Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A#∞

Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F#A#∞

Tracklist
Nervous, Sad, Poor... 20:48
Bleak, Uncertain, Beautiful... 17:37

Dating from 1997, the vinyl debut from Montreal’s experimental music collective and post-rock legends. The band took its name from a 1976 Japanese documentary which follows the exploits of a Japanese biker gang, the Black Emperors. An anomalous album, abstract and dramatic – over the top, sure, but groundbreaking, too. Wide screen soundtracks to the apocalypse (did it ever arrive? too soon to tell…). Amazingly, this is still in press with the same packaging: embossed card sleeve with a photo (three different images – train, water tower, highway lights) glued to the front, complete with inserts and goody bag/envelope within. A real act of dedication. Respect.

"It's hard to articulate today just how alien this record felt back in 1997. Even at a time when Tortoise was normalizing the concept of extended, abstract post-rock movements and Mogwai was mastering the art of crushing crescendos, the debut album from Godspeed You Black Emperor! still sounded like nothing of its era, or of its planet for that matter. The packaging for F# A# ∞'s original vinyl issue—the mournful black-and-white photo pasted to the paper sleeve, the cryptic blueprint-like liner notes and crushed coin contained in a sealed dossier—only seemed to amplify the enigmatic eeriness and disorienting dread emanating from the album's string-swept mélange of industrialized drones, field recordings, and desolate twang. " – Pitchfork