Godspeed You! Black Emperor

»Things are not OK. Music should be about things are not OK, or else shouldn’t exist at all.« That’s what Canadian band Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s told The Guardian – a statement that underlines the appeal of this combative Montreal music collective. For 20 years now, GY!BE has been reacting to the violence of social powerrelations through instrumental music and a collective approach to work. Their »joyous, difficult noise« is an emotional journey, ranging from destructively furious, high-volume drone-collages to chamber-music elegies. It shows how unruly voices can come together in community. Field recordings, drones, strings, percussion and noise guitars plunge us in a whirlpool of dissonant and harmonious sound. Their work is a philosophical debate in the form of music, an orchestrated anti-hierarchy. The eight-person collective celebrates the latter in its live performance with the help of film projections – a collective state of rapture for an emancipated audience. Recordings are allowed, new songs are often performed live for years before appearing on albums (like, most recently, »Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress«), there are no press materials of GY!BE and by the end of their concerts, their audience has experienced what was once known in theater as »catharsis.« The opening act will be K/G/D (former Total Life), the experimental noise project of Kevin Doria, who is among many other engagements a band member of Growing.