black Emperor opened with a droning buzz from their amplifiers, with three stark spotlights shining onto the audience. Eight members stood onstage, including founding members Efrim Menuck, Mike Moya and Mauro Pezzente playing guitars and bass. They were accompanied by vast arrays of percussion and violin.  

The band began with “Job’s Lament,” and “First of the Last Glaciers.” The latter progressed from light ambient sounds to a series of cascading scales from the basses. Then the music dropped into punches of long, played out notes, in a grand psychedelic climax. Behind them, a projection of birds soared lonely in the sky, overlayed with film of a smoking crashing plane. The images symbolized the music’s continuous rising and falling. 

The psychedelic theme continued through the ringing euphonious guitars in “Bosses Hang.” The song then transitioned into a fantastical ambient track, characterized by squeaking violin. The ambience built itself up into a wall of sound and tremolos before crumbling down with a force that shook the ground, ringing out until the reverberations simmered down.  

During this, images of a post-industrial wasteland were projected on the screen. Later this was contrasted by images of hands digging through rich fertile dirt. The grainy, black and white film projections define a Godspeed You! Black Emperor show. The projections have an ambient feel that matches the music, but they also serve a greater purpose.

The images act as lyrics for a band that typically has none, other than some vocal samples which were absent that night. The films played can give the songs a meaning for the listener to latch onto. It creates a captivating audio and visual experience, which fit very well inside the vaudeville era Englert Theatre. 

The band ended with “East Hastings,” which opened with a lonely desolate guitar riff, underlaid by rolling waves of noise. A piano chop broke through the noise, and a violin echoed the guitar’s bleak riff. Images of political violence played overhead, then quickly switched to pictures of orange, fiery burning towns.

The music transitioned to a frantic, blistering pace, with rapid drums and guitars roaring out like a blade shredding through the air. The song then cooled in a singular, fizzled out drone, much like how the show began. The band members then left the stage one by one. 

Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s music is available on streaming services. You can follow the rest of their tour here.

Full Setlist: 

Hope Drone 

Job’s Lament 

First of the Last Glaciers 

Bosses Hang 

Cliffs Gaze 

Moya  

East Hastings 

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The idea of post-rock is often off-putting to some people. Just the addition of “post” onto any genre brings with it an air of pretentiousness. But what really separates it from traditional, old fashioned rock n’ roll?

The definition of post-rock is just as vague as the origin of the term itself. While the name suggests many similarities to rock music, such as the traditional instrumentation of drums, bass, guitars, vocals, and a variety of other instruments, the genre shifts its focus towards utilizing a variety of sounds such as layering instruments to create different textures and, at times, driving melodies. These aspects usually take precedence over other areas, such as vocals, which, more recently, are sometimes completely left out in post-rock.

While what is known as “first wave” post-rock came to prominence in the underground music scene in the 1990’s, many of its attributes can be traced back to much older groups such as Velvet Underground. Songs like “Heroin” which feature aspects of drone and noise would later become defining features in the genre.

When looking at first wave post-rock, there seem to be two defining albums, both taking quite different directions. The first, released in 1991 is Talk Talk’s fifth album Laughing Stock. The album experimented with a variety of different instruments for the band including strings and horns, a big change from their previous synthpop albums.  “Ascension Day”, for example, features a jazz inspired drum and bass groove which underlines a buildup of guitars.

The second album worth mentioning in the advent of post-rock was released earlier the same year. Slint’s sophomore LP Spiderland, takes a different approach to the post-rock sound. The album’s instrumentation features prominent guitars that are commonly accompanied by shifting vocal styles and even spoken-word poetry.

The fact that both of these equally influential post-rock albums sound so different is a common trait within the genre and becomes even more prominent in “second wave” post-rock which tends to expand its instrumental repertoire. Many different post-rock bands tend to pull elements from other genres. The popular Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós have dabbled in other sounds such as folk and more recently, much heavier industrial sounds.

On the lighter side are bands such as Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra. While their sound has changed drastically over the past, their debut LP He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms… is often described as an ambient album composed of mostly piano and various stringed instruments.

However, if relentless noise is more your style, experimental rock band Swans have more recently dabbled in the genre. Since their reunion in 2010, Swans have released three albums. The most recent, To Be Kind, released earlier this year, is an album that encompasses many post-rock aspects while turning up the volume. “Oxygen”, one of the tamer songs on the album, starts with a simple riff that builds on itself along with horns, percussion, and singer Michael Gira’s rambling vocals.

And then there are the albums that seem to do it all. My personal favorite post-rock album (and one of my favorite albums in general) is Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. Released in 2000. This influential album spans genres including noise, ambient, and neo-classical. Save for a few sampled vocals, this album is completely lyric-less, relying entirely on its instrumentation. Because of its ability to cross multiple genres of music, it’s a perfect album for anyone to get started into post-rock.

The post Listen In: Post-Rock appeared first on KRUI Radio.