New music

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This article was published 15/04/2021 (1950 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

POP / ROCK

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

G_d’s Pee at State’s End (Constellation)

Instrumental rock music isn’t easily embraced by the masses, as many find it hard to relate to a form that eschews the structure and focal points of popular song and performance. But there have been countless instrumental acts over the years whose artistic and musical visions have made for compelling and compulsive listening. One of the most important and artful purveyors of the form is Montreal collective Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

GY!BE (the name is taken from a 1976 documentary about a Japanese motorcycle club) has released seven studio albums since it began in 1994 and, even though its members went on hiatus between 2004 and 2010, it’s “comeback” record, ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!, was awarded the 2013 Polaris Prize. The 10-member group (its two projectionists are considered just as important as its violinist/organist, two drummers, two bassists, three guitarists) famously blew off the ceremony and donated the $30,000 prize to fund music education in Quebec prisons.

So, yes, it’s safe to say that GY!BE’s vision is activist and environmentalist. The group’s seventh album was written just prior to the onset of the pandemic and recorded last October at the band’s Hotel2Tango studio with producer Jace Lasek (Besnard Lakes) at the helm. As its title suggests, the ominous dread of the pre-COVID-19 world — a feeling wrought by everything from Trumpism to post-globalization capitalism and bloody religious conflict almost everywhere — weighs heavily on the music and moods of this album. One song is called Job’s Lament, after all, and shortwave radio snippets of good ol’ boy paranoia, a recitation of the military alphabet and found sounds of rockets and guns are threaded throughout the record.

G_d’s Pee’s eight tracks make up four distinct movements. In this space, though, suffice it to say that the band’s swirling chamber rock conjures almost pastoral moments of rueful contemplation and edgy apprehension while also building to roiling, head-bobbing, propulsive crescendos of guitars, tape loops, synthesized horns, strings, bass and drums. It’s an experience well worth 53 minutes of your time and, if you have a chance, post-COVID, make sure you see this band perform live. ★★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Job’s Lament; Cliffs Gaze/cliffs’ gaze at empty waters’ rise; Our Side Has to Win (for D.H.)

— John Kendle

 

Justin Bieber

Justice (RBMG)

Good riddance. With his new record Justice, Justin Bieber has finally knocked Dangerous: The Double Album off of the top of the Billboard charts, where that country release had held the No. 1 position for 11 weeks despite a racist video that emerged of singer Morgan Wallen that got him suspended by his label.

But now here comes Bieber with an album that begins with a sound bite quote from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” — and continues later with a lengthy appropriation from King’s 1967 “But If Not” sermon.

So this must be the Canadian singer’s protest album, right? No. It’s a pop record of love songs to his wife, Hailey Baldwin — the subject of Die for You, which follows the clip of the King speech.

Beyond these abominations of performative branding, the album is solid and an improvement over Bieber’s lackluster 2020 Changes, with competent pop songs like Peaches, which spotlights Toronto R&B singer Daniel Caesar and Giveon and now tops the Billboard Hot 100.

Lonely, the last track, offers something more. A collaboration with Benny Blanco and Billie Eilish’s brother, Finneas O’Connell, it’s a heartfelt performance that brings home the child star’s lot of being world famous yet utterly isolated. “Everybody saw me sick, and it felt like no one gave a s—,” the 27-year-old Bieber sings. ★★★ out of five

STREAM THESE: Peaches, Lonely

— Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

JAZZ

Code Quartet

Genealogy (Justin Time)

In 1960, saxophonist Ornette Coleman formed a quartet with Don Cherry on trumpet, Charlie Haden on bass and Billy Higgins on drums. It became the benchmark for his free jazz format.

This album, set for official release next week, purposely uses the same form to allow expression of the members’ compositional and improvisational skills. While they’ve been honing their collective voice for several years, this is the debut album of the Montreal-based Code Quartet: saxophonist Christine Jensen, trumpeter Lex French, bassist Adrian Vedady and drummer Jim Doxas.

While several tracks can be considered somewhat Coleman-like, the overall impression is of a quartet that has developed its own interactive reality. There is much free-wheeling exuberance here, and the music swings like mad. The two horns work beautifully together and solos are wonderful. The goal of freedom of expression for each member as shown in Coleman’s ground-breaking music is fully evident without being just a copy in any way.

The title track perhaps comes closest to showing a Coleman influence, with Jensen driving hard on alto instead of her usual tenor. Each member adds greatly as tempos and moods change within the track. Wind Up handles a very complex melody and harmony with total ease, with French flying over the band members, who join in effortlessly.

There are several gentle tracks that maintain all the deep interactions while creating a quieter mood. Requiem is an example of this, as is the somewhat surprising inclusion of the hymn O Sacred Head, Now Wounded. The whole album simply achieves a no-holds-barred goal that is surely is what was intended. Shifting time signatures and dissonant duets blend comfortably with thoughtful or laid-back moments. All members, especially Jensen and French, are stunners. ★★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THESE: Tipsy, Genealogy

— Keith Black

CLASSICAL

Music for the King of Scots

The Binchois Consort & Andrew Kirkman (Hyperion)

This new release pays homage to glories of the past, gently inviting listeners into a medieval pleasure palace, the playground of Scottish kings and queens — not to mention the birthplace of James V and Mary, Queen of Scots.

The Binchois Consort, led by Andrew Kirkman, breathes new life into the Carver Choirbook, from which hail all but one of its nine a cappella selections, once performed in the Chapel Royal of Linlithogow Palace, dating to the early 16th century. The historic volume is one of only two large-scale collections of music to survive from pre-Reformation Scotland, and is inscribed by its namesake, Augustinian canon Robert Carver.

One of the album’s two cornerstones is the five-part Missa Horrendo subdenda rotarum machinamento “Catherine Wheel Mass,” which provides a substantive taste of the ensemble’s fluid polyphony, from its opening Kyrie “Deus creator omnium” through to Agnus Dei. A particular highlight is its Gloria, sung simply and plaintively, with each of the opening, overlapping voices entwined like threads in brocade tapestry. The second is penultimate offering, Magnificat, with the ensemble’s otherworldly countertenor voices rising to heaven itself.

However the recording’s sweet spot belongs to final selection, Cornysh Sr.’s Ave Maria, mater Dei Ave Maria, mater Dei, which allows listeners to hear the group’s voices meld as one, their sonorous harmonies rich and full becoming modern-day pleasure for 21st-century ears. ★★★1/2 out of five

STREAM THIS: Ave Maria, mater Dei Ave Maria, mater Dei

— Holly Harris