Two For Twenty-two

It's been quite the day today for the Music Desk.  It's been quite the day for lovers of certain unclassifiable forms of contemporary popular music.

The big news was the album Time Skiffs by Animal Collective was released today and immediately made available for streaming on YouTube and Spotify and for purchase at Bandcamp (where it can also be streamed), the Constellation label website, and all the usual vendors.  The pending release was well publicized and I had at least a half-dozen emails in my inbox this morning from the band's email account, from Constellation records, from Bandcamp, and from various ezines and websites alerting me to the release.  

It's not all just hype - the release is kind of a big deal for fans of experimental, electronic rock.  It's Animal Collective's first full-length, full-band release in six years, and in my opinion is their best record since 2009's beloved Merriweather Post Pavilion.  Not that MPP is my favorite AnCo album, but it was the last album of theirs that I still listen to today.  They followed MPP with 2012's Centipede Hz, which has some good songs but is generally a noisy, chaotic record.  In many ways, it was the perfect response to those who wanted a polished pop follow-up to MPP, and a statement by the band that they were still an experimental, avant outfit not looking to be the breakthrough pop stars of the 2010s.  Okay, got the message, but while Centipede Hz isn't a '"bad" record, it's not comforting or welcoming either and if I'm in the mood to listen to AnCo, there are several other records I'd select first (Feels, Sung Tongs, Strawberry Jam, and Spirits come to mind, as well as my personal favorite, the Water Curses EP).

After Centipede Hz, AnCo released the forgettable Painting With in 2016, which did sound like a polished pop record.  On closer listen, they do some very interesting things with the vocals and harmonies, but overall, I found the record disappointing.  While I will admit several of the songs play better in live performances than in the studio, I was concerned that Painting With might be a harbinger of the decline of a once-awesome band.  

In addition to the two studio albums between 2009's MPP and now, members on AnCo have released several solo records, soundtrack albums, a couple conceptual video albums, and some live recordings, records indicating that their experimental instincts and inquisitive mentalities were still intact despite the tepid full-band studio recordings.  But many of us were still longing for a return-to-form studio album of new music from the band that would be worthy to stand alongside the rest of their impressive discography.

Time Skiffs is that.  They had already released at least four very promising tracks from the album prior to its release, and today I finally got to hear the whole album through.  It was a great experience, and like all the classic AnCo albums, I'm certain that on subsequent listens I'll hear new things I missed the first time through. It's easily one of AnCo's most accessible albums and others have said it's the follow-up to MPP that fans have been waiting for since 2009.  

I'll be seeing Animal Collective next month in Knoxville at the Big Ears festival.  I'll be going to Big Ears this year no matter what the covid pandemic throws my way (unless I'm actually sick and testing positive) - at this point, I'm either going to get the virus or not but I'm done with missing out on my life in the meanwhile.

So, the release of Time Skiffs today is a pretty big deal for fans of contemporary rock music.  But also on this day today, the fine British ensemble Black Country, New Road released their much-anticipated second album, Ants From Up There. BCNR are hard to classify (which adds to their appeal).  Post-rock? Baroque Pop?  Folk punk?  All of the above as well as other genres arise and fade in the course of their often lengthy and meandering compositions.  They're one of my favorite new bands (for some reason, most of the new bands I like these days all seem to be coming from the UK). I streamed the LP on Spotify today and can attest that the album holds up to my anticipation and all the hype around this new band. 

But the really interesting but also tragic aspect of the new BCNR release is that the band's future couldn't be more uncertain right now.  Just last week, frontperson, singer and songwriter Isaac Wood announced he was quitting the band, citing mental-health issues and the need for recovery and treatment.  The band had to cancel their planned first U.S. tour, but announced that the remaining six members have already begun to work on new music without Wood. Bassist Tyler Hyde will become the band's new lead vocalist, but out of respect for Wood, the band will no longer perform any music from their first two albums. All those great songs on Ants From Up There are doomed to exist only as recordings, and we'll never get the chance to hear them performed live, unless Wood decides that he's willing and able to return to the stage.

So today I got to listen to two brand-new and much-anticipated albums by one of my long-time favorite bands and one of my new-found faves.  That alone would make today a pretty big deal for the Music Desk, but then all of a sudden a nuclear-grade bombshell of an announcement caused seismic shock waves in the post-rock world:  

Godspeed You! Black Emperor's long-lost debut album was just discovered and uploaded to the net!

If I had to pick two bands as my favorites, depending on my mood I'd probably choose Animal Collective and Godspeed.  On other days in other moods, I might pick differently, but I would still have to acknowledge than I listen to the those two a lot. Today, February 4, 2022, saw new music surface from both of my favorites.  

The mystique around the Godspeed debut is a story unto itself.  Reportedly, back in 1994, the then-unknown and unsigned band assembled several tracks, field recordings, and samples from live performances onto a cassette tape and titled it All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling.  The band has stated that only 33 copies were made, and no one in the band knows where - or if - an existing copy still exists.  Band members claim that the tape wasn't very good and not at all representative of the sound they developed later.  

At the time the tape was made, Godspeed was an unknown Canadian collective still three years from their first album and six years from their 2000 breakout album, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven.  No one who happened to come into possession of the cassette tape at the time would have had any idea that the band would later become popular, nor would they have much reason to keep the odd assortment of tracks.  Most likely, the tapes got handed off and traded among fans in the local music scene only to wind in the dust bins of various collectors and ultimately in the trash.  Where are your cassette tapes from 1994 now?

But the existence of the tape became the object of fascination among Godspeed fans. Okay, maybe it's not good, but what was it like?  What did the band sound like all those years before their debut?  From time to time, a copy would be reported to have been found, most notably in 2013, but the prior "discoveries" turned out to either be fakes or the person claiming to have a copy would refuse to upload or share the music, suggesting that they really didn't have a legitimate copy. But the false claims and dead ends only added to the mystique of the tape, and it became something of a Holy Grail among Godspeed fans.

Today, the Holy Grail was apparently found and uploaded.  You can stream it on YouTube and I downloaded a copy from my dark web sources in case the stream gets taken down.  To my knowledge, no one in the band has confirmed or denied its legitimacy, but listening to it today, I can attest that it does sound like something young members of a band that would become Godspeed might have played.  Their trademark "field recordings" are present, as are some of their hypnotic guitar patterns.  There are some live snippets of punk rock quite unlike Godspeed's current, orchestral sound, but it should be remembered they were rock musicians before they were post-rock.  There's a lot of odd experimentation and sound manipulation on the tape that seems very Godspeed.  

Overall, today's All Lights Fucked upload sounds to me to be quite possibly legit.  It's not professional quality but it's not unlistenable either.  In its random, disjointed state, it almost reminds me of Swans' Soundtracks for the Blind (1996). If it isn't the legendary lost tape, the recording is still noteworthy as someone's interesting musical experiments, a forgery almost as worthy as what it's pretending to be.  In the future, I may not listen to it frequently but I sincerely doubt I'll never listen to it again.

Summary (tl;dr): Today, February 4, 2022 - 2-4-22 (two for twentytwo) -  the Music Desk was treated to a return-to-form album from old favorite Animal Collective, possibly the last recording by the promising new band Black Country, New Road, and the elusive and the legendary long-sought-after mystery tape All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling by Godspeed You! Black Emperor.  I had a great time listening to lots of strange new music today.