Baby, It Has To Fall

Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Silver Mt. Zion, etc.) has also  released  music under  his own name, and  the new track, Baby, It Has To Fall, for the Corona Borealis Longplay Singles series, ranks among the best solo material he's produced yet.

Silver Mount Zion

From 2006

Brothers and Sisters, We Finally Defeated MAGAism Today

Sisters and Brothers, we have surely lost our way in strip malls full of cancer and a pathetic rain. Mother, sweet mother, please don't discipline your hands, just kiss me in the morning in your dirtiest pants. We will find our way. We will find our way. 

There is beauty in this land but I don't often see it. There is beauty in this land but I don't often feel it. 

People are flowers, musicians are cowards! Let's argue in the kitchen for hours and hours. Tomorrow is a travesty, tomorrow should be ours. Musicians are cowards! Musicians are cowards! Musicians are cowards! Musicians are cowards! Musicians are cowards! Musicians are cowards!

The soldiers with their specialists and the pigs with their guns cannot stop the lost ones and the desperate ones and the driven ones. The soldiers with their cigarettes and the pigs with their guns cannot stop the lonesome ones and the desperate ones and the smart ones. 

So come on friends to the barricades again. So come on friends to the barricades again. So come on friends to the barricades again. So come on friends to the barricades again. We will find our way. We will find our way.

When we finally cross the barricades with the angels on our sides, when we finally deny all the popular lies, when we finally let doubt and worry die, how will it feel?

The Evolution of Silver Mt. Zion

The evolution of Thee Silver Mt. Zion band - Friday we uploaded a bootleg video of a 2001 performance in Paris and on Sunday, another Paris performance but from 2010. 

In 2001, they were a post-rock chamber ensemble playing mostly instrumentals off of the debut album He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometime Grace the Corners of Our Rooms.  By 2010, they were a full-fledged rock band playing songs off their sixth LP, Kollaps Tradixionales.

Let's now look at a point half-way between those two performances. Here that are in 2006 at Le Grand Mix in Tourcoing, France, near Lille and the Belgian border, performing songs from their 2005 album Horses In the Sky, probably my favorite Silver Mt. Zion recording.  This performance captures them at the half-way point between a chamber ensemble and a rock band.  Very impressive, to say the least.

The first five songs, before the drone that closes the set, are from Horses In The Sky, while the encore songs are from 2008's 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons (Blind, Blind, Blind, introduced as "a new song"),  2001's Born Into Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upward (Take These Hands and Throw Them in the River, an "old song"), and the 2004 EP Pretty Little Lightening Paw (There's a River in the Valley Made of Melting Snow).  The set list and starting times for the songs are as follows:

1. God Bless Our Dead Marines (0:00)
2. Mountains Made Of Steam (18:55)
3. Teddy Roosevelt's Guns (31:49)
4. Horses In the Sky (48:17)
5. Ring Them Bells (Freedom Has Come and Gone) (58:10)
6. (Untitled Drone) (1:13:40)
7. Blind, Blind, Blind (1:23:41)
8. Take These Hands and Throw Them in the River (1:39:47)
9. There's a River in the Valley Made of Melting Snow (1:53:43)

Here's a picture of Le Grand Mix in case you're curious.

I Built Myself A Metal Bird. I Fed My Metal Bird the Wings of Other Metal Birds.

The evolution of Thee Silver Mt. Zion band - Friday we uploaded a bootleg video of a 2001 performance in Paris, and now here they are, back in Paris in 2010. 

In 2001, they were a post-rock chamber ensemble playing songs off of the debut album He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometime Grace the Corners of Our Rooms.  By 2010, they were a rock band saying that they wished they were Teenage Jesus and the Jerks from NYC and playing songs off their sixth LP, Kollaps Tradixionales.

As you'll learn from the video, the song doesn't take long to evolve from a punk-rock stomper into post-rock territory.

Very impressive, to say the least.

Silver Mt. Zion, Montreuil, Instants Chavirés, January 29, 2001

If you've got some time on your hands, and you're not kidding anyone, we know that you do, here's an outstanding bootleg video of a 2001 performance by Montreal's Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band in Paris, France.  The video captures the full show, from the band setting up, through the entire performance, the encore break, and everything.  Nothing's been edited out.

This was the initial lineup of the band and they perform songs from their outstanding 2000 debut album, He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace The Corner of Our Rooms.

For reference, this show occurred sometime between the release of Natural Snow Building's Two Sides of a Horse (2000) and Ghost Folks (2003), and I like to think that Mehdi and Solange were in that Paris audience and that this show inspired them to move fully into the post-rock sound hinted at in Horse and perfected in Ghost Folks.

Sisters and Brothers,
We have surely lost our way
In strip malls full of cancer
And a permanent rain.
Mother, sweet mother,
Please don't discipline your hands.
Just kiss me in the morning
In your dirtiest pants.

We will find our way.

There is beauty in this land
But I don't often see it.
There is beauty in this land,
But I don't often feel it.

People are flowers.
Musicians are Cowards!
Let's argue in the kitchen
For hours and hours.
Tomorrow is a travesty,
Tomorrow should be ours.
Musicians are Cowards!

The soldiers with their specialists
And the pigs with their guns cannot stop
The lost ones, and the desperate ones, and the driven ones.

The soldiers with their cigarettes
And the pigs with their guns cannot stop
The lonesome ones, and the desperate ones, and the smart ones.

So come on friends,
To the barricades again.
We will find our way.

When we finally cross the barricades
With the angels on our sides,
When we finally deny all the popular lies,
When we finally let all doubt and worry die -
How will it feel?

Horses In The Sky

A cover of the title track from Thee Silver Mt. Zion Orchestra's 2005 masterpiece by Mawyx, who disappeared from YouTube sometime shortly after posting this six years ago.

Set Fire To Flames

For a Godspeed You! Black Emperor fan, finding out there's a second spin-off band in addition to Silver Mt. Zion is a little like a child finding out there's not one or two, but actually three Santa Clauses, or like realizing that you've bought three separate winning tickets to the Powerball lottery.

Set Fire to Flames is a Canadian post-rock collective started by Godspeed's David Bryant that also features Godspeed regulars Mike Moya and Sophie Trudeau, among others, although no Efrim Menuck, the principal behind the Silver Mt. Zion spin-off.  

SFTF apparently released two albums. Both albums were reportedly recorded "in states of little or no sleep, in varying levels of intoxication, and in physical confinement," resulting in some of the most eerie and brooding music to come from these musicians.  Many of their tracks are very minimalist in nature and are filled with ambient noise and various other non-musical sound effects juxtaposed or combined with instrumental music.

Sings Reign Rebuilder (2001) came out in between Godspeed's Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000) and Yanqui U.X.O.(2002).  The material for the album was created over five days in a dilapidated old apartment in Montreal and is a mixture of improvisation, composition, and environment noises.

The two-disc Telegraphs in Negative/Mouths Trapped in Static (2004) was released while Godspeeed was on hiatus, but in between Silver Mt. Zion's 'This Is Our Punk-Rock,' Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing (2003) and Horses in the Sky (2005).  This album, recorded in a barn in rural Ontario, contains, among other things, the sounds of creaking doors and other background noise in the songs.

A third album was reportedly recorded in collaboration with the band Jackie-O Motherfucker but never released.

Fans of the long and enigmatic titles of Godspeed and Silver Mt. Zion songs will not be disappointed by Set Fire to Flames, who have songs with names like Steal Compass/Drive North/Disappear, and Something About Eva Mattes in the Halo of Exploding Street Lamps..., and Fukt Perkusiv/Something About Bad Drugs, Schizophrenics and Grain Silos..., and Wild Dogs of the Thunderbolt/'They Cannot Lock Me Up... I Am Eternally Free...' (From Lips of Lying Dying Wonder Body #2).  For those of you keeping score at home, the latter is from Sings Reign Rebuilder, which does include Lips of Lying Dying Wonder Body parts #1 and #3.

It's going to take me a while to assimilate these new (to me) recordings and understand the music in context of the other LPs, but I can already tell I'm going to thoroughly enjoy the process.

What We Loved Was Not Enough

From Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything (2014)

Here's a Video of Members of Silver Mt. Zion Staring Back at You

Je Suis Achmed

Take These Hands And Throw Them In The River

A live version of Take These Hands And Throw Them In The River from Born Into Trouble As The Sparks Fly Upward

Horses In the Sky

from 2005

Thee Silver Mt. Zion

A live-in-studio version of God Bless Our Dead Marines.

This Gentle Hearts Like Shot Bird's Fallen

from Born Into Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upwards (2001)

Musicians Are Cowards

"Sisters and brothers, we have surely lost our way
In strip malls full of cancer and a pathetic rain."

 - The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes from Born Into Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upwards (2001)

Your Shadow Under My Feet

Promo video for Tu Sombra Bajo Mis Pies, featuring a short excerpt from Tho You Are Gone I Still Often Walk With You from Silver Mt. Zion's Born Into Trouble As the Sparks Fly Upward (2001)

13 Angels Standing Guard 'Round The Side Of Your Bed

from He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms. The 2000 album was dedicated to frontman Efrim Manuck's late dog, Wanda.  A few years later, in God Bless Our Dead Marines, Efrim would sing,

"I love my dog and she loves me.  
The world's a mess and so are we.
She tumbles long green, muddy fields, sick with joy and glee.
And as she dreams sweet puppy dreams, whimpering gently."

Stumble Then Rise on Some Awkward Morning

from He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corners of Our Rooms (2000)