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Efrim Manuel Menuck
Pissing Stars
CST129 180gLP • DL
Release date: 02 February 2018
Duration: 46:17
Efrim Manuel Menuck returns with his second album Pissing Stars, the brilliantly intense follow-up to his 2011 solo debut Plays “High Gospel” and the first new material with Menuck as central songwriter and vocalist since 2014’s acclaimed Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything from his chamber-punk-rock band Thee Silver Mt. Zion.
The Montréal-based co-founder of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion has much-deserved cult status among fans of political punk, post-rock and avant-noise songcraft. Menuck celebrates 25 years of unflinching and uncompromising sonic output with Pissing Stars, wherein he launches acerbic darts, impassioned salvos and fragile flowers into gusts of noise-battered song built around pulsing maximalist electronics and drone, composed on modular synthesizer and guitar, shot through with alternately plaintive, chilling, often processed vocals. Pissing Stars is Menuck at his most vulnerable and his most adventurous – with a timely narrative framework that only he could conjure.
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. – ExMxMx
The Montréal-based co-founder of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion has much-deserved cult status among fans of political punk, post-rock and avant-noise songcraft. Menuck celebrates 25 years of unflinching and uncompromising sonic output with Pissing Stars, wherein he launches acerbic darts, impassioned salvos and fragile flowers into gusts of noise-battered song built around pulsing maximalist electronics and drone, composed on modular synthesizer and guitar, shot through with alternately plaintive, chilling, often processed vocals. Pissing Stars is Menuck at his most vulnerable and his most adventurous – with a timely narrative framework that only he could conjure.
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. – ExMxMx
PACKAGING NOTES
Audiophile 180gram pressing in midnight ultra-black vinyl from Optimal (Germany) comes in a 350gsm jacket with artworked inner sleeve and 12"x19" art poster, all printed on uncoated matte papers and boards, featuring original artwork by Menuck.
CREDITS
ExMxMx: Richter Wogglebug, Rene, Grendel D.C.2., The Gristleizer, Dual Borg, Mangrove, Maths, SxTxOx, RS-35, Rotating Clock Divider, Sonic XV, SxMxRx, Minitaur, OP-1, Telharmonic, Electric Guitar, Piano, Voice
FEATURED GUESTS
Ezra Steamtrain Moss Menuck: Vocals (1)
Louise Michel Jackson: Vocals (8)
Written, played and recorded by ExMxMx at Thee Mighty Hotel2Tango and upstairs from Dino's.
Mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market, Montreal.
Album artwork by ExMxMx.
Louise Michel Jackson: Vocals (8)
Written, played and recorded by ExMxMx at Thee Mighty Hotel2Tango and upstairs from Dino's.
Mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market, Montreal.
Album artwork by ExMxMx.