Happy 25th Anniversary to Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s debut album F♯ A♯ ∞, originally released on vinyl August 14, 1997 and on CD June 8, 1998.
Editor’s Note: This tribute—including references to sequencing and track listings—celebrates the more widely distributed CD release (also available via streaming platforms).
I’m sitting in the back of the venue in pitch blackness. It’s been a grueling evening—emotionally, even physically. Godspeed You! Black Emperor has not been screwing around, dragging a 900-seat theatre through a confrontationally loud show with no breaks between songs, and I’m starting to feel like my ears, and my head, and my heart can’t take much more of it, when the balcony starts to sing.
The band has dropped to nothing, one of the moments in the show when the tinnitus fills in the white space. It’s time for “The Sad Mafioso,” a movement from “East Hastings,” off F# A# ∞. Unlike the vast majority of Godspeed’s work, it features a fragile moment of band vocals. It’s a devastating moment: after upwards of an hour of pummeling music, a select few crowd members came in at the exact right time.
This is what it’s like to listen to the band’s debut, a record that starts with ominous dialogue: “The car’s on fire and there’s no driver at the wheel.” Immediately, the record is plunged into an inky blackness, leaving the listener to fend for themselves as Godspeed drench them in a directionless haze. It often floats in free time, sometimes moving to complete silence (including three full minutes of it near the end of “Providence”).
The record works on vibes alone, outside of the form and mathematical logic of most Western music. It wants you to have no idea where you’re going, but still expects you to join in on the select few frantic rave-ups sprinkled throughout the hour-long run-time. These consolidations feel like the select moments of collective rage that our culture feels before being thrown back into the disorienting madness of our times.
Listen to the Album:
The chaos of the sound itself mirrors the record’s distribution. Released on LP in the late nineties (i.e., before the vinyl revival), this initial release was a physical artifact that many still could not hear—only through live performance would the rumor of Godspeed come alive. (Well, F# A# ∞ is only the band’s debut if you discount the recently-unearthed 1994 release All Lights Fucked On The Hairy Amps Drooling delivered on just 33 cassette tapes. If this hadn’t really happened, I’d assume this was a parody.) The band was an effervescent thing, with a rotating cast of characters, until this hour of music appeared on CD and answered…well, it’s hard to say.
The majesty—because it is majestic—of F# A# ∞ is in its unashamed collectivity. The first movement of “The Dead Flag Blues” has a recognizable melody, but not one that belongs to a single instrument, or that happens the same way twice. Efrim Menuck’s electric guitar offers a foundation that is sometimes melody, sometimes support for violinist Christophe, sometimes embellished on by cellist Norsola Johnson. The heart of the movement lies at the intersection of these three instruments, never belonging to one on its own.
This interdependence gives F# A# ∞ its fleetingness—a moment is only a moment so long as every instrument supports it. Once one player changes tack, the moment is forever redefined. And yet, F#A#∞ eludes the premeditation and precision of so much post-rock (e.g., Sigur Rós, Explosions in the Sky). Even at their most cohesive, such as “The Cowboy” (the third movement of “The Dead Flag Blues”), the seeming randomness of the introduction and departure of various instruments and melodies re-shape the landscape chaotically, but beautifully. In this sense, they’re more like a jam band than a post-rock ensemble, relying on collectivity, rather than orchestration.
The collective soul of F# A# ∞is, of course, in parallel to the group’s political bent: far-left, anarchic, distrustful of authority and the music industry. In trusting in the chaos of the band, they demonstrate that there is beauty to be found counter to the structured order of things. As the sampled interview in “Providence” tells us, the preacher man says that the world is going to end, “I don’t go by what he says.” In 1998, Godspeed were flagging the despair in our culture, but showed us that there’s still something beautiful to make, together. Laying out a philosophy so clearly and boldly on a debut record is a truly special thing, making F# A# ∞a truly unbelievable work of art.
Listen: