Constellation Canada レコード& CD

Review: ***B-STOCK: LP has very light surface marks/scratches, but otherwise in perfect working condition***


RECOMMENDED
It's pretty much impossible not to get very, very excited about the prospect of a new Godspeed record. The outfit pretty much wrote the book on huge, epic, fantastical chamber rock with a punk edge when they first set about trying to soundtrack the decline of Western civilisation back in the late-1990s, and following reformation circa 2010 have only felt more relevant.

State's End! is a fitting addition to a back catalogue almost-entirely comprising landmark records, and while very much in the same vein as the band's previous, it's also original enough to confirm the group are still as incomparable as ever (albeit some have noted this album takes them one-step closer to a latter day Pink Floyd). Soaring, rousing, tense instrumental rock that also packs a vital message - the world needs to change tact before all is too late - it's likely this will be one of the year's most essential releases.

Review: The Canadian sonic soothsayers here deal out their shortest, and most immediate record since their 1997's debut, yet for all its 40-minute brevity, there's no shortage of the kind of monolithic intensity that the band have become renowned for. As orchestral and elegiac as it triumphantly amp-abusing, "Asunder..." is a masterclass in windswept atmospherics, powerful dynamics and apocalyptic grandeur, building to a climax with enough emotional heft to shake any listener's world on its axis. Existing more than ever outside of genre and comparison, Godspeed continue to inhabit an awe-inspiring sonic landscape that is theirs and theirs alone.

Review: Undoubtedly one of the most unique and profounds records heard in recent memory, this third full-length album from the Montreal-Beirut, audio-visual duo, Jerusalem In My Heart, is an awe-inspired display of voice, electronics, buzuq instrumentation and Maqam shifts. The album collides Arabian musicology with contemporary extremes of experimental electronic production, and the sounds and socio, geo-political discourse it navigates, fathoms depths so deep it's impossible not to feel affected by its sentiment. With the 19 minute-long "Wa Ta'atalat Loughat Al Kalam" defining the release like a street call to pray, the fretted bumps and dancey grunge of "Bein Ithnein" to the guttural oral chants of "Thahab, Mish Roujou', Thahab", places Daqa'iq Tudaiq in a world of its own. Must Listen.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Jerusalem In My Heart represents exactly why we live in one of the most exciting times for musical discovery. It's a layered and stacked, multifaceted sonic tapestry that calls on an abundance of influences to paint something that is Arab-Levantine-avant-garde sound art in the truest sense. Places that feel as though they were born in the 21st and 17th centuries alike. Textures that are entirely of the eastern Mediterranean, and yet utterly global.

Led by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh, 13 powerful tracks are presented on this latest outing, which also features guests like Moor Mother, Tim Hecker, Lucrecia Dalt, Greg Fox, and Rabih Beaini. Politics are at the fore, with the second side tunes all sharing a name and bearing an individual number, representing how violence in the region has reached new heights while poignant to consistent state failures on an economic front. Simply put, this is absolutely unmissable.