Launched in January 2021 on the European continent, the tour G_d’s Pee at State’s End! by the Montreal collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor (GY!BE) finally stopped by us last night, for the first of two concerts in the “Cellphone Emporium”, as the person who designed the poster for the event has renamed this room formerly named Metropolis. Two hours of letting yourself be lulled and stirred by the expert orchestra of eight musicians who gave pride of place to the repertoire of his latest album.
Visibly, the group must have given more than 150 concerts around the globe in two years, following the release, in the spring of 2021, of their seventh album. G_d’s Pee at State’s End!, which says it all about the notoriety of the group, one of the most emblematic of the Montreal rock scene of the last twenty-five years. The machine, so to speak, stopped in well-oiled Montreal: bewitching in its smoother passages, furious when the rhythm section (two drummers, two bassists) got going.
The performance began as GY!BE has been debuting them all since their return to the stage a dozen years ago: with Hope Dronea piece always exclusive to concerts, so named by fans because of the word ” hope appearing in the images of the two performer-projectionists Karl Lemieux and Philippe Leonard, who work with three or four 16mm projectors. A fairly short piece, with orchestrations of dense, almost opaque electric guitars, introduced by Sophie Trudeau’s violin and Thierry Amar’s double bass, which serves to warm up the group before moving on to the main course.
First of the Last Glaciers, one of the two excerpts from the latest album, releases a rock rhythm accompanied by images of World War II fighter planes shot down in the sky. And yet, from this magma of rock kept warm by the textures of the electric guitars, harmonies full of optimism are expressed which will contrast with the gravity, the tragedy, even, which will be expressed a little later in Cliffs Gauze, also taken from the recent album. The melodic themes that the musicians breathe are simple, the harmonic playing all the same richer, but it is the cohesion of these eight musicians that blows us away, in the changes of rhythms and the improvised passages of the long instrumental pieces that they interpret.
Almost forty minutes after the start of the recital, the group then serves Hang Bumpshighlight of the evening and of the album from which this song was taken, the excellent Luciferian Towers (2017). The powerful and mechanical rhythm, this trance which refers to that of German kosmiche rock, right down to the melodic motifs and the sound of the guitars evoking the unique touch of Michael Rother (NEU!) that we will recognize even later on Mladictaken fromHALLUJAH! DON’T BEND! UP! (2012). An authentic moment of release, groovy and muscular, Sophie Trudeau’s playing in counterpoint throwing oil on the fire. We almost felt like dancing.
In the opening act, poet, composer and activist Moor Mother (Camae Ayewa) set the record straight about the state of the world and our musical tastes, lamenting that we don’t listen to enough jazz: You prefer to listen to Taylor Swift rather than free jazz… We are fucked ! “, she chanted at the end of a meaningful performance. “I know what I’m telling you is heavy ; it’s still not enough heavy ! »
His approach is rooted in the history of African-Americans, his performance a severe look at society in which a crash course in the history of colonialism is linked. a statement heavy, it is the case to say it, which she transforms into an artistic gesture, her voice manipulated live striking the sound decor made of collages, samples of blues and jazz, drones and noise. Microphone in hand, leaning over her computer and her many effects pedals, Moor Mother offered an even more intense performance than the one she presented at the Gesù last summer, on the bill of the Festival international de jazz de Montréal , and which perfectly set the stage for the impressionist experimental rock fresco of Montrealers.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor continues the reunion again tonight, still at the telephone emporium.