Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion co-founder Efrim Manuel Menuck has a second solo album on the way, following his 2011 debut Plays “High Gospel”. Entitled Pissing Stars, the record arrives on February 2nd and it marks the first release of the year from Constellation Records. Inspired by the romance of an American television presenter and the son of a Saudi arms dealer, back when Menuck was a teenager, Pissing Stars finds him “at his most vulnerable and his most adventurous”, as the label describes. Menuck comments on this:
“PISSING STARS is inspired by the brief romance of american television presenter MARY HART and MOHAMMED KHASHOGGI, the son of a saudi arms dealer. i don’t know how long their union endured, but i remember reading about them when i was a desperate teenager – there was something about their pairing that got caught in my head. i was living in a flooded basement with two other lost kids and a litter of feral kittens. we were all unfed. this strange intersection – the televisual blonde and the rich saudi kid with the murderous father; it got stuck in me like a mystery, like an illumination- this vulgar pairing that was also love. these privileged scions of death and self-alienation, but also love. i’ve carried it in me for 3 decades now, this obscure memory, and i return to it often, tracing its edges like a worn talisman. this record is about the dissolution of their relationship, and the way that certain stubborn lights endure. this record was made in dark corners between 2016 and 2017. a very rough pair of years, shot thru with fatigue, depression, despair, and too many cigarettes and too much booze. but also = the giddiness of enervation, and the strange liberation of being emptied – borne aloft and carried by the drift. the world continues its eternal collapsing, fires everywhere and everything drained of meaning. this record was made in various states of unease, with a brittle heart and a clear intent. like running towards a cliff with 2 swinging knives, roaring with an idiot grin. overcome and overjoyed. this record is about the end of love and the beginning of love. this record is about the dissolution of the state, and all of us trapped beneath, and the way that certain stubborn lights endure.”
Ahead of the album’s release, envelop yourself in the first single ‘LxOxVx / Shelter In Place’.
We came across the tribal, propulsive and hypnotic sounds of Brussels’ Why The Eye? at the tail end of last year and we’re picking their eponymous album to start 2018 on a high. An unconventional and quirky band known for their musically and visually ecstatic live shows, Why The Eye?’s music brims with mystery and celebration, with its four masked members playing only home-made instruments, like the microdrukit, the lamellophone or the likembe. For a taste of their paleo-futuristic techno, take a listen to ‘Plastique’ and ‘Free Gluten’ now.
