Massive news came from Godspeed You! Black Emperor this morning. The Canadian experimental group officially announced their long awaited seventh record, Luciferian Towers. Following up 2015’s Asunder, Sweet, and Other Distress, the album will continue the band’s iconic mix of political post rock. With only four songs on the tape, the band will be exploring the topics of inequality, institutionalized violence, and symbols of oppression.
Luciferian Towers was recorded last winter in Montreal’s Hotel2Tango record studio, with Greg Norman returning as a producer and engineer. The music came to be over the last two years, and especially inspired by work memorializing the 100th anniversary of the WWI Battle of Messines. The band included a description within the press release that paints a picture of their creative process:
“this, this long-playing record, a thing we made in the midst of communal mess, raising dogs and children. eyes up and filled with dreadful joy – we aimed for wrong notes that explode, a quiet muttering amplified heavenward. we recorded it all in a burning motorboat.” This description comes alongside four images of album art, and descriptions for each song.
“1. UNDOING A LUCIFERIAN TOWERS – look at that fucking skyline! big lazy money writ in dull marble obelisks! imagine all those buildings much later on, hollowed out and stripped bare of wires and glass, listen- the wind is whistling through all 3,000 of its burning window-holes!
2. BOSSES HANG – labor, alienated from the wealth it creates, so that holy cow, most of us live precariously! kicking at it, but barely hanging on! also – the proud illuminations of our shortened lives! also – more of us than them! also – what we need now is shovels, wells, and barricades!
3. FAM / FAMINE – how they kill us = absentee landlord, burning high-rise. the loud panics of child-policemen and their exploding trigger-hands. with the dull edge of an arbitrary meritocracy. neglect, cancer maps, drone strike, famine. the forest is burning and soon they’ll hunt us like wolves.
4. ANTHEM FOR NO STATE – kanada, emptied of its minerals and dirty oil. emptied of its trees and water. a crippled thing, drowning in a puddle, covered in ants. the ocean doesn’t give a shit because it knows it’s dying too.”
The message was closed by naming the following ‘grand demands’ of the Luciferian Towers LP. “an end to foreign invasions, an end to borders, the total dismantling of the prison-industrial complex, healthcare, housing, food and water acknowledged as an inalienable human right, and the expert fuckers who broke this world never get to speak again.” I guess we will be able to see how successful these demands are when the album is released on September 22nd. Luciferian Towers will be available via CD, digital download, or 180 gram LP. In addition, there will be North America, Europe & UK tour beginning on the 3rd of September.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor Tour Dates
September 3rd – Montréal, Quebec @ Mile Ex End Musique Montréal Festival
September 22nd – Guadalajara, Mexico @ C3 Stage
September 23rd – Ciudad de México, Mexico @ Festival Aural
October 13th-14th – Rome, Italy @ Romaeuropa Festival
October 15th – Fribourg, Switzerland @ Frison
October 16th – Toulouse, France @ Le Bikini
October 17th – Bordeaux, France @ Krakatoa
October 18th – Rennes, France @ Théâtre National de Bretagne
October 19th – Rouen, France @ Le 106
October 20th – Lyon, France @ Le Tobogan
October 21st – Strasbourg, France @ La Laiterie
October 22nd – Lille, France @ La Condition publique
October 23rd – Brighton, England @ Brighton Dome
October 27th – Glasgow, Scotland @ ABC
October 28th – Manchester, England @ Victoria Warehouse
October 30th – Bristol, England @ Motion
October 31st – London, England @ Troxy
November 1st – Brussels, Belgium @ Vorst Nationaal
November 2nd – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso
November 3rd – Berlin, Germany @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
November 5th – Hanover, Germany @ Indiego
November 7th – Paris, France @ Elysée Montmartre
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