Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Canadian experimental music collective which originated in Montreal, Quebec in 1994. The group releases recordings through Constellation, an independent record label also located in Montreal. After the release of their debut album in 1997, the group toured regularly from 1998 to 2003. Their second album, 2000's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, received great critical acclaim and has been named as one of the best albums of the decade. In 2003, the band announced an indefinite hiatus in order for members to pursue other musical interests. In the intervening period, the group was occasionally rumored to have broken up, but finally reconvened for a tour which began in late 2010. Since reforming, they have released four more albums, the most recent being G_d's Pee at State's End! in April 2021.
Constellation Records is a Canadian independent record label based in Montreal, Quebec. It has released albums by many post-rock bands, including Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band and Do Make Say Think.
Fly Pan Am, or Le Fly Pan Am, are a Canadian experimental rock band formed in Montreal in 1996. They release their albums through the Montreal-based Constellation Records, producing and collaborating on works with Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Shalabi Effect.
All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling is claimed to be the earliest release from Canadian experimental musical collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor. According to a 1998 interview with the band, the album was published on cassette in December 1994 and limited to 33 copies. At this point, the group consisted only of Efrim Menuck, Mauro Pezzente, and Mike Moya. No copies of the release are known to exist and the music, if it existed, has been "thought to be lost forever by the band's fans".
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, or Levez Vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas to Heaven on the rear of physical releases, is the second studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released as a double album on 9 October 2000 on vinyl by Constellation and 8 November 2000 on CD by Kranky.
Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada, also stylized as Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada, is the first EP and second release by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It was released on the Montreal-based record label Constellation Records in 1999, and was re-released by Kranky.
F♯ A♯ ∞ is the debut studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It was first released on August 14, 1997 through Constellation Records on vinyl and on June 8, 1998 through Kranky on CD. The CD version and the vinyl version have substantial differences between them, the CD version being considered the more definitive version, as it is more easily accessible. Recorded at the Hotel2Tango in the Mile End of Montreal, the album is devoid of traditional lyrics and is mostly instrumental, featuring lengthy songs segmented into movements. It was initially released in limited quantities, and distributed through live performances and advertised by word of mouth.
He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms… is the debut album of Canadian post-rock group A Silver Mt. Zion, who now record under the name Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra. The album was recorded by guitarist Efrim Menuck and bassist Thierry Amar at the Hotel2Tango in 1999, mostly during breaks while touring with Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It was published by the Montreal-based record label Constellation on March 27, 2000.
Efrim Manuel Menuck is a Canadian musician involved with a number of Montreal-based bands, most notably Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra. Menuck is also a frequent record producer and engineer, working with musicians from Montreal and abroad.
The Hotel2Tango is a 24-track analogue recording studio situated in the Mile End district of Montreal, Quebec. The current facility is the second to bear the name, and was preceded by a similar operation in the same neighborhood until 2007 when the studio changed locations. The majority of recording projects undertaken at the studio are helmed by one of the facility's four partner-engineers: Efrim Menuck and Thierry Amar, both members of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band and Godspeed You! Black Emperor; Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, member of Jerusalem In My Heart; and Howard Bilerman. The Hotel2Tango is often closely associated with Constellation Records, a Montreal-based record label.
Sophie Trudeau is a Canadian musician. She is best known as a member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and co-founder of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band. She also plays in a number of other bands, including Valley of the Giants and The Mile End Ladies String Auxiliary.
Thierry Amar is a Canadian musician, engineer and producer. He is a member of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, Earthquake Architecture, The Craig Pedersen Quartet and Black Ox Orkestar.
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra is a Canadian band that formed in 1999, originating from Montreal, Quebec. Variations of the name used on the band's releases include A Silver Mt. Zion, The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band with Choir and Thee Silver Mountain Reveries; the group uses the shorthand SMZ and its name is most often simplified to Silver Mt. Zion. The group has undergone almost yearly personnel changes, evolving by stages from a mostly instrumental trio at the time of its first recordings into an eight-piece group, and then in 2008 into a strongly vocal quintet.
Mike Moya is a Canadian rock musician, who is one of the founding members of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. He left the band in 1998 to concentrate on his other bands Molasses, Set Fire to Flames and HṚṢṬA., but rejoined the band during their reunion in 2010. He was part of the live band of labelmate Elizabeth Anka Vajagic. He lives between Berlin and Montreal with his partner Maria Hinze and their family.
The discography of Godspeed You! Black Emperor—a Canadian post-rock musical collective from Quebec—consists of seven studio albums, one extended play, one split single, and two contributions to various artists compilation albums.
Yanqui U.X.O. is the third studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released on November 4, 2002 by Constellation. It was recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago in late 2001, and was the band's first album released after their slight name change. Lacking both their characteristic interwoven field recordings and specifically named movements, the album was instead described by the band as "just raw, angry, dissonant, epic instrumental rock". Shortly after its release, the group announced an indefinite hiatus so band members could pursue differing musical interests; it was their last album for a decade until the release of 2012's 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!.
'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! is the fourth studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released on October 15, 2012 by Constellation Records, which was their first album since 2002's Yanqui U.X.O.. After reforming in 2010, the group went on tour and silently released the album at a concert in Boston on October 1, 2012, with official release dates on October 15 in Europe and the following day in other countries. The album received positive reviews and has been heralded as a comeback for the collective, winning the 2013 Polaris Music Prize.
Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress is the fifth studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released on 31 March 2015 by Constellation Records. The album was recorded with Electrical Audio engineer Greg Norman in North Carolina and Montreal, and was the first to feature completely new material since the band's reformation in 2010. It is also, with the exception of the vinyl version of F♯ A♯ ∞, the group's shortest album to date, timing in at just forty minutes.
Luciferian Towers is the sixth studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released on 22 September 2017 by Constellation Records. Information about the album was leaked via a press release on 13 July 2017, prior to the official announcement on 2 August 2017.
G_d's Pee at State's End! is the seventh studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released on 2 April 2021 by Constellation Records.
