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SINGS REIGN REBUILDER

Set Fire To Flames

Post Rock/Math rock


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Set Fire To Flames Sings Reign Rebuilder album cover
3.73 | 17 ratings | 4 reviews | 24% 5 stars

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Studio Album, released in 2001

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. 'I Will Be True...' (From Lips of Lying Dying Wonder Body #1) / Reign Rebuilder [Head] (2:39)
2. Vienna Arcweld / Fucked Gamelan / Rigid Tracking (13:45)
3. Steal Compass / Drive North / Disappear (6:12)
4. Wild Dogs of the Thunderbold / 'They Can Not Lock Me Up... I Am Eternally Free...' (From Lips of Lying Dying Wonder Body #2) (4:54)
5. Omaha (6:16)
6. There Is No Dance in Frequency and Balance (4:16)
7. Cote d'Abrahms Roomtone / 'What's Going On?...' (From Lips of Lying Dying Wonder Body #3) (4:35)
8. Love Song for 15 Ontario (w/ Singing Police Car) (3:19)
9. Injur: Gutted Two-Track (2:49)
10. When I First Get to Phoenix (3:12)
11. Shit-Heap-Gloria of the New Town Planning (10:50)
12. Jesus/Pop (1:42)
13. Esquimalt Harbour (2:16)
14. Two Tears in a Bucket (3:43)
15. Fading Lights Are Fading / Reign Rebuilder [Tail Out] (3:51)

Total time: 73:24

Line-up / Musicians

- Speedy Weaver / guitar
- Beckie Foon / cello
- Sophie Trudeau / violin, glockenspiel, trompet
- Gordon Krieger / clarinet
- Thea Pratt / trompette
- Michael Moya / guitar, magnetic tapes
- Geneviève Heistek / violin
- Jean-Sébastien Truchy / bass, double bass, musical box
- Bruce Cawdron / battery, percussions, marimba
- Roger Tellier-Craig / guitar, platinized cd, recorder
- David Bryant / guitar, recorder
- Fluffy Erskine / musical saw, percussions, musical box, recorder
- Christof Migone / recorder, electronics

Releases information

2001 CD Alien 8 CD13-01
2004 CD Alien8 30
2001 CD 130701 Ltd 01

Thanks to chamberry for the addition
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SET FIRE TO FLAMES Sings Reign Rebuilder ratings distribution


3.73
(17 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(24%)
24%
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(47%)
47%
Good, but non-essential (18%)
18%
Collectors/fans only (12%)
12%
Poor. Only for completionists (0%)
0%

SET FIRE TO FLAMES Sings Reign Rebuilder reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by ClemofNazareth
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk Researcher
4 stars I’m not sure this is technically a band; it’s more like a project. Set Fire to Flames first appeared as a live act in 1999, which apparently is the only time they appeared live. Shortly afterward the thirteen musicians holed themselves up in an old apartment in Montreal for five days and, deprived of sleep and sometimes food, proceeded to get all f**ked up and record hours upon hours of loosely scripted (and highly improvised) music. Mixed in with the arrangements (if you can call them that) are street sounds much like those Godspeed You! Black Emperor were famous for around the same time.

And that shouldn’t be surprising since about half the group was made up of Godspeed members, including mixmaster/guitarists Michael Moya and Roger Tellier-Craig; percussionists Bruce Cawdron and Fluffy Erskine; and the string section from the first two Godspeed albums as well as inaugural A Silver Mt. Zion members Beck Foon and Sophie Trudeau.

In addition to the street sounds, the recordings included a number of other environmental noises from the apartment surroundings including creaking doors and steps; voices of people coming in and out of the building; and cars moving about nearby.

The overall sound is not totally unlike that of Godspeed’s 1999 EP ‘Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada’, but in the case of Set Fire to Flames there aren’t really any slowly building crescendos or long cacophonic explosions of instrumental sound to speak of. Instead the musicians recorded about a dozen hours of noise, music, and improvisational noodling and patched it together in a collection of fifteen titled tracks, some of which sort of resemble songs. They’re really more like little mood pieces meant to evoke emotions or simply to invite thoughtful reflection. Or maybe they’re simply a form of head candy to accompany listeners during their own physical/mental deprivation experiences. Who knows.

The more interesting tracks include the eerie and almost ambient “Omaha”; “Cote d'Abrahms Roomtone / 'What's Going On?...' (From Lips of Lying Dying Wonder Body #3)” with its “Several Species of Small Furry Animals…” like electronic noises and rambling recorded voices; and the heavily acoustic and hopeful-sounding “Injur: Gutted Two-Track...”.

But the real gem in this collection is the ten-minute slowly-building “Jesus/Pop...”, which is not only the most cohesive track on the album, but also the closest thing to a Godspeed work as you’re likely to hear anywhere outside of that band’s own four albums. And speaking of Godspeed, there are many snippets of strings, guitar, and percussion sprinkled throughout the album that can be traced back to the first two Godspeed albums if one felt the urge to pick through and identify them. Again, not surprising considering that except for Efrim Menuck, most of the key players from that band appear here as well.

The thing I like best about this album is that it incorporates the best of the eclectic and disturbing instrumental experimentation found with Godspeed, but at the same time avoids the rather predictable slow-intro/street-sounds/crescendo/explosion/fade pattern that Godspeed slipped into on all three of their full-length albums. In that respect this is a lot more experimental and adventurous, much like several of the A Silver Mt. Zion albums of the last few years.

This music isn’t for everyone, not even for all fans of experimental or post-rock music. If you are a bit of a stoner, you’ll undoubtedly find this album to be a stimulating sensory experience. Likewise if you’re just bored with predictable progressive music and are looking for something new that stretches the boundaries. For adventurous souls like these, this is a highly recommended work, and a four star experience.

peace

Review by Sean Trane
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk
3 stars Yet another Post Rock group that calqued their sound on the famous GYBE!, which is easily understood since this is an Aidan-led project, therefore a GYBE! spin-off. One of the most disturbing things with this project is that it doesn't really offer much more than GYBE! (unlike Fly Pan Am or Silver Mountain Zion), but stays even more atmospheric and ambient than the chief project. Another surprise is the project's presence on a different label than Constellation (although there might be a link between them and P-Vine),

Still loaded with doom and gloom and clearly alluding to heavy drugs descend into hell (through prostitution and slow body deperishment and the whole shebang) and unlike GYBE!'s usual albums, the message is loud and clear. However, this doesn't stop Aidan and the gang from relying on the old and tried recipes, which means that this sounds like the same old soup being reheated. They even fall into the pit of these long monologues (which plague GYBE!'s works) and make this album relatively difficult for repeated listens, not that you'd really want to spin this album regularly.

Review by Warthur
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars Set Fire to Flames is a Godspeed You Black Emperor side project based heavily around improvisation and taking the "found audio" aspect of Godspeed's sound to the absolute limit. The entire album was recorded not in the Hotel2Tango, the usual haunt of Godspeed and its related bands, but in a creaky, abandoned, soon to be demolished old house, and the band made a deliberate decision not to edit out any incidental noises (to the extent where a passing police car ends up getting a performer credit on one song). The end result is intriguing: whereas on Godspeed's albums there's a disjunction between the impeccably produced instrumental playing and the scratchy found audio clips, here the instrumentals are the found audio. It's far more successful an experiment than I expected it to be, that's for sure.

Latest members reviews

4 stars Well like the other constellation label groups Set fire to flames have members from Godspeed, Silver mount Zion and others, but in this case they get reunited to record in a house in Montreal, and they spent days just recording and mixing the sounds and noises with a very large and vast line u ... (read more)

Report this review (#110051) | Posted by bamba | Wednesday, January 31, 2007 | Review Permanlink

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