An act like Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra need no support. Not only are they a singular event in themselves, but their expansive music cannot be compressed into a short set. And so the advertised ‘special guests’ advertised do not materialise: there is only one act on the bill, due on stage at 9:30pm.
Although not as revered or held in quite the same reverence as their progenitors, seminal instrumentalists Godspeed You! Black Emperor, they nevertheless encapsulate everything that makes a true cult act: quirky, unswayed by fashion, willfully obscure and esoteric and staunchly opposed to any kind of commercialism, as the title of their latest long-player, ‘Fuck Off, Get Free, We Pour Light on Everything’ attests. It perhaps goes without saying that the place is packed with a the motley assortment of hippies, hipsters, rockers and general misfits, and there’s a remarkable density of beards. The band themselves are similarly averse to fashion and haircuts, and resemble the kind of band that used to lumber the earth in the 1970s heyday of progressive rock – down to Ephrim Menuck having two mics taped together. Musically, they share much common ground with their progressive ancestors, too: the vocals play third fiddle (the instrumentation boasts two violins) to the sprawling instrumental passages.
The first portion of the set follows the same order as the album, beginning with ‘Fuck Off Get Free (For the Island of Montreal) ’, its meandering intro slowly building to a sustained crescendo some five minutes in, followed by ‘Austerity Blues’ before jumping – in some kind of slow-motion – to the last song from the album, ‘Rains Thru the Roof at Thee Grande Ballroom’.
The dialogue between stage and audience is priceless: in introducing ‘Austerity Blues’, there ensues an exchange which finds audience members attempting to explain ‘bedroom tax’ to the Canadian visitors. Yeah, the people of Leeds get the austerity blues and the orchestra duly oblige with a mesmerising rendition of the song. And for an ensemble who couldn’t be much further from a blues band, they sure dig the blues, swinging into ‘Take Away These Early Grave Blues’ and prompting one rather off-beat guy a few rows back to call out with a reference to Jon Spencer’s Blues Explosion. Red White and Blues’ may have been lost on Menuck and co, but it all contributed to the rapport between artist and audience that while seemingly at odds with the music itself,only added to the sense of community and that being in the intimate venue all together was something special.
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Menuck’s a curious and reluctant front man; as a vocalist he’s not an outstanding singer, and he stands back on the stage. This is of course all part of SMZ’s philosophy, the focus isn’t on any one player but the sound they produce as a unit. And it’s an incredible sound, rich and immersive.
They end the main set with the mellow, folk-tinged ‘What We Loved Was Not Enough’ and encore with ‘Little Ones Run’.
The hippie chick in front of me is totally wrapped up in her own world, swaying and swinging her arms as I almost choke on the patchouli wafting off her, and that’s the very essence of Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra right there: theirs is music to get lost in, to become absolutely absorbed in, to surrender completely to.
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