Tonight’s selections from Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s 1997 debut, F# A# Infinity.
"The car’s on fire, and there’s no driver at the wheel…"
The first words on Godspeed You! Black Emperor‘s debut album aren’t an introduction, they’re an elegy. A city lies in ruins, buildings crumbled, flames scorching the horizon, fear and grief the only resource that seems to still exist in abundance. From the moment the Montreal collective offer any semblance of context whatsoever, they give little indication or promise of hope of any kind. This isn’t entertainment, it’s the sound of a dying world.
It’s a hell of a way to introduce an artistic project to the world, at that. F# A# ∞ isn’t Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s first recorded set of music, but it’s the first that anyone heard outside of a handful of people, their first cassette release, at least in name, only this year officially surfacing online. For 25 years, however, F# A# ∞ was the genesis, the point from which the collective’s increasingly ambitious conceptual instrumental, experimental rock (or “post-rock”) projects flowed. But at the time of its release, it was enigmatic and oblique, offering more questions than answers, with only a beautiful and deeply unsettling path of melody and fragments of sound to follow. — Treblezine
The Dead Flag Blues
Godspeed You! Black Emperor's F# A# ∞ is an amazingly beautiful, epic album. I was floored the first time I heard it, and the reaction is still the same with subsequent listens. From the sprawling soundscapes of “The Dead Flag Blues” to the fevered, paranoid feel of “East Hastings” to the triumphant hopefulness of “Providence,” the band has created something that will be remembered as one of the greatest post rock albums of all time. Although the mood of the album is largely dark and gloomy, underneath it all lies an endearing sense of hope. Upon first listens, the album appears to be a warning; if we do not improve the way we live, then we could be ushering in the end of the world. As one listens further, however, they will find that the album is not a warning at all. As humans, there is one thing that we will always have as long as we draw breath: hope. Hope never dies, and as long as we hold on to that feeling that we will make it through, anything will be possible. When it appears that all is lost, when it appears that death is near, when it appears that the very earth is crumbling around us, we still have hope. I believe that is the message that Godspeed You! Black Emperor were attempting to get across with this album. Out of all of the albums that the band has released, I believe that this is their best, simply because it takes you far away to a place that seems so very different from where you are now, but at the same time it doesn't seem so far-fetched to think that we could all be there somewhere down the road. So pick this up and be transported away, maybe for a longer period of time than you at first wanted. Who knows? You might not want to come back. — Sputnik Music
East Hastings
Godspeed had good timing. As the 20th century was winding down, there was an uneasiness in the air that sometimes became outright paranoia. Any calendar change this significant will bring with it people who think the end of the world is nigh. In this case, there was the Y2k bug, which suggested that the computers that now powered so much of the world’s infrastructure might stop working properly when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve 1999. “Dead Flag Blues” describes being trapped inside the belly of a horrible machine that’s bleeding to death. At the end of the millennium, in more despairing moments, it seemed as though a simple programming glitch might open that vein.
Godspeed’s avoidance of the trappings of the music industry only enhanced their prophetic aura in the year after the release of F♯ A♯ ∞. They issued no photos, sold no t-shirts, and gave very few interviews. Given all the mysteries surrounding the record itself, and the openness to interpretation of the mostly instrumental music, that contextual void left a lot of room for the imagination.
The band did provide a few clues. Within each LP copy is a print showing a train with a tribute to the Reverend Gary Davis, a show flyer, a small envelope that contains an intricate blueprint called “Faulty Schematics of a Ruined Machine,” and, most famously, a single Canadian penny that has been crushed by a train. The coin is a potent symbol that connects so many of the album’s threads—the proximity of violence to money, the surprising endurance of supposedly obsolete technology, the intensely local nature of the entire enterprise, and, above all, the simple childlike joy of knowing a giant machine turned such a common object into a copper pancake. — Pitchfork
Providence
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WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?
Jimmy Kimmel: Ricky Gervais, Kaitlyn Dever, Kali Uchis
Jimmy Fallon: John Legend, Bill Burr, Black Thought (R 3/18/25)
Stephen Colbert: Jen Psaki, d4vd (R 4/30/25)
Seth Meyers: Sarah Snook, Glenn Howerton (R 5/15/25)
After Midnight: Joe Manganiello, Thomas Lennon, Paul F. Tompkins (R 1/23/25)
