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Silver Mt. Zion is a group led by founding Godspeed You! Black Emperor guitarist Efrim. Joined by fellow GYBE members Sophie (violin) and Thierry (contrabass), SMZ debuted with a performance at Constellationís Musique Fragile concert series in spring 1999 and went on to record their first record in November of that year. Built around Efrims simple piano figures, the debut SMZ album also marks the first recording to document Thierryís move from electric to acoustic upright bass, and the first recorded instance of Efrim on vocals since a rare 1996 GYBE cassette release.
The band expanded to six members in late 2000 with the addition of Beckie (cello), Ian (guitar) and Jessica (violin), and toured Europe in early 2001, returning to record a double album, released under the name The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band. With minor variations, the larger band has worked under this name ever since, releasing two more double albums in 2003 and 2005. These records have moved progressively towards a greater use of lead and group vocals, and an expanded vocabulary of influences and instrumentation, all rallied towards a highly original and uncompromising redefinition of punk-rock protest music. Multi-instrumentalist Scott (drums, mandolin, guitar) became the seventh Tra-La-La member, after joining the group for a 2004 tour.
SMZ has also been re-invented a couple of times in recent years, first as Thee Silver Mountain Reveries on a 2004 recording that originated with Efrim laying down song sketches in the studio and bringing in some SMZ alumni and others to fill out the arrangements, and more recently as Thee Silver Mountain Elegies Play War Radio, a band comprising four Tra-La-La Band members along with Gen and Eric from Hangedup, who wrote new music for a short tour in the fall of 2005.
Tra-La-La Band members play in a long list of other bands, including Black Ox Orkestar, Esmerine, Fifths of Seven, The Mile End Ladiesí String Auxiliary, Re:, Sloth is the Love and many others.
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band have been making a big raw angry tender racket since the 2005 release of their last album, Horses In The Sky. With a focus on live performance and special projects over the past three years, the group proper has logged well over 100 shows in Europe and North America, in between sessions that yielded Thee Silver Mountain Reveries EP and Thee Silver Mountain Elegies Play War Radio tour (featuring four members of Mt. Zion and both members of labelmates Hangedup), as well as collaborations with Carla Bozulich, Vic Chesnutt and Patti Smith in the studio and in concert.
The music of the full band (two guitars, two violins, cello, contrebasse and drums) has grown louder, looser, full of spittle and tears. On 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons, riffs are the backbone more than ever. Anchored by new drummer Eric Craven (ex-Hangedup), the band works its slow build and burn with newfound patience, sinuousness and ferocity. Whether methodically framing walls of sound over the four-on-the-floor punk dirge of "1,000,000 Died To Make This Sound" or exploding in sheets of free noise and melody on "Black Waters Blowed", the band has never rocked harder and has never sounded more determined, desperate and driven. A stuttered blues riff is the foundation for the album's title track, making its appearance after a blisteringly minimalist intro. "Engine Broke Blues" features a gorgeous set of chords that build inexorably from multiple guitar, string and organ lines.
Fans of the group will be familiar with much of this material from the band's live shows over the past couple of years. The recording, undertaken at the newly renovated Hotel2Tango facility in Montreal and co-engineered by Howard Bilerman and Radwan Moumneh (who is also the band's live sound person), ups the ante considerably, with crackling guitar crescendos setting the pace for dive-bombing swirls of strings, while Efrim's voice rasps and wails words of worry, hope and fury throughout. The band's hallmark group vocal passages are positively spine-tingling.
After an exstensive tour in April through Europe, we are pleased to announce new tour dates for Scandinavia, the Baltic states and the south of Europe and France for October/ November 2008.
quotes | zitate | constellation website | band website
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