| Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Godspeed You! Black Emperor |
| Cover: | Liftyrskinnyfists.jpg |
| Alt: | Two human hands making gestures in front of exploding red lights on a brown background. |
| Released: | 9 October 2000[1] |
| Recorded: | February 2000 |
| Studio: | Chemical Sound Studios, Toronto, Ontario |
| Genre: | Post-rock |
| Length: | 87:21 |
| Producer: | Daryl Smith |
| Prev Title: | Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada |
| Prev Year: | 1999 |
| Next Title: | Yanqui U.X.O. |
| Next Year: | 2002 |
Lift Your Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven is the second studio album by Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released as a double album October 9, 2000 on vinyl by Constellation, and November 8, 2000 on CD by Kranky. It was listed on multiple decade-end lists as one of the greatest albums of the 2000s.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor is a Montreal band formed in 1994.[2] The band hails from the Canadian post-rock scene,[3] [4] with the band's label Constellation being a central part of the scene, though both Constellation founder Ian Ilavsky and Godspeed You! Black Emperor guitarist Efrim Menuck have stated that they see their music as more punk rock than post-rock. Godspeed You! Black Emperor's politically motivated music output is primarily instrumental, being framed with field recordings and tape manipulation.[2] Their early work leading up to Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven "[came] across like an attempt to blend divinity and human folly atop the same sonic canvas," according to The A.V. Clubs Andrew Paul, with the music conveying humanity's hopelessness and self-destruction.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor released three records in the 1990s: the self-released cassette All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling (1994), the studio album F♯ A♯ ∞ (1997), and the EP Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada (1999).[2] [5] The band also regularly staged three-hour long live performances, including in major cities such as London, San Francisco, and New York City. During this time, they started receiving attention beyond the underground scene, particularly from the British press,[6] with much critical analysis of their work. The band itself has typically avoided interviews and promotional material, citing concerns of misrepresentation of their work in the media and bafflement at their increased popularity.[7] Two notable exceptions include their interviews for The Wire and NME, with the latter's being a cover interview despite the cover not featuring a picture of the band.
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven consists of four 20-minute tracks divided into movements: "Storm", "Static", "Sleep", and "Antennas to Heaven". Godspeed You! Black Emperor recorded the album in Chemical Sound Studios, Toronto, in nine days with producer Daryl Smith, with the material drawn from the band's recent live performances. The instrumentation involved string instruments, guitars, pianos, static, and occasional field recordings. According to Menuck, the composition of the tracks drew upon his filmmaking studies, with him comparing the combining of musical pieces and field recordings to film editing. Compared to previous projects by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is more progressive and hopeful. Drummer Aidan Girt cited this tonal shift to the recent growth in Montreal's economy.[8] In a 2012 Guardian interview, the band collectively stated that, contrary to popular belief, their intent from the beginning was to create "heavy music, joyously" that acknowledged yet dismissed the bleakness of contemporary times.[9] Jeanette Leech argued in Fearless: the Making of Post-Rock that Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven represented this ideal.
The four tracks on Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven are composed of individually named internal movements. The album is primarily instrumental, except for sampled voice inserts and the one-minute opening to track 4, entitled "Moya Sings 'Baby-O'...". The samples on the album are often used to send some satirical, political, or poetic message. The inner panels of the vinyl edition released by Constellation contain a diagram used to illustrate the relative lengths of movements within the four tracks; each movement is drawn by Efrim Menuck,[10] as a rectangular block with its length determined by the proportion of the track it comprises. Some of the blocks are shifted slightly upwards to show an increase in intensity. The movement title and the numerical length are denoted either above or below the square. The same diagram is provided as a paper insert in the CD edition from Kranky.
The inside cover drawings were taken from William Schaff's "Notes to a Friend; Silently Listening No. 2", illustrations taken "from a series of small little books [Schaff] self released in the late 90s, and early into the 21st century".[11] The cover is a redrawn version, by John Arthur Tinholt, of one of Schaff's pieces from that series. The flip side of the vinyl contains various photographs taken by the band.
On Metacritic, the album has a score of 84 based on 13 reviews, indicating "Universal acclaim". Pitchfork called it a "massive and achingly beautiful work", describing the first disc as "a refinement of the sound that crystallized on the Slow Riot EP" whilst the second disc "flirts with moments of vertiginous shoegazing, looser rock drumming and reckless crescendos of unalloyed noise". Alternative Press called it "a massive instrumental effort" that is "as skilled and musical as it is on-the-fly improvised and messy".[12] The A.V. Club called the album "as beautiful and disarming as its predecessors".[13] Tiny Mix Tapes called the album "alternately hypnotic and captivating, sleepy and startling" comparing its sounds to "a far subtler Pink Floyd".[14] The Austin Chronicle called it "cinematic" and "breathtaking in its grandiose beauty".
The album went on to be included in numerous year-end and decade-end music lists. Magnet included it in its "20 Best Albums of 2000" list.[15] NME ranked it number 16 in its "Top 50 Albums of the Year".[16] Sputnikmusic named it the 6th best album of the 2000s.[17] Pitchfork named it the 5th best album of the year[18] and the 65th best album of the decade.[19] They also ranked the first movement of the track 'Storm' at #283 on their list of "Top 500 tracks of the 2000s".[20] Tiny Mix Tapes ranked it 7th on their "Favorite 100 Albums of 2000–2009" list.[21] LAS Magazine ranked it the 14th greatest album of the decade.[22] Gigwise included the album on its list of the 50 best albums of the 2000s.[23] In their 20th anniversary review of pop culture from 2000, The A.V. Club published a piece on this album as one of their "Permanent Records", with reviewer Andrew Paul writing that it feels "prophetic" to listen to in the 21st century, with the content "somehow even more terrifying, beautiful, and awesome".[24] A 2020 BBC overview of double albums lists this as an "honorable mention" for releases that the audience needs to hear.[25] Paste magazine placed this album on 6 in their list of 50 post-rock albums of all time.[26]
The compact disc contains two tracks per disc; the double LP, one track per side. Time lengths of individual movements are taken from the official discography;[27] 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.
Adapted from liner notes and AllMusic. Names are in order based on liner notes.[32]
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Other personnel