I drove past the studio this was done at just last night. Someone asked Steve Albini in an AMA if recording such a large group was hard and he said the hardest part of recording this album was not speaking French.
In 2015, I had to write my senior dissertation for my history degree about the civilian atrocities during the Vietnam War. I wasn't smart about it and had 2 nights left to write 25 more pages, so I chugged some Red Bull and coffee and got to work. I had on loop the discography of GSY!BE at that point, and when this song came on for the sixth consecutive time I had a huge breakthrough and managed to complete it just before the hour it was due! I credit this song for breaking my mental stasis and also my ability to graduate :)
From the reactions you’ve been doing by them, it seems like you’ve got a pretty good idea of the later half of their discography + Yanqui UXO (3rd studio album). Their first 2 albums and 1st EP are definitely their most popular and critically acclaimed work, so I’d love to see you dive into some of the earlier stuff!
highly highly highly recommend seeing GYBE live if you ever get the chance. They put on such a unique show, their music combined with the live film projection/manipulation makes for an incredible experience. this track is definitely a weird one in their discography, probably the last one I would recommend to someone less familiar with their stuff lol. It does kinda border on absurdity at points but imo they're the one band who could get away with something like putting a 10 minute clarinet/trumpet chord break in the middle of a song. like someone else said if you're gonna do a single track, Sleep or Storm would be my pick
@greggerypeccary they hadn't released anything from 2002-2012, but since then it's +4 albums already. They're relatively samey, so no groundbreaking stuff as it was around 2000, but still worth it.
This track was actually the first GY!BE track that I've listened to. It was not long after the release, and I was 15 years old. My mind was blown, and I was hooked on that band ever since. I don't think I'd actually want to see any particular track on this channel, though I'd love for Bryan to just give a casual listen to F#A#, Antennas and Slow Riot and give his opinion on the band overall.
i love watching you be confounded by all of my favourite music, keep being open minded and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, it's very inspiring. the middle section of this track makes me feel like i'm in a viking longship, rowing tentatively through narrow enemy waters, steadily looming terror that builds and crescendos into oblivion. the whole album has this impending dread of oncoming destruction (emphasized by the cover) and every piece on it gets closer and closer to impact
I was seeing your gybe reactions and then I found this one posted today. A nice coincidence I would say, btw if you didn't watch and want to see a live performance I really recommend the track "Hope Drone" which is a song that they only play live, it is intense and beautiful simultaneously as always, but although loving the song sleep will always be my favourite one. Nice reaction tysm for returning to them. ❤
The chromatically descending major-minor chord progression in the first part gives me this sensation of unstability and eerieness. And all the layers at the same time are just fascinating to follow, I think they fit well together. The second part for sure requires patience but they slowly building awaiting and hellish atmosphere just really give me the creeps as if I was waiting for an armada of bomber planes to arrive. And then they arrive in the last part, which I think is a huge payoff musically. Well the chord progression remains the same but the song really takes off and all these textures just create this otherwordly wall of sound. It makes me overwhelmed in a good way. And throughout the song, the chord progressions are modulating all the time from a scale to another. It gives some very unusual emotional charge to this piece. Hard to describe it but I like it. The first track of this album is my favorite GY!BE song. I think you would like it more than this one. It's not as repetetive as this one
Yanqui U.X.O. is the best release in a discography that has several legitimate masterpieces. This 'song' is my favourite out of their entire catalog. One of the things that's always missing from listening to GY!BE is the volume - though not the loudest band I've ever heard, they're pretty fucking loud with a very clean sound - the sound overwhelms, takes you somewhere else mentally.
That is not a song about the end of the world, rocket fall is a war track, all the yankee is about war, the first album is apocalyptic, but I recommend that you listen to moya, that is a track for the end of the world
Motherf***** - Redeemer is on the same album...the drumming on that track at certain points sounds like it is just about under the contstraint of the written music, it feels like it can burst out of structure at any moment. Amazing .Pushed to the limit. I've always thought it was more or less impossible to talk or write about music. It's like asking someone to write a piece about the colour blue. You can't really say a lot. It's a colour. ..etc....yet it can effect your emotions. ..good luck describing the colour red to a blind person.....that's what's being asked of music critics. Really, all it comes down to is you either like it or you don't. That's why there's such an industry consisting of rock personality , urban myths etc. Because the musical theory aspect is technically inclined. .people want Rock stars/Hip Hop artists to be more than the sum of their parts. Musical theory only appeals to a small number of aesthetes.
always good to start off my morning with a nice and breezy 45 minute reaction also this may be the obly GY!BE song that almost bores me. _aaaalmost_ bores me, I think the middle portion could have a few bars cut off from it, it really really takes its time. the climax is one of their all time best though, so I always stay until the end. if I recall correctly this album was produced by Steve Albini, and at the end of this track it is very much his stuff, those guitar washes are orgasmic. you're also right about the apocalyptic thing, I don't think this track really reflects that. anything from F#A#∞ does though, but how a *real* apocalypse would actually be: not glorious or grand at all, actually really sad, slow and completely flat, just completely lifeless and melancholic - if an apocalypse were to happen it'd take so long and would be a slow rotting process I feel like, not the mega explosions or gigantic scenarios we usually associate with an apocalypse. Matana Roberts also plays on this record, I think on this track specifically; they're one of the best modern jazz musician (the best for me, genius stuff) if you don't know them, quite harsh but justified harsh jazz, their concepts are amazing
This is off of the first GYBE album I ever heard and it's still my favourite (although I don't have that much experience with their newer stuff though). I decided to check them out after I saw a friend of a friend mentioning GYBE on their MSN profile (yes, that long ago, probably around the time the album released?). This is probably my favourite track off of the album, although I like the whole album a lot. That all being said, ever since I put this album (and one of their early EP's) on at the dinner table years ago, I know their music is not for everybody. I genuinely thought it was good background music, but apparently the other members of the family didn't feel the same way. I have always found specific tracks "relaxing" (for the lack of a better word) that others don't, I have the same thing with some funeral doom tracks or albums.
Man, maybe I'm just a very boring person with much less to do in my life but I never have any problem with how long they hold tension or sit in ideas (save for a couple of their later albums that have tracks that are white noise).
Doesn't really have anything to do with being boring. Different people have different tolerability for static ideas in art regardless of the medium. If anything I'd say you might be more patient than me but that's about all I would feel comfortable drawing a conclusion to based on musical tastes. :)
I've said my piece on GY!BE before: loved them when they first came out, listened to the first three albums a lot, kinda lost interest after that and moved on to other bands. These days when I revisit them via reaction channels like this I mostly feel nostalgia remembering the days when I first found them and how radically different they were to most music I'd heard until then. I can still enjoy them but they no longer give me "this is some of the best shit I've ever heard" feels.
I'd recommend East Hastings, I think the only song they grudgingly allowed to be used in a major movie (28 Days Later) due to their anti-capitalist views. For a lot of their fans, that was likely their first exposure to them, and helped make a truly incredible scene in post-apocalyptic London.
For a more digestible version of this band, you can check out the sister group "Silver Mt Zion" specifically "Godbless Our Dead Marines" or "Fuck off get free". both feature vocal "rounds" at the end which are just sublime. I feel like Silver Mt Zion is the closest you can get to explaining GY!BE with language, because just words aren't enough to explain them
I followed you when you first reacted to this group with the hope that you would give it a chance again, and after two years I have the feeling that everything you've heard from GYBE is the example of where you shouldn't start listening to GYBE. And I love each and every one of the songs you've heard, but the order just doesn't seem right to me. If you're going to listen to individual songs instead of entire albums, I think "Sleep" or "Storm" would be better options. Just an opinion, I enjoy so much your videos anyway.
If you're going to do another GY!BE track, I'd try a newer one for a change. "Government Came" is now my fave track of theirs these days. Definitely has the biggest "payoff" at the end, it literally soars and sweeps you away. At any rate, cheers for the interesting reaction choices.
Sorry no man will ever sing this song better! It’s about caring a child in you, still strong and hiding own emotions, worried and caring for the man, full of love, the love only a woman can give … Sorry i don’t want to insult any man, it’s just what I am thinking cause I’ve lost two children. The love of a woman and a mother especially is incomparable
I drove past the studio this was done at just last night. Someone asked Steve Albini in an AMA if recording such a large group was hard and he said the hardest part of recording this album was not speaking French.
RIP Steve Albini
In 2015, I had to write my senior dissertation for my history degree about the civilian atrocities during the Vietnam War. I wasn't smart about it and had 2 nights left to write 25 more pages, so I chugged some Red Bull and coffee and got to work. I had on loop the discography of GSY!BE at that point, and when this song came on for the sixth consecutive time I had a huge breakthrough and managed to complete it just before the hour it was due! I credit this song for breaking my mental stasis and also my ability to graduate :)
From the reactions you’ve been doing by them, it seems like you’ve got a pretty good idea of the later half of their discography + Yanqui UXO (3rd studio album). Their first 2 albums and 1st EP are definitely their most popular and critically acclaimed work, so I’d love to see you dive into some of the earlier stuff!
highly highly highly recommend seeing GYBE live if you ever get the chance. They put on such a unique show, their music combined with the live film projection/manipulation makes for an incredible experience.
this track is definitely a weird one in their discography, probably the last one I would recommend to someone less familiar with their stuff lol. It does kinda border on absurdity at points but imo they're the one band who could get away with something like putting a 10 minute clarinet/trumpet chord break in the middle of a song.
like someone else said if you're gonna do a single track, Sleep or Storm would be my pick
You mean they're still around?? I remember them as a late-90s-early-00s thing.
@greggerypeccary they hadn't released anything from 2002-2012, but since then it's +4 albums already. They're relatively samey, so no groundbreaking stuff as it was around 2000, but still worth it.
This track was actually the first GY!BE track that I've listened to. It was not long after the release, and I was 15 years old. My mind was blown, and I was hooked on that band ever since.
I don't think I'd actually want to see any particular track on this channel, though I'd love for Bryan to just give a casual listen to F#A#, Antennas and Slow Riot and give his opinion on the band overall.
You once said that Godspeed is the only band that you can find that does this style of music. I agree.
i love watching you be confounded by all of my favourite music, keep being open minded and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone, it's very inspiring. the middle section of this track makes me feel like i'm in a viking longship, rowing tentatively through narrow enemy waters, steadily looming terror that builds and crescendos into oblivion. the whole album has this impending dread of oncoming destruction (emphasized by the cover) and every piece on it gets closer and closer to impact
I was seeing your gybe reactions and then I found this one posted today. A nice coincidence I would say, btw if you didn't watch and want to see a live performance I really recommend the track "Hope Drone" which is a song that they only play live, it is intense and beautiful simultaneously as always, but although loving the song sleep will always be my favourite one. Nice reaction tysm for returning to them. ❤
The chromatically descending major-minor chord progression in the first part gives me this sensation of unstability and eerieness. And all the layers at the same time are just fascinating to follow, I think they fit well together.
The second part for sure requires patience but they slowly building awaiting and hellish atmosphere just really give me the creeps as if I was waiting for an armada of bomber planes to arrive.
And then they arrive in the last part, which I think is a huge payoff musically. Well the chord progression remains the same but the song really takes off and all these textures just create this otherwordly wall of sound. It makes me overwhelmed in a good way.
And throughout the song, the chord progressions are modulating all the time from a scale to another. It gives some very unusual emotional charge to this piece. Hard to describe it but I like it.
The first track of this album is my favorite GY!BE song. I think you would like it more than this one. It's not as repetetive as this one
Yanqui U.X.O. is the best release in a discography that has several legitimate masterpieces. This 'song' is my favourite out of their entire catalog. One of the things that's always missing from listening to GY!BE is the volume - though not the loudest band I've ever heard, they're pretty fucking loud with a very clean sound - the sound overwhelms, takes you somewhere else mentally.
Moya next please. this is their Gem imo. and The Dead Flag Blues is the truly apocalypse song of theirs
That is not a song about the end of the world, rocket fall is a war track, all the yankee is about war, the first album is apocalyptic, but I recommend that you listen to moya, that is a track for the end of the world
Motherf***** - Redeemer is on the same album...the drumming on that track at certain points sounds like it is just about under the contstraint of the written music, it feels like it can burst out of structure at any moment. Amazing .Pushed to the limit. I've always thought it was more or less impossible to talk or write about music. It's like asking someone to write a piece about the colour blue. You can't really say a lot. It's a colour. ..etc....yet it can effect your emotions. ..good luck describing the colour red to a blind person.....that's what's being asked of music critics. Really, all it comes down to is you either like it or you don't. That's why there's such an industry consisting of rock personality , urban myths etc. Because the musical theory aspect is technically inclined. .people want Rock stars/Hip Hop artists to be more than the sum of their parts. Musical theory only appeals to a small number of aesthetes.
always good to start off my morning with a nice and breezy 45 minute reaction
also this may be the obly GY!BE song that almost bores me. _aaaalmost_ bores me, I think the middle portion could have a few bars cut off from it, it really really takes its time. the climax is one of their all time best though, so I always stay until the end. if I recall correctly this album was produced by Steve Albini, and at the end of this track it is very much his stuff, those guitar washes are orgasmic.
you're also right about the apocalyptic thing, I don't think this track really reflects that. anything from F#A#∞ does though, but how a *real* apocalypse would actually be: not glorious or grand at all, actually really sad, slow and completely flat, just completely lifeless and melancholic - if an apocalypse were to happen it'd take so long and would be a slow rotting process I feel like, not the mega explosions or gigantic scenarios we usually associate with an apocalypse.
Matana Roberts also plays on this record, I think on this track specifically; they're one of the best modern jazz musician (the best for me, genius stuff) if you don't know them, quite harsh but justified harsh jazz, their concepts are amazing
This is off of the first GYBE album I ever heard and it's still my favourite (although I don't have that much experience with their newer stuff though). I decided to check them out after I saw a friend of a friend mentioning GYBE on their MSN profile (yes, that long ago, probably around the time the album released?). This is probably my favourite track off of the album, although I like the whole album a lot. That all being said, ever since I put this album (and one of their early EP's) on at the dinner table years ago, I know their music is not for everybody. I genuinely thought it was good background music, but apparently the other members of the family didn't feel the same way. I have always found specific tracks "relaxing" (for the lack of a better word) that others don't, I have the same thing with some funeral doom tracks or albums.
Seeing this song live, the second half feels like it lasts about and hour (in a good way) - it was the best live experience i've ever had
Man, maybe I'm just a very boring person with much less to do in my life but I never have any problem with how long they hold tension or sit in ideas (save for a couple of their later albums that have tracks that are white noise).
Doesn't really have anything to do with being boring. Different people have different tolerability for static ideas in art regardless of the medium. If anything I'd say you might be more patient than me but that's about all I would feel comfortable drawing a conclusion to based on musical tastes. :)
I've said my piece on GY!BE before: loved them when they first came out, listened to the first three albums a lot, kinda lost interest after that and moved on to other bands. These days when I revisit them via reaction channels like this I mostly feel nostalgia remembering the days when I first found them and how radically different they were to most music I'd heard until then. I can still enjoy them but they no longer give me "this is some of the best shit I've ever heard" feels.
I'd recommend East Hastings, I think the only song they grudgingly allowed to be used in a major movie (28 Days Later) due to their anti-capitalist views. For a lot of their fans, that was likely their first exposure to them, and helped make a truly incredible scene in post-apocalyptic London.
For a more digestible version of this band, you can check out the sister group "Silver Mt Zion" specifically "Godbless Our Dead Marines" or "Fuck off get free". both feature vocal "rounds" at the end which are just sublime. I feel like Silver Mt Zion is the closest you can get to explaining GY!BE with language, because just words aren't enough to explain them
I seem to remember him doing Godbless Our Dead Marines a while back? Could be thinking of someone else
Shocked I somehow missed this one. Great great track. Actually, it seems like a cousin to that Onda track you listened to recently.
I followed you when you first reacted to this group with the hope that you would give it a chance again, and after two years I have the feeling that everything you've heard from GYBE is the example of where you shouldn't start listening to GYBE. And I love each and every one of the songs you've heard, but the order just doesn't seem right to me. If you're going to listen to individual songs instead of entire albums, I think "Sleep" or "Storm" would be better options.
Just an opinion, I enjoy so much your videos anyway.
And where the heck is anything from the debut album yet??
@@shryggur And no Slow Riot either, the three most common starting points. But it's not his fault, he just listen to what his subscribers recommend
He has covered "Storm" before and I believe the idea was toyed of doing an album reaction to Lift Yr Skinny Fists.
@@DerekPower Where is that reaction?
@@alek6157 Just look for Critical Reactions GYBE Storm
If you're going to do another GY!BE track, I'd try a newer one for a change. "Government Came" is now my fave track of theirs these days. Definitely has the biggest "payoff" at the end, it literally soars and sweeps you away. At any rate, cheers for the interesting reaction choices.
Never let the composer listen to Stars of the Lid or Morton Feldman ....
6/4 or 18/8 is what I was thinking.
Sorry no man will ever sing this song better! It’s about caring a child in you, still strong and hiding own emotions, worried and caring for the man, full of love, the love only a woman can give …
Sorry i don’t want to insult any man, it’s just what I am thinking cause I’ve lost two children. The love of a woman and a mother especially is incomparable
I think you're on the wrong video. "Rockets Fall on Rocket Falls" has no vocals, and it is decidedly not about being a mother.