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Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

 
Album Review: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
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Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven

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Review

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, the much-anticipated follow-up to Godspeed You Black Emperor's Slow Riot, is a double-disc achievement of four works (each with multiple parts): "Storm," "Static," "Sleep," and "Antennas to Heaven." It is a windfall for any fan of ambient pop, orchestral rock, space rock, or simply lush string arrangements who understands how powerful love, melancholy, and frustration can be. The main complaint voiced by critics of Godspeed's music is that their works just repeat the same pattern: start out sparse and slow, build-build-build, crescendo. While there are certainly crescendos, there is no such predictable pattern repeated among the works on Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven -- it's loaded with dynamics, unexpected sections, strong emotions and beauty.

The album opener, "Storm," is a leap for GYBE! that, alone, makes this release worth getting. It's a rapturous work that rises with a potent melancholy, driven by heartrending emotions. "Storm" vents a powerful frustration (each listener can insert their own reasons why) with majestic screams of strings, guitars, and layers, resulting in a climactic and passionate soaring. It eventually winds down into an exhausted aftermath of piano, underlying drones, and frustrated rants. The second piece, "Static," is a wandering, isolationist piece of bleak expanses shaded with darker emotions, but the remaining two works raise the album back up to the impressive standard set by the opening cut, though with less furor and even more loveliness. "Sleep" opens with an elderly gentleman reminiscing about Coney Island, and his frank and amusing narration briefly recalls the recordings of David Greenberger and scenes from the documentary Vernon, FL. This narration is followed by a slow and melodic piece featuring a pseudo-theremin effect amidst all of the other instrumentation. "Antennas to Heaven" opens with someone playing acoustic guitar, singing "What'll We Do with the Baby-O," soon washed over with sound, which then gives way to a brief chorus of glockenspiels, and on.

During most of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, musical and emotional opposites alternate as regularly, and naturally, as breathing: delicate string work and rock-out guitar and drums, spoken word and walls of sound, gracious and possessed, tip-toes and cliff-diving, dark hallways and blinding sunshine. ~ Joslyn Layne, All Music Guide

Tracks



CD 1

Track TitleComposersPerformersTime
Storm: Levez Vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas to Heaven; Gathering ... Godspeed You Black Emperor! (22:32)
Static: Terrible Canyons of Static; Chart #3; World Police and ... Godspeed You Black Emperor! (22:35)


CD 2

Track TitleComposersPerformersTime
Sleep: Murray Ostril (They Don't Sleep Anymore on the Beach); Monheim; Godspeed You Black Emperor! (23:17)
Antennas to Heaven: Moya Sings Baby-O; Edgy Swingset Acid; She ... Godspeed You Black Emperor! (18:57)

Credits

Godspeed You Black Emperor! (Group), Godspeed You Black Emperor! (Main Performer)
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Wikipedia: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
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Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
Two human hands making gestures in front of exploding red lights on a brown background.
Studio album by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Released 9 October 2000
Recorded February 2000 at Chemical Sound Studios in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Genre Post-rock
Length 87:21
Label Constellation, Kranky
Producer Daryl Smith
Professional reviews
Godspeed You! Black Emperor chronology
Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada
(1999)		 Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(2000)		 Yanqui U.X.O.
(2002)

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (also known as Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven! and Levez Vos Skinny Fists Comme Antennas to Heaven) is a 2000 double album released by the Canadian post-rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Contents

Structure and details

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is unusual in being structurally and conceptually closer to a symphony than a conventional pop or rock album. The four tracks are composed of internal movements, with different sub-titles, that fade into each other. The whole album is instrumental, except for sampled voice inserts, and starts with an almost orchestral crescendo somewhat reminiscent of Ravel's Bolero.

The inner panels of vinyl edition released by Constellation contain a diagram used to illustrate the song names and lengths; each movement is drawn, by Efrim Menuck,[1] as a square block and the length of the block is governed by how much of the song it takes up. Some of the blocks slowly move upwards to show a raise. The movement title and the numerical length are either above or below the square. The same diagram is provided as a paper insert in the CD edition from Kranky.

The interior covers of the CD feature art by the Rhode Island-based William Schaff.[1] The double vinyl edition presents the same art, but on the sleeves instead. The flip side contains various images taken by the band.

Reception

In 2001, Q magazine named it as one of the 50 Heaviest Albums of All Time.[2]

Magnet (1-2/01, p.45) - Included it in Magnet's "20 Best Albums of 2000."

NME (12/30/00, p.78) - Ranked #16 in NME's "Top 50 Albums Of The Year". [3]

Track listing

The album consists of four continuous tracks on the Compact Disc release. Time lengths of individual movements are taken from the official discography.[4] Times for each movement appear in the album's cover art, but those times are very inaccurate. While the movements of the tracks are listed, the names of the four tracks that make up the album are unlisted on the CD.

Disc one
1.1: Storm
# Title Length
1. "Lift Yr. Skinny Fists, Like Antennas to Heaven..."   6:15
2. "Gathering Storm/Il Pleut à Mourir [+Clatters Like Worry]"   11:10
3. "'Welcome to ARCO AM/PM...' [L.A.X.; 5/14/00]"   1:15
4. "Cancer Towers on Holy Road Hi-Way"   3:52
22:32
1.2: Static
# Title Length
1. "Terrible Canyons of Static"   3:34
2. "Atomic Clock"   1:09
3. "Chart #3"   2:39
4. "World Police and Friendly Fire"   9:48
5. "[...+The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now]"   5:25
22:35
Disc two
2.1: Sleep
# Title Length
1. "Murray Ostril: '...They Don't Sleep Anymore on the Beach...'"   1:10
2. "Monheim"   12:14
3. "Broken Windows, Locks of Love Pt. III."   9:53
23:17
2.2: Antennas to Heaven
# Title Length
1. "Moya Sings 'Baby-O'..."   1:00
2. "Edgyswingsetacid"   0:58
3. "[Glockenspiel Duet Recorded on a Campsite In Rhinebeck, N.Y.]"   0:47
4. "'Attention...Mon Ami...Fa-Lala-Lala-La-La...' [55-St. Laurent]"   1:18
5. "She Dreamt She Was a Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone in an Empty Field"   9:43
6. "Deathkamp Drone"   3:09
7. "[Antennas to Heaven...]"   2:02
18:57

Notes

  • "Broken Windows, Locks of Love Pt. III" was originally named "3rd Part."
  • "She Dreamt She Was a Bulldozer, She Dreamt She Was Alone in an Empty Field" was originally named "John Hughes", presumably after the film director.
  • "Monheim" and "Chart #3" were broadcast on 19 January 1999, on John Peel's radio show before the release of Skinny Fists as the first two movements of a piece called "Hung Over as the Queen in Maida Vale." The closing movement was named "Steve Reich" after the minimalist composer.

Personnel

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Other musicians
  • Alfons – horn
  • Brian – horn
Production

References

  1. ^ a b "Godspeed You Black Emperor! – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (artwork page)". Constellation Records. http://cstrecords.com/releases/cst012/release_images. Retrieved 2009-05-03. 
  2. ^ Q magazine (2001). "A Selection of Lists from Q Magazine – Q 50 Heaviest Albums of All Time" (html). Q magazine. http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/qlistspage2.html#50%20Heaviest. Retrieved 2006-12-20. 
  3. ^ http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=1067376
  4. ^ Official discography

External links

v • d • e
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Efrim Menuck · Thierry Amar · Mike Moya · Aidan Girt · Sophie Trudeau · Norsola Johnson · Mauro Pezzente · David Bryant · Bruce Cawdron
Albums
F♯A♯∞ · Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven · Yanqui U.X.O.
Other releases
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This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 
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