Released 20 years ago this month, the preposterously titled “F# A# ∞”—which is pronounced “F Sharp, A Sharp, Infinity”, apparently—has been somewhat eclipsed by the band’s next album, 2000’s “Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven”, as their definitive statement. Often hailed as one of the leading lights of Post-Rock, Godspeed have continually delegated responsibility for iconography to their album covers at the expense of the individual members of the band, a move which speaks volumes about their musical philosophy. Vocals, choruses and virtuosic showboating are out in favour of carefully structured and deeply atmospheric collaborative pieces. The subtraction of individual personalities from the music leaves only the cover of “F# A# ∞” as a listening companion and mirror of the album’s contents: stormy, foreboding and evocative.
The album is enjoyed best when viewed less as a collection of songs and more the unearthing of field recordings from a post-apocalyptic world, complete with crackling static, ambient noise and hiccupping helicopter blades. The plangent notes of the intro to “The Dead Flag Blues” paint a sepia-toned dirge of Ennio Morricone’s “The Ecstasy of Gold”, before melting into a swampy musical slur. To a modern listener “F# A# ∞” draws endless comparisons, often to albums released after it was: the crystalline ambience of “Music Has the Right to Children”, the ragged theatricality of “Funeral”, maybe the glacial terror of “Kid A”.
However, despite its reputation for austere desolation there are surprising shades of warmth to “F# A# ∞”. For all its aesthetic cohesiveness, the album is surprisingly musically varied, incorporating plinking xylophones, spangling Chris Isaak guitar chords and even squalling bagpipes in one pained interlude. “Providence” alone spools through barbarous tribal drums, the groans of atonal violins, rigid martial rhythms and Vangelis-esque synth dreaminess. The exhilarating climax “East Hastings” hits halfway through is the savage peak of the record, the whole band thundering at full tilt, with drummer Aidan Girt making superb use of his double-bass pedal.
Moments like this tend to overshadow the album’s occasionally tedious indulgences in ambience. Much as they contribute to the overall mood of the album, “F# A# ∞” sometimes dips into a stolid aimlessness, although the band would doubtless argue that I am simply expecting the wrong thing from this project. Songs here always serve the greater album and individual quality is secondary. With this in mind, the richness and ambition of “F# A# ∞” can’t be faulted if you accept it on its own terms. Sounding like a spaghetti western set in a nuke crater, it remains an oblique, ominous monolith in the Post-Rock genre. As an amorphous collective, whether Godspeed You! Black Emperor are a great “band” in the conventional sense of the word is up in the air, but there is no denying that this is a great album. CO
A+
Listen Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Ty3YnWN80