Dirty Work (1998)

Mitch and Sam have to come up with $50,000 and fast! The only problem is neither one can hold down a job.

"Mellow" might have been recorded in a shipyard–augmenting Jack Hersca's nagging if fetching guitar and Gene Lake's steady if seething drums is a rhythm element that suggests a boat whistle heard across a moonless harbor. Next track the artist makes his pop bid with a catchy femme-chorus refrain and a guest star: Polly Jean Harvey, what a draw! For another three songs, a decent level of musical amenity is maintained: Martina's crooning tale of woe underpinned by low-register guitar/keyb riffs of unspecified origin and Calvin Weston's free drumming, three-note distorto hook beneath Tricky's speed-mumble, xylophonish tinkle countered by a keyb belch like an engine that won't catch. Thereafter the residues of grimy technologies settle into permanent low-level disorder: foghorns lowing, brakes complaining, clocks sounding across windswept nights, locomotives struggling uphill. He's a hater not a fighter, and the devil is in his details. So give that man a set of horns–he's earned them.

The instrumental, multimedia Montreal group Godspeed You! Black Emperor creates extended, repetition-oriented chamber rock. The minimal and patient builds-to-crescendo of the group's compositions results in a meditative and hypnotic listen that becomes almost narrative when combined with found-sound splices and the films of their visual collaborators. Collection includes: 'F#A#∞' (1998); 'Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada E.P.' (1999); 'Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven!' (2000) 2CD; 'Yanqui U.X.O.' (2002); 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!' (2012); 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress' (2015).

CDs from this collection began to appear in the sale of one after the other in early 1998. The collection was designed primarily for fans of blues and those wishing to join him in France, Canada and other French-speaking countries, as its literary part was originally made in French and it seems and has not been translated into other languages.