GODSPEED! YOU BLACK EMPEROR

Yanqui U.X.O.

2LP/CD, Constellation

The longwinded, dynamic epics, which frequently culminate in musical stampedes of the Canadian 9-piece orchestra Godspeed YBE should be known by now. If you ever listened to classical music, then you would already have been familiar with musical concepts which take their time to unwind and rearrange itself, though of course this music draws just as much from classical concepts as it does from modern music plus some independent and / or punk influences as well. You have to learn to listen to music that is long, to get rid of the pop-song-structures and to build up attention span and ability to concentrate. Then you are in for a wild ride, which might make you a completely new person with a completely new outlook on life.
When exactly did Godspeed YBE become such an overtly political band? No more political messages encapsulated in samples and dialogues used only as introduction to the auditorial stampedes and epic instrumentals, but right here and there written down on the cover of their latest record. Are Canadians also easily caught by conspiration theories or was it the rise in effectiveness of the rallies against globalisation and so on in the last years, that left their marks on the way Godspeed YBE, the orchestral commune and musical revolutionaries, want to present themselves in the public. It is one thing to answer and raise questions in interviews and show a political standpoint in the direct communication with fans and the music community, but it is quite another thing to put a picture of bombs falling out of an airplane on the front cover of your album. Not to speak of a map of evil, depicting the connections between the major record companies and the weapon industry on the back cover of the album with “Yanqui U.X.O.” smack dab in the middle. I have often had the feeling that big modern global business is in fact one big network of shareholders, mergers, subsidiaries and other forms of economic rhizomization that is definitely not to be de-puzzled by normal people. There are two possible endpoints to the unconquerable spider’s web of connections between the big companies. One ends up in one single point, where one big evil magnate, the big cheese of big cheese, holds all the strings in his old shaking hands and is able to do anything he wants. The other idea is, that not even those in power know where the endpoints of that web are, that there might not be any ends at all, but that our whole global business system is just a never-ending re-petition of the system it has become. That actually the system itself is the only reason for perpetuation of the system. A sort of a manmade golem in the personae of a business system, which, though made by man, nevertheless rules our world completely. The first idea is usually regarded as some sort of paranoid conspiracy theory, but as they always say, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they won’t get you in the end. Or as William Burroughs said: “A paranoid is one who knows the facts.” The other idea is usually called economy and might be learned at universities around the globe. What students don’t learn, is that it doesn’t have to be that way. The truth or solution might be, that both ideas are true to a certain extent. I mean, there are very very powerful people on this earth, who are able to do what they want, who have so much power in decision and resources (money and human) that they might be able to raise and drop whole nations. But at the same time, if they are not controlling the whole thing, then they are only important checkpoints in the system and they will fall and break after some time, when other neuralgic points become more important. The system itself, like nature, doesn’t care. The system is only concerned with strengthening itself. This also fits the idea of eternal progress and steady rising growth in business economics. And with the idea of ever rising complexity, which is the main defender shield of the system against anything. And it has become so complex and invincible that it is hard to look through for anyone. For example, on the map on the backside of “Yanqui U.X.O.” the BMG (Bertelsmann Group) is lined up with various shareholders such as power companies and investment groups, who are then connected with ELF who are connected with weapon factories. But I know that the main part of BMG is owned by a family called Mohn, who are the heirs of the original founder and owner of Bertelsmann. And they are missing on this map. That is not to say that the map is wrong, because the connection does exist, but it leaves out an important point, namely one of those big cheeses behind the picture. Moreover I am missing the big banks and insurance companies on this map. No german chancellor would ever get elected without their help. The system is one big complex jungle of connections, substitutes and dependencies which has only one main goal: growth. Growth in both complexity and size. There is no way to get out of it, because every outside you could define is just one more part of the system itself, come into existence to make the system itself more multi-layered and therefore more stable. Just like art; art is just another subsystem created and maintained to give people who are trying to get outside of the system, some place to go to (that is still inside). Control is really not needed on the level of maintenance, only in rigorous cases on the level of individuals, and that is the reason states exist. Individual humans are only used by the system to keep running, maybe like blood cells in the body, you me and everyone has to fulfil a certain function, and that is to help the system grow in complexity and size. If you try to be a good citizen, then you are making the system more stable and give it more power. If you try to be an individual and to mould your own place to live in, then you are giving the system more complexity and therefore make it more stable. There is no outside. What is up here is down there. And one more thing: there is no centre. There are various points which are very important because many lines come together there, but there is no centre per se. The starting point might be the first human-like ape using the first tool, or even the first fish trying to get onto land, that is hard to say. But there is no middle point. The community that is Godspeed YBE knows that and they write it down on the liner notes. Still they are adhering to the ideal of supporting small and independent companies, an argument which has some quality on a minor level, but not at all in sight of the big picture painted above. Quite convincingly they also know about their own situation, being artists who try to distribute their message via the same corporations and means which the attack in their art (the printing plant, the oil needed to make records, the distribution deals, the postal companies, and so on) but they have learned that the only thing we can do is to live with this knowledge. Not to suppress it, but also not to get pressed down by it. There might be a light down the road somewhere, the hammer of hope is waiting (remember Pete Seeger?) and the trick is to go own doing what you think is right. Because the old saying still holds true: if you change yourself, you have made the first step to changing the world.

11/2002