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Do Make Say Think
Goodbye Enemy Airship the Landlord is Dead
Constellation - 2000
Michael Panontin
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Toronto post-rock sextet Do Make Say Think were the progeny of a studio project for a university course credit, eventually spawning first a CD, the competent if unspectacular eponymous debut, then a local buzz built through sparsely attended gigs and fiercely loyal local radio play (the University of Toronto's CIUT specifically), and ultimately a crucial re-press on uber-cool Constellation.
By now stalwarts on that Montreal experimental label, the band sequestered themselves in 2000 in the pastoral confines of a barn outside Port Hope, Ontario (keyboardist Jason MacKenzie's parents' actually), this despite the hoary old back-to-nature cliche it evokes (dating from Dylan and the Band up at Big Pink to, more recently, Stars birthing their exquisite Set Yourself on Fire after a frigid rural Quebec sojourn). The resultant wax, 2000's Goodbye Enemy Airship the Landlord is Dead, though hardly bucolic, is a sprawling affair, steeped in dense, soaring guitars, unobtrusive horns reminiscent of early King Crimson, and sombre, fragile rhythms.
Whereas labelmates Godspeed You Black Emperor! meld classical elements and found sounds into lengthy introspective jams, Do Make Say Think temper their brand of space rock with elements of jazz (witness the Brubeckish intro on 'All of This is True') and hard rock (opener 'When Day Chokes the Night' even recalls the prog intensity of Van Der Graaf Generator). But ultimately Goodbye Enemy Airship... thrills when it delivers moody interstellar workouts, such as on the shy and brooding 'Minimum', which eventually leaps out at the listener, morphing from quiet, minimal guitar into a euphoric piece of shimmering beauty. And there is hardly any letup from here as 'Minimum' segues into the partial title track 'The Landlord is Dead' with its languid horns punctuating the mesmerizing guitar psychedelics. The disc closes with the longest track (at 12:38), the other titular half 'Goodbye Enemy Airship', where the twin drummer duo of David Mitchell and James Payment deliver a nominally funky repetitive rhythm which is then coupled with Ohad Benchetrit's rapturous guitar work. Totally transcendent!
Goodbye Enemy Airship... is an impressive display of fully realized space rock and a worthy rival to GYBE!'s atmospheric musings further down the St. Lawrence.
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Links: Do Make Say Think
Constellation
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