Efrim Menuck

Efrim Menuck performing with Godspeed You! Black Emperor 2001

Efrim Manuel Menuck (born August 4 or November 4, 1970 in Montreal ) is a Canadian musician who is involved in several Montreal post-rock bands, most notably Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band . Menuck also works as a music producer with musicians from Montreal and abroad.

biography

In 1994 Mauro Pezzente, Mike Moya and Menuck founded Godspeed You! Black Emperor , an influential post-rock ensemble. Their first tape, All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling , is the earliest recorded sign of life from Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Released in December 1994, the cassette was only limited to 33 copies. It was only with the release of their official debut album, F♯A♯∞ , that they gained recognition and attention for their music.

Menuck is also responsible for founding Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band , along with the other Godspeed You! Black Emperor musicians Sophie Trudeau and Thierry Amar. Although the project was only started to help Menuck read scores, the band has since become its own collaboration.

When the debut album He Has Left Us Alone, but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms… was released in 2000, the main difference to the instrumental Godspeed was You! Black Emperor that it included singing by Menuck and other members. However, Constellation Records claim in the biography for Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band that Menuck actually sang on a rare live tape from GY! BE before the group was formed. Whether this is a reference to All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling is unknown as the cassette was released in 1994. However, Menuck can also be heard singing softly on F♯A♯∞ in the piece East Hastings in 1998 .

The style of the lyrics can best be described as poetic. The themes of his songs can include fear and loneliness, but also urban decay and gentrification and a dedication to his dead dog, Wanda. A Silver Mt. Zion's third album , This Is Our Punk-Rock, Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing, was intended as a requiem for open and abandoned spaces in Montreal and the loss and decay of similar spaces across the globe, be it because of urban development (gentrification) or military actions. Menuck incorporated politics into his song titles, lyrics, and album artwork for A Silver Mt. Zion. Anti-capitalist, anti-globalization standpoints and an affinity for anarchism and peace are often expressed.

Menuck is a Jew and a staunch supporter of Judaism , often using religious allegories in the texts of A Silver Mt. Zion . The recordings for He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms ... (2000) were described by Menuck as a Jewish experience. With the second album Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward , the band refers to the book Job 5: 7. Menuck is a critic of the Israeli government; the liner notes for the GY! BE album Yanqui UXO (2002) criticize Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount on September 15, 2000 (symbolized in the instrumental track 9-15-00 ).

Along with Howard Bilderman, Radwan Moumneh and Thierry Amar owns and manages the Menuck Hotel2Tango , a creative space, nonkommerziellen club and recording studio in Montreal. The studio was originally built to allow recording of friends and the bands who own it, but has recently opened its doors to all kinds of artists and bands. Menuck can often be found in the album credits for many bands as a producer . If possible, he also often contributes musically, either with electric guitar or sound effects and field recordings .

On August 5, 2009, Silver Mt. Zion violinist and friend Jessica Moss gave birth to her and Menucks' baby, Ezra Steamtrain Moss Menuck. The couple took him on the tour of Vic Chesnutt .

Music equipment

The following is a list of musical instruments that Menuck used or used:

Guitars

• Fender Jaguar  - Sunburst , modified with a Bigsby Guitars neck
• Travis Bean
• Mosrite 'The Ventures' Mach 1 (A Silver Mt Zion)

Effects pedals

• BOSS GE-7 equalizer
• BOSS TR-2 tremolo
• Maestro Fuzztain
• Z.Vex tremolo probe
• Z.Vex Super Hard On
• Mutron Phaser II
• Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler
• Zvex Fuzz Factory
• Zvex Wah sample
• Death By Audio Sound Saw
• SIB Echodrive
• Diamond Pedals Memory Lane
• Foxrox ZIM
• Fulltone Supa-Trem

amplifier

• Ampeg V4 head
• Mesa / Boogie Rectifier Trem-O-Verb head

Discography

Solo work

• Efrim Manuel Menuck "Plays High Gospel" , album (2011, Constellation Records )

Godspeed You! Black Emperor

• All Lights Fucked on the Hairy Amp Drooling Demo (1994)
• F♯A♯∞ (1997, Constellation Records)
• aMAZEzine! 7 " (1998, aMAZEzine! )
• Slow Riot for New Zerø Canada EP (1999, Constellation)
• Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000, Constellation)
• Yanqui UXO (2002, Constellation)
• 'Allelujah! Don't bend! Ascend! (2012, Constellation)
• Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress (2015, Constellation)

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band with Choir

• He Has Left Us Alone, but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms ... (2000, Constellation)
• Born into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward (2001, Constellation)
• “This Is Our Punk-Rock,” Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing , (2003, Constellation)
• The Pretty Little Lightning Paw EP (EP, 2004, Constellation)
• Horses in the Sky (2005, Constellation)
• 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons (2008, Constellation)
• Collapse Tradixionales (2010, Constellation)
• Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything (2014, Constellation)

Menuck also contributes smaller samples and music fragments for other bands that he produces. These are not listed here.

Web links

• Efrim Menuck on the Constellation Records website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.lucywho.com/p6066255/efrim-menuck (link not available)
2. ↑ Constellation Records: Godspeed You! Black Emperor biography . In: Bands index . Constellation Records. 2006. Archived from the original on December 23, 2006. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Constellation Records: Godspeed - All Lights Fucked Cassette . In: Godspeed Releases . Constellation Records. 2000. Archived from the original on December 17, 2000. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
4. ↑ ^{a b} A Silver Mt. Zion: A Silver Mt. Zion at VPRO Studio (2001-01-26) . In: Live Music Archive . Internet Archive. 2001. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
5. ↑ Constellation Records: A Silver Mt. Zion biography . In: Bands index . Constellation Records. Archived from the original on December 8, 2006. Retrieved December 19, 2006.
6. ↑ The soft singing in East Hastings , accompanying the simple guitar track, starts at 8:20 and ends at 8:50. The most noticeable voice is that of Menuck, although other members can be heard as well.
7. ↑ Constellation: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band With Choir: "This Is Our Punk-Rock," Thee Rusted Satellites Gather + Sing.
8. ↑ Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui UXO (php) In: Reviews . Sputnik Music. 2005. Retrieved March 29, 2007.
9. ↑ "Torch'd Circular!" Of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Band. ( Memento from December 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
10. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} All Angels Gone: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Gear ( Memento from February 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
11. ↑ CST099 SMZ: Fuck Off Get Free We Pour Light On Everything. Constellation Records, accessed March 20, 2014 .