Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Constellation
October 9th, 2000.
The precipice of Post-Rock Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven(LYSFLATH) was released on this day in 2000. The Godspeed collective somehow managed to meet, and surpass, expectations set with F#A# released three years prior. The apocalyptic tones that are now appendaged like a signature staple to GYBE's output were further cemented. The last days are always upon us; but never as near as when Godspeed supply the soundtrack.
The four-track sweep that is LYSFLATH consists of: "Storm", "Static", "Sleep" and "Like Antennas To Heaven".
"Storm" starts off as a slow - no surprises there - and sweeping mourning and makes its way towards a triumphant air - the good times have come. Rising like roots to the surface, the inhalation has been undertaken - the lungs are full of the good stuff. Life has strived through the mud in order to produce itself, in order to experience itself. As things have begun; so they shall end. A mournful air drifts in like fog. Welcome Arco AM:PM mini market. Tim Hecker-like piano pieces stab down from above. You need the fog every now and then so that you know that you can see. These small reminders are massive.
"Static". Infinite horizons. Fridge buzz. Calculations. Minds opening. Eyes closing. Penetrating darkness. Closing in on the source through sense elimination. The goal is not to GET high, but to BE high. If you wake up you win.
"When you see the face of God you will die."
The highs have their equal lows and vice versa, although it may not feel like it, or you may not see it/feel it that way. Thoughts echo around the mind. The skull, a globe of death for the thinking being. The whaling guitars on "Static" fuzz like hornets caught in a megaphoned exhaust pipe being beamed out the back of a jumbo jet. The swarm are en route to the inside of your skull, where they will thrive for the next couple of minutes.
The megaphoned-turbo-jet-exhaust-pipe hornets return on "Sleep". The aftermath. Nuclear fallout. The remains of what once was. The outline of civilisation. See-through memories. Sleep: eight hours a night, or for the rest of your life. Reeling in the years: the tears, fears, it all comes flooding back.
"Like Antennas to Heaven". One final exhale before the curtains close. The short straw that must be pulled. The car's run out of road; the train's out of track.
In usual GYBE fashion, they are in no rush to get where they're going: the journey is the reward. Build-and-release, build-and-release, inhale-and-exhale, inhale-and-exhale, life-and-death, life-and-death: the Godspeed way. Cities rise and cities fall. Sunsets seen through apocalyptic smog. A world bankrupt of decency. The veil placed upon us all by outside forces, and bolstered by ourselves. Blind to the fact. The refusal to wake up. Everyday we edge that bit nearer to the end: the tides rise; the ground cracks; the clouds burst; the world spins... off its axis. The rubble will be used to re-build, or at least partially repair. Although things will never be the same.
LYSFLATH is just under 90-minutes of flowing "sonic statements" rather than song. Landscapes of hopeful, hopeless and all states in between. A grand achievement. A statement of mega-sonic proportions. Stories told through sound, how else could it be? They don't sleep anymore on the beach....
