Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s rare 1993 debut tape, All Lights Fucked On The Hairy Amp Drooling, has finally been given a wider release by the band.
Available now via the group’s Bandcamp page, its official release follows on from a purported leak of the tape’s audio online earlier this month. In line with its longstanding policy on the tape, the band’s label, Constellation Records, had declined to comment on whether the leak was real, but the band’s Efrim Manuel Menuck has now spoken out and confirmed that it was in fact real.
Speaking to Vish Khanna’s Kreative Kontrol podcast, Menuck, who recorded the cassette mostly alone before forming the band as it’s known today, suggested he didn’t fully welcome the leak, but recognised upon hearing it that it was indeed the authentic material, and thus decided to officially release it.
Menuck had recorded the tape in 1993 for friends, distributing it among them, and selling an additional handful of copies at a show in the Canadian city of Moncton. A lack of finances prevented further distribution of the material at the time, and having formed GY!BE, he ultimately decided that he didn’t want to release it more widely as the material was made, he told Khanna, during "rough times." He added that he’s happy for people to listen to the release now, even if it’s "not the Godspeed you know."
Proceeds from the sale of the release will go towards providing medical oxygen to the Gaza Strip via the organisation Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, as per the description on GY!BE ‘s Bandcamp page.
All Lights Fucked On The Hairy Amp Drooling is out now.
