Album Review: White Light/White Heat [1968] #72

Updates for my blog have been slow and they will continue getting slower as time goes by. I'm returning to uni in a week and the first students start at Monday already, meaning that I will be busy taking care of the students who decide to join in on the kick-off for the semester. After that I'll most likely be busy with school related stuff and the amount of updates will slow down by quite a margin even if I'll try to write as often as possible and whenever I feel it to be necessary.

However, the run down of the RYM Top 100 continues and next in line is The Velvet Underground's second LP, White Light/White Heat from 1968. This record is found a bit further down the list, around many of the other more experimental records that resides on the list. White Light/White Heat came out the year after the groups debut, after which the commercial failure of The Velvet Underground & Nico had led Andy Warhol to leave the band alone aswell as Nico deciding to part ways with the band. It was a troublesome time for the band where they weren't quite sure of what they wanted to do and internal conflicts between John Cale and Lou Reed were at hands, leaving Cale to finally leave the band after the album had been recorded.

White Light/White Heat is often considered the birthplace of noise rock and atleast one of the first noise rock records out there, marking the most experimental turning point for the band. The record has a pair of fairly orthodox songs that don't feel too far from what the band was doing on the debut, but it also experiments in tecnique and songwriting, having a 10-minute spoken word song as the second track, where panning is used to separate the vocals completely from the instrumentals. The Gift tells the silly story of Waldo Jeffers who decides to mail himself to his long distance girlfriend to avoid having to pay for travel. While neither spoken word or the use of panning is particulary experimental in todays alternative rock music, it was weird and unorthodox back in 68, when the radio played The Beatles and the alternative crowd listened to Progressive Rock.



White Light/White Heat is a staple in music history and a heavily influential record, maybe the most essential, when it comes to noise rock as a genre. It wasn't the record that gave the band the commercial success that the debut failed to find but it might be the band, and the members of the band's biggest mark upon musical history, shaping the direction and ideas of many bands and albums to come in the years after.

I definitely think its an essential when it comes to noise rock and music in general, one of the many records on this list that should be heard by anyone only to be able to appreciate its historical importance. While noise rock usually is seen as a notoriously "difficult" genre, White Light/White Heat combines simple experimentation with accessible songs and song structures, not too far from what you'd find on the self-titled debut making it a perfect entry point into a vast genre with huge differences from band to band and album to album.

White Light/White Heat closes of with one of the most well known songs of the bands career, the 17-minute Sister Ray which would come to be a staple and one of the biggest influence on many of the japanese noise rock bands that were to emerge during the 70's, bands like Fushitsusha and Les Rallizes Denudes playing songs in a similar manner, with heavy use of improvisation and enormous amounts of guitar feedback. When you listen to modern noise rock, or even the successors to The Velvet Underground, you'll rarely find tracks like the albums title track or even Lady Godiva's Operation but instead sounding like the enormous Sister Ray which is what marks the most important part of the influence of White Light/White Heat.

I'm a huge fan of The Velvet Underground so I might be biased after all but this is one of the records you need to hear from this list. Not only is its historical influence important to know and have experienced for any fan of music but it's also a great record that doesn't take all that much to fully comprehend and can be, in my opinion, enjoyed by almost anyone with atleast a curiousty for experimentation.

White Light/White Heat [1968]
The Velvet Underground
8.5
Anton Öberg Sysojev

Film Review: A Torinói Ló (The Turin Horse) [2011]

Since I don't have any other experiences with Tarr's films outside of what I just witnessed from the comfort of my computer chair I'll try to not go into too much about Tarr as a director or his style or his works and mainly focus this text on my personal opinions of the recent experience with The Turin Horse and what I thought about that film. These are the opinions that I just wrote out through tired eyes at 1 AM from the darkness of my room so I'll apologize in advance for the many accounts of spelling and grammatical errors aswell as my ineducated opinions on the subject of Béla Tarr and art-house films in general.

A Torinói Ló [2011]

Maybe it's naive of me to venture into the world of Béla Tarr with his most recent, and also possibly final work, A Tornói Ló (or The Turin Horse as it is known as in English and also what I will refer to it in this post). IMDB describes this film as being about "A rural farmer is forced to confront the mortality of his faithful horse" something I didn't quite pick up from the film; there was something about Nietzsche and then there was a storm and there was also potatoes.

The Turin Horse is not the film you want to pick for date night. It's a bleak, drawn out and incredibly slow story of a father and his daugther's depressing lives in the middle of absolutely nowhere, where they spend their days doing nothing and then eating potatoes. The man returns home to his house as a devilish storm moves into the countryside to dominate the planes for several days to come. The ever apparent buzz of the storm never leaves the family and constantly sits as a reminder of the troubling situation they're in, like a blister on your tongue or an itch under your skin. The real issue however comes when the family horse gets sick and refuses to do anything other than standing around in the stable, refusing to take the father into town and refusing to eat, leaving the family stranded in their house as the storm continues to rage outside.

While the film isn't necessarily minimalistic, it does a good job of doing nothing for a majority of the film. We see the two characters going about their days in a similar manner, day after day, we see little to no dialogue outside of what the characters absolutely have to say to eachother and we barely see anything other than single, enduring shots of the mundane activities the characters do, such as long shots of them with the potatoes (which is far more perplexing than I'm making it sound).

I enjoyed the subtle details of the film aswell as the change of pace once the film reached its repetitive groove about halfway through. Hearing the neighbor come over and actually give a longer monologue was one of my favorite parts of the film and the only moment that I truly felt immersed in Tarr's world. Suddenly the world felt alive, and not as if the house and its two inhabitants were the last two people standing on earth, it gave a sense of realism to the world which only added to the heartbreak and bleakness of their situation as the movie progressed. I guess that this was mostly due to me being happy over a change of pace in the film, seeing something else than the repeated daily life of the family.

All in all I enjoyed the film. It will probably be a long while before I muster up the power to take myself through yet another of Tarr's enormous, soul sucking, bleak films and it will probably take even longer before I find myself sitting through the 400 minute long Santatango. For now, I'm happy with my experience with The Turin Horse. I might not have been able to appreciate all of its qualities and Tarr still remains a director who I believe is still quite a bit too difficult for someone like me, but I hope to grow fond of him later in my life.

A Torinói Ló [2011]
dir. B. Tarr
6
Anton Öberg Sysojev

Brief Opinions On Three Films By Ingmar Bergman

I've been trying to focus on watching films from certain directors these past few weeks, to get a greater idea of styles, reoccurring themes and similar. This week has been my venture into Ingmar Bergman, a director I feel that I owe it to myself to be acquainted with.

Smultronstället [1957]
My first dabble with Bergman was, as for many others, The Seventh Seal, which I saw a couple of months back at the start of the summer. I did not enjoy this film very much but I also saw this before getting an apetite for film makers like Tarkovsky and a lot was probably due to me not quite comprehending what I had seen.

However, my next venture would be with Smultronstället (Wild Strawberries), a movie I enjoyed far more than my previous meeting with Bergman. This is a film that tells the story of a man, at the end of his life, coming to terms with the life he's lived and the impact of his behavior towards others. Victor Sjöström plays the lead, the doctor Isak Borg who early on in the film is confronted with the nature of his persona. His daughter-in-law tells him about how his egoistical behavior has come to deeply hurt his friends and family and how his narcissistic nature has lead people to dislike him. Borg, who's reaching the end of his rope takes this to heart, and we see him attempt to change his ways throughout the film, often through dream sequences where his subconscious is telling him of how he needs to change.

While I did enjoy the film, I didn't find it to be as layered and dense as for instance The Seventh Seal which was released in the same year as Smultronstället. It's an enjoyable film that doesn't ever overstay its welcome with many fine qualities to itself such as the outstanding performances from Ingrid Thulin as the daugther in-law and Victor Sjöström as the remarkable Isak Borg, with such a finesse to even the smallest details such as how we moves and how he carries himself. The plot isn't one of the films strong points but the idea of a long car ride where the people who exit the car are not the same as the people who entered it a couple of hours before is a genius way of story telling. I also want to give some credit for the dream sequences, which most likely were one of the earliest ventures into surrealism for Bergman and which achieve the sense of modernist horror that films like Persona would later be known for in a spectacular fashion. Scenes like the opening nightmare and the horrible exam all feel like if someone had fused Kafka with Dali; it's a marvel of beauty and uncertain wonder at the same time.

Smultronstället [1957]
dir. I. Bergman
7
Anton Öberg Sysojev

Persona [1966]
I came into Persona with no prior knowledge of the film, maybe that's why it took me by surprise. Right at the interlude I knew I was going into something different, and even know, several days later, I can't quite get this film out of my head.

It's this surrealist film about two women, Liv Ullman playing the ill actor and Bibi Andersson playing her nurse is what we see on the outside of the film but different interpretations tell different stories. It's a modernist horror which feels like an enormous influence on a film like David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, which also features two women with an almost romantic relationship which at times hint at erotic emotions regarding the other person.

You're never quite sure what's going on during Persona and it doesn't really matter for the most part of the film. It's a thing of beauty and one of those moments when Sven Nykvist's cinematography pairs so incredibly well with what I assume is Bergman's vision creating something out of the ordinary and something that feels truly timeless.

Both Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman play off eachother very well, despite Ullman not having more than I believe two lines throughout the entirety of the film, her role stands as pivotal and her performance being as immersive as that of Bibi Andersson, who in the end steals the show.

It's a unique film, unlike anything I have previously seen and without a doubt the most impressive Bergman I've had the pleasure of seeing so far. Next time I'm watching a Bergman it will definitely be a continuation of his more experimental 60's films in a similar vein to Persona because this film without a doubt deserves its status amongst film buffs.

Persona [1966]
dir. I. Bergman
9
Anton Öberg Sysojev

Fanny & Alexander [1982]
I would have saved this post for tomorrow, or even a later day during the coming week, but I just finished Fanny & Alexander and I had to come here to write about it. I was initially not planning on doing a blog post but I feel that I have a considerate amount to say about this film and I might actually put in the effort to say it right here.

When I dislike a film that's considered by many to be great, a classic or even a masterpiece, I usually find that I'm able to, at the very least, enjoy a few of the films qualities, realize that it's not something I enjoy at this moment and time and assume that I'll be able to enjoy it at a different time of my life. This is not how I feel about Fanny & Alexander. Maybe it's wrong to judge Bergman, a director with a vast output of film, on a film that differs a lot from the previous works I've seen, but judging this movie on its own, I can't say that I enjoyed it a lot, or even found myself believing that I'll enjoy it later.

The story is not a very unique one, it's yet another tale of kids having to suffer through the bad choices of adults, and yet again another story where the kids have to suffer because the adults marries into a horrible relationship with an abusive partner. I do feel empathy for both Fanny & Alexander who are the innocent bystanders, caught in a crossfire of a war that they never belonged to, and I definitely sat on my edge during the scene when Alexander has to swear on the Bible in front of his awful step father but most of all I feel annoyed by the whole situation.

The films's greatest trait is that it plays like the Russian literature classics. It feels like the Anna Karenina or The Brothers Karamazov of film: being almost excruciatingly long, with many characters all with their complex and individual personas, and with a story about the people themselves in a grandiose scope instead of dabbling with existential or philosphoical themes at an equally big level. The story however, is not very interesting and the first half of the film is slow and predictable and this predictability leaves me with a disliking for the characters which feel stupid and naive who constantly do the mistakes you know that they will do. I do believe that the closing part of the film, from when the kids finally leave the horrible stepfathers home to be the most interesting parts of the film. Alexander's meeting with Ismael and the closure to the bishops story arch comes unexpected and almost feels Tarkovvsky-an, where an otherwordly element suddenly finds its way into the otherwise naturalistic story leaving the viewer wondering if it was some kind of clever deception or if things aren't what they seem to be.

Aside from the fact that it feels like a filmatisation of the Russian greats, credit should definitely go to Sven Nykvist (would you have expected differently?) aswell as the terrific work on the sets and the costumes. The different houses that the film is set in have an incredibly rich environment, from the doll makers house to the Ekdahl estate and paired with Nykvist's phenomenal eye for a gorgeus shot leaves a fluidity and a living feel to the world that the film is set in. I do however believe that Nykvist has done far more impressive work with Bergman, but his talent is far from void in this film.

What I dislike the most about this film however, is how awful I find the characters. The burgeoise family that we follow is one that lives a life of luxuary, throwing an enormous christmas party in the beginning of the film for their whole family. It's something I can't relate to in the slightest and something I feel adds to the dumbed down nature of many of the characters, mostly the adults, who live like they've been fed with silver spoons their entire lifes. Maybe conflicts amongst the family members is featured more in the extended version but it's something I felt was lacking throughout the film. The family is there as something huge and important, as we can see in the first half hour of the film, aswell as during the films finale, when Gustav Adolf has his speech around the dinner table, but as it stands now I find that the characters are shallow, narcissistic and uninteresting but most of it may lie in the fact that they are, to me, incredibly unrelatable, aswell as the burgeoisie nature of their behavior being something I have bad experiences with and something I couple with a little drive and little room for development of an original nature. I honestly found the switch of scenes from the police man explaining the situation of the accident at the bishops house, a sad scene in which we see Alexander now realizing that he has been the catalyst for what came to be the end (somewhat) to the man he hated, into this joyous dinner party, where the family yet again is back to living in the excess that they're entitled to, as if nothing awful had happened during the past two hours, to be appalling, distasteful and honestly rude to the viewers; as if the movie had ended on a "and then everything was fine".

Maybe I misunderstood the film, maybe I didn't get the point, or maybe it's just a movie I'll never have any positive feelings around but right now I feel bummed that I didn't do something better with the past three and a half hours of my summer that I didn't spend at work. It is an impressive film, but I don't believe that Bergman has done a good job with this film. I dislike the plot aswell as a big part of what I assume lies in the script (I do believe that most of Alexander's dialogue, aswell as the parts where we see him interacting with characters outside of the Ekdahl family are impressive and actually great) and that is entirely on Bergman and possibly only annoying because I know that he otherwise is massively talented.

I'm not putting a rating on this film because I don't believe I'm sure enough about this film to slap a number on it and leave it at that, I still am curious to see what other people have to say about this film, aswell as maybe letting it sink in for a day or two, but if you've read this far, you can't possibly have any misconception about what my general opinion on this film is at the moment.

Fanny & Alexander [1982]
dir. I. Bergman
Anton Öberg Sysojev

Album Review: Liquid Swords [1995] #78

I've been listening to a bunch of Wu-Tang side projects this week so I thought I owed it to myself to revisit this terrific record which is on the top 100 list anyways.

Liquid Swords came out in 1995 (about a month after I had been born actually) two years after Enter The Wu-Tang had been released and placed the members on the map of hiphop. It's an album that quickly rose to fame and a record that still holds up, twenty years later, due to fantastic use of skits, shining beats and some of the most atmospheric hiphop of the time. Liquid Swords has somewhat of a narrative, which it carries due to its exceptional use of sampling, something that already was popular at the time but hadn't quite been used to the same success as Genius and GZA did on this record. The samples are mostly from the film Shogun Assassin (the film that's briefly featured in Kill Bill 2) and tell the story of a boy having to seek vengeance after the shogun murdered his father.

The narrative isn't incredibly important to the lyrics on the record since only a couple of tracks really rely on the themes of the sampled skits from Shogun Assassin, but they do give the record a certain cold, lifeless feel which would also come to make this record such an atmospheric one, and the one that's the reason behind why this record is almost always recommended as one of the essential hiphop records for the winter.



My first dabble with Liquid Swords was some time when I was first getting into hiphop and when I was mainly interested in the contemporary works of Kendrick Lamar and similar artists. 90's hiphop wasn't really my thing at the time and I had a hard time appreciating the beats on the record, which feels much stronger when paired with the rest of different Wu-Tang members solo output or even when compared to a record like Enter The Wu-Tang where several of the beats feel life less and stale when reassessed twenty years later.

However Liquid Swords came to grow on me and even if it isn't one of my favorite hiphop records, I do believe it's the strongest solo release from any of the different Wu-Tang members, or even Wu-Tang affiliated ones. I love a record that pulls of a certain atmosphere, that can paint these vivid pictures only through the use of words and sounds and it's something that Liquid Swords pulls of effortlessly, much like Illmatic which I wrote about earlier, even if the world that Liquid Swords paints is a very different one compared to the world of Illmatic.

I will not attempt to dissect the lyrics on this record because it's an element of rap that I have a hard time appreciating if I haven't spent a lot of time with the record and something I can't really speak with an educated opinion on when it comes to this record and many others in the genre. The strongest elements of Liquid Swords lies in the beats and the atmosphere. While the beats are a product of their time and can feel a bit stale and repetitive when compared to those of modern beat makers, they still shine when paired against boom bap beats of a similar or earlier era.

Liquid Swords did something original even if it isn't a long step from similar works of the era, and would later come to be recognized as one of the greats of the genre, and a hugely influential work for the hiphop that we would later see during the late 90's and early 00's.

Liquid Swords [1995]
Genius/GZA
7/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev

Film Review: The Tree Of Life [2011]

I saw this film a couple of days back and I really wanted to write something about it but I just haven't been able to channel my feelings and thougts for the film in a way that I felt pleased with sharing. The other night I tried to explain to my friends, what I found so enchanting about this film, but the only way I could describe The Tree Of Life was as "this movie about the universe and then this couple gets a baby and then two brothers and then one dies in the end but you already knew that and also the dad is Brad Pitt and the mom is Jessica Chastain and it's just super beautiful, do you know what I mean?" but it mostly sounds like the trailer for that Two Guys In A Van film from Rick & Morty.

The Tree Of Life is an ambitious film about a lot of different things. It starts out with a quote from the book of Job, which for those unaware, is a part of The Bible which discusses God's punishment to those who don't deserve it. It continues with a short speech from Jessica Chastain on the two paths available to the people inahbiting Earth, the way of Nature, and the way of Grace, each to be resembled in the two parents of the family that we're about to follow.

After an opening scene in which the parents find out that one of their sons have died, we get sent into a flurry of images meant to resemble the creation of the Universe through big bang, followed by images depicting the first cellular life forms taking place and so forth. We see the Universe and Earth develop into the world we know it as today for about half an hour, and this is the part that usually pisses people of. It's honestly quite beautiful, and while it might not be part of the plot of the film, it isn't something uncommon in more artsy-films. About forty minutes into the film we return to the Texas family and we reach the main story of the film. The parents are having their first baby and from this point we literally follow the lifes of this family until finally seeing them move away from the house that the kids grew up in, all in the same car.

I really don't know where to go after describing the plot of the film. I absolutely loved the film and it's one of the best cinematic experiences I've had this year. Like the afterglow of some drug, it has stayed on my mind almost constantly since I finished it, leaving a feeling I can't quite describe as anything other than joy and happiness. It saddens me to see so many negative opinions surrounding this movie with the word pretentious being tossed around in almost every criticism of it. Having people explicitly state that they hate a film is always odd to me, seeing how myself, and I believe many others, will often chalk their dislike of a piece of art onto something else than the art being bad. "Maybe I didn't get it? Maybe it'll grow on me? Maybe there's a time and place for it, and I'll come to appreciate it in a couple of years?". But with The Tree Of Life, people have already given up on it.

This is why I don't think I'll ever recommend this film to anyone. The Tree Of Life seems to be an incredibly personal experience for every person that decides to watch the film, be it an experience of anger, detesting the film, or an experience like mine, with nothing but positive opinions of the work.

Seeing the three boys growing up, seeing them play together, creating their memories and building the life that they were to live for the rest of their days in those small moments was incredible to me and achieved something that I believe Boyhood from last year attempted to do: bringing us back into a life that we might have forgotten that we had and loved, reviving those memories that now feel distant and almost foreign but which still remain in the back of our heads.

The Tree Of Life is ambitious, and I can't say that I believe Terrence Malick actually succeeded in making an all-encompassing film that captures the essence of life better than anyone has ever done before, or better than anyone ever will, but there's something here, something that grabs me so deep inside and invokes feelings I didn't know that film could invoke inside of me. I want to cry, I want to scream, I want to hug the nearest family member I can see because I suddenly remembered all those times when I could have but never did.

Malick's most admirable feat with this film is, in my opinion, how it puts a perspective on how small we are. It makes you attached to this run-of-the-mill family only to end the film at this almost religious climax with a scene which I assume is meant to be a metaphor for reaching heaven and the after-life, but it suddenly feels so real and puts everything in such a perspective. Seeing the meteor crash into Earth and creating a shockwave that probably extinguished all kinds of life on the planet at the time and having it look like a drop in the ocean that is outer space, while it most likely was the biggest event of their lifes for everything sentient on Earth at the time, is a wake-up call.

The film ends and I see my face reflected in the dark computer screen. I'm not part of the family that I lived with for the past two hours, I'm me. Normal-guy Anton, who needs to go to bed because he has work in the morning. Everything feels so miniscule, so unimportant, life is much bigger than making enough money to go out to drink with your friends on the 25th. Life is more than writing good reviews about the coolest films out there and hearing the most obscure music.

Maybe I wasn't as mesmerized by everything that happened, maybe I wasn't completely locked in to everything that was going on or even incredibly invested in some of the scenes, but in the end I still felt like I've taken a huge kick in the gut and it's a feeling I can't shake. Maybe I'm overrating my experience for various reasons or maybe this film really touched me on a spiritual level, in a way that no other film ever has succeeded in doing? Who knows. It is after all just a film. A film about life, death, religion, God, the after life, Earth, space and the Universe, and I'll never be able to put into words, what this movie made me feel and think.

The Tree Of Life [2011]
dir. Terrence Malick
8.5/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev

Album Review: Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven [2000] #31

Decided to write about this one since I just bought tickets to see them a couple of minutes ago.

This is the second and final Godspeed You! Black Emperor record that you'll find on this list. It is the followup to F#A#infinity which I previously wrote about on this blog a few days prior and an album that lands a lot higher than its predecessor. Lift Your Skinny Fists came out in 2000 and is a monumental release for post-rock as a genre, inspiring many followers and being a staple amongst what is often known as the "second-wave" of post-rock which consisted of tracks around 15-minutes in length with a big lineup of musicians creating rock music that owes its influences to classical compositions in structure, while being straightforward rock muisc seeing to instrumentalisation and performance.

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven would later go on to be the defining factor in how post-rock as a genre would develop in today's decade where most would consider us to be in a the "third-wave" of post-rock where bands like Explosions In The Sky and This Will Destroy You copy what Godspeed You! were doing, not only thematically, but also musically. While post-rock might be considered a niche genre, and lots of people probably have a different favorite when it comes to the post-rock of the last decade, you can't really take away the influential status that this record has on the modern day music of the genre.



The album consists of four tracks, all reaching around 20-minutes of playtime, making the album almost 90 minutes long. The tracks evolve and shapeshift during their duration, always closing of as something completely different from how it started of. It's crescendo based compositions, with glimpses of field recordings, sampled vocals, and spoken word being a big element of what would come to create the atmosphere and feeling of the record without there having to be any need for vocals on the album.

Godspeed You! is often cited as a very political band which might be a funny thing to say considering that none of their records (not counting All Lights Fucked) are completely void of any kind of sung vocals. There's the spoken word section of the opening track on F#A#infinity, aswell as the spoken word on Blaise Bailey Finnegan on the 1999 EP Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada which are what contributes to the fact of Godspeed's members being somewhat anarchistic and anti-government.

On Lift Your Skinny Fists, the only spoken word you'll really find is the recording of a man speaking about Coney Island, in the opening minutes of the track Sleep, the behemoth of the record. Sleep starts of with the man being nostalgic about growing up around Coney Island, closing of with retelling of how him and his friends used to sleep on the beach: "We used to sleep on the beach! Sleep overnight! They don't do it anymore though, things change you know. They don't sleep anymore on the beach." The story ends with the melancholic string section coming in and slowly, with the help of a few guitars the track takes of into a haunting chaos of frantic drumming as the track sets of into static about ten minutes in. The second half of the song has us reaching building towards yet another crescendo as the track sets of into something minimal and sad, as the mans story of Sleep comes to a final end.

This is how most songs on Lift Your Skinny Fists are built. They are made around the crescendos that would come to be the main factor of the bands that were inspired by Godspeed! but they're always built and orchestrated with a ton of emotion. I don't need the man from Sleep to tell me his sad story to feel affected by Godspeed's music on this record, there's enough emotion loaded into the intro on Storm or the climax with the singing children on Antennas To Heaven. It's an album full of different kinds of emotion and the way its portrayed, through a singular rock bands long performances is a beauty in itself.

I first came across this record during my last semester of what I'd assume is the Swedish equivalent of high school. At the time I wasn't sure of what to think of it. It was so incredibly long and with so little to hold onto for someone who wasn't able to completely engulf myself in the music and not use it as background music but with time I grew to appreciate greatly.

Even today I'm not sure if I can think of any record in the genre that truly compares and outshines it in what Godspeed was doing on this record. There's no instrumental record in the genre of rock music that really grabs me emotionally as much as this one does. Maybe it's some kind of nostalgia, maybe I'm just infatuated with this record. It's one of the most unique experiences on this list and alongside its darker counterpart F#A#infinity, one that I can not recommend enough. I'd suggest putting on some headphones and just lying down on your bed, couch, in the sun or wherever and just completely immersing yourself in the music. In a track like Antennas To Heaven or Sleep and just treating yourself to the experience of listening closely to all the tiny little details that this record has in store for you. It is one of the most unique experiences in post-rock alongside Spiderland, Soundtracks For The Blind and Telegraphs In Negative/Mouths Trapped In Static and something I wish more people out there had heard.

Do yourself a favor and listen to this record, if only to get an idea of how the second-wave of post-rock came to be and how Godspeed You! Black Emperor came to be the legendary band that they are today.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven [2000]
9/10
Anton Öberg Sysojev