SLOW RIOT FOR NEW ZERO KANADA E.P.

"Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada" is the first EP release from the Canadian experimental musical collective GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR. It was released in 1999 on vinyl by the Montreal-based record label Constellation Records and on CD by the Chicago-based Kranky Records.

The disc, clocking in at approximately 29 minutes, features two long instrumental compositions: 11-minute "Moya" and 18-minute "BBF3". The former is dedicated to the band's founding member Mike Moya who left the ensemble in 2008. In fact, this is a sort of re-working "Symphony No. 3" by Henryk Gorecki, a Polish composer of contemporary classical music (that's why it is sometimes mentioned in the concert setlists as "Gorecki"). The latter refers to the vox pop interviewee going by the name of "Blaise Bailey Finnegan III" whose eccentric ramblings form the core of the song. Finnegan recites a poem which he claims to have written himself. But in fact, the poem is mostly composed of lyrics from the song "Virus" by Iron Maiden that were written by their then-vocalist Blaze Bayley. Both tracks are just superb and can be referred as "classics" of GY!BE from their first period.

Interesting facts for collectors: The cardboard album case opens in the opposite direction of a conventional CD case; this is due to the Hebrew text being read from right to left. The front of the album contains Hebrew characters, in transliterated form, "Tohu VaVohu" (Formless and Empty). This phrase is from both Genesis 1:2 and Jeremiah 4:23, the former to describe the Earth before God separated light from dark and the latter to describe the Earth after the Lord's Day.