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Recommended by us on 20th May 2011
...according to our Clinton on Fri 20 May, 2011.
This is the bloke who elongated The Silver Mount Zion's set to even more mammoth proportions when I saw them last year with rambling go nowhere stories between songs like a coked up 80's Rod Stewart on a particularly gruesome edition of the Russell Harty show. I'm being overly harsh, of course, I was so tired halfway through their three hour set that even the sight of Rod himself on the stage with a hilarious anecdote about his days in The Faces would have fallen on deaf ears. For this album as solo artists do, he's introduced his middle name into the equation. Its 'Manuel'. Of course, it had to be. Nice to see that he's managed to choose a brief title for this work, unlike those of any of his previous projects including Godspeed You Black Emperor (coming to an enormodrome near you very soon). The opening track is a mantra like chant, interesting if a bit unremarkable. Things get interesting with the second track (I'm dispensing with titles as they are too long to type), it features weird electronics and interesting layered chanted vocals. It sits somewhere between a post-nervous breakdown Panda Bear and Liars' 'Drum's Not Dead' madness. A fascinating ominous listen of mangled electronics and even more mangled vocals. Elsewhere we get quiet piano atmospherics with pained vocals, churning rockathon rifferama, eerie late night soundscapes, The Caretaker like ambience, and on the closer standout we get electronic folk explorations topped by thumping drums and a trademark crescendo of orchestration. Its an incredibly varied collection but at times rather impressive. The best comparison I guess would be Panda Bears evil twin, unafraid of exploring across genres, bold in arrangements and occasionally inspired.
* Efrim Manuel Menuck is best known as co-founder of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, leader of agit-chamber-punk group Thee Silver Mt. Zion, and member of the Vic Chesnutt Band (2007-2009); he has a combined thirteen albums under his belt with these three groups.
* He is also co-founder of Montreal's Hotel2Tango recording studio, with dozens of recording, arranging and guest playing credits to his name, for a list of artists as diverse as British Sea Power, Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Wolf Parade and Grant Hart.
* Fans of Menuck will be well versed in his highly original and constantly evolving approach to the sound of the electric guitar - a unique combination of short and long analog delays, biting compression and blown-out clouds of pink noise distortion. His recasting of various folkways through the lens of uncompromising punk-rock is also well-documented in the discography of Thee Silver Mt. Zion, with that band's use of poetically political group singing set against a hybrid of damaged blues, waltz, klezmer and folk instrumental tropes. Perhaps less appreciated is Menuck's work as an inventive signal-bender and soundsculptor, with an overriding commitment to analog processing, tape manipulations, re-amping and other iterative strategies. Efrim's aesthetic and techniques remain about as diametrically opposite to the dominant Pro-Tools and DSP culture as it gets for someone working in contemporary multi-tracked rock composition and production.
* Efrim Manuel Menuck plays "High Gospel" rallies all of these talents and sensibilities to deliver a powerful and personal album that serves as an ode to his adopted Montreal hometown (where he has now lived for two decades), the passing of great friends (Vic Chesnutt, Emma) and new fatherhood. Entirely self-produced and tracked at various Montreal locations, the album offers a confident, focused, humble and enveloping song cycle.
* The droning, mangled electric guitar beds that underpin group-vocal melodies and divebombing electronics on the album's opening track, and the hauntingly processed field recordings and ominous tape-delayed sound-sculpture of "a 12-pt. program for keep on keeping on", establish Menuck's inimitable sonic palette in uncompromising and inspired style. "12-pt. program" ends in a glorious squall of soaring tones and distorted breakcore beats that yield to the ensuing song's intimate yet wide-screen suite for electric guitar and violin (courtesy Silver Mt. Zion bandmate and partner Jessica Moss). "heavy calls & hospitals blues" closes Side 1 with a simple piano-based ballad that harkens back to Efrim's vocal debut on the first Silver Mt. Zion album in 1999.
* The first three songs on Side 2 deploy otherwordly ambience against repeating and contrapuntal melodies filtered through various pedal chains, occupying a distinctive interzone between electronic music and instrumental rock. In the second of these,"kaddish for chesnutt", Efrim astonishes with lyrics that convey a profound intimacy with Vic, celebrating his life and death in unflinching eulogy. The final scorched- earth solo guitar figures that introduce "i am no longer a motherless child" relent to organ and keyboard oscillations and what is perhaps the most unabashedly celebratory pop song Menuck has ever produced, propelled by a wide-eyed, joyous, deeply proud (and existentially relieved?) vocal that is all chorus: the song title sung over and over....
* CD comes in a custom gatefold jacket printed on 100% recycled CCNB paperboard in full colour with a matte UV varnish. CD sleeve is full colour print on reverse 9pt cardstock. LP is pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal (Germany) and comes in a jacket printed in full colour on thick 24pt board with matte UV varnish. LP includes a 12"x12" colour insert card with full colour art on one side and info/credits monoprint on the reverse. Both formats include a 9"x4.5" lyric sheet in full colour one side and monoprint reverse. First pressing of LP also includes a limited edition art print poster and a CD copy of the album.
* Front cover painting of Efrim & Ezra by Corri-Lynn Tetz. Back cover handset in vintage wood type at Popolo Press by Kiva Tanya Stimac. CD gatefold/LP insert collage handmade by Jessica Moss.
1. our lady of parc extension and her munificent sorrows 2. a 12-pt. program for keep on keepin' on
3. august four, year-of-our-lord blues 4. heavy calls & hospital blues 5. heaven's engine is a dusty ol' bellows
6. kaddish for chesnutt 7. chickadees' roar pt. 2 8. i am no longer a motherless child
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