Selfless

About

Of Selfless, Godflesh's third LP and most recent release, Justin Broadrick says, “We wanted to make a Godflesh rock album, almost an entire rock record, just to satisfy ourselves. We had a lot of stuff we wanted to get out of our system in a rock context and this album was the one to do it with.” Of course, Godflesh's rock context is miles away from most bands'. Just as its "dance" context, as explored on the '91 Slavestate EP, wouldn't have your typical dancefloor habitu shaking his or her booty. “We've got a core sound”, affirms Justin, “We examine a lot of different styles within that sound. We see music as being one big pool. For us, there's not that much to categorize about really, so we just do what we want within our sound.” Lest this all come off as an overly clinical approach resulting in test tube-like music, it's interesting to note that there's actually a lot of feeling in Godflesh's music, though it is usually one of desolation.“Our music is primarily meant to be emotional”, says Justin, somewhat surprisingly. “We're not here to crush people; we're here to give people something to feel good about, to some extent. I used to get the same vibe off powerful music as a child. I'd feel powerful through listening to it.” The first track on Selfless, Xnoybis is almost upbeat musically, an interesting choice to open an album. “That was a bit of a challenge in itself, to start on a really up note”, asserts Justin. “The subject matter isn't that up, it's still bleak in a Godflesh way, but we wanted to create a high mood to begin with. We see rock music as essentially mood music. Everyone creates ups and downs in music, but we do it in a more brutal sense. We're playing brutal music but it doesn't have to be purely one dimensional. As for the word itself, Xnoybis is a Latin expression, like a religious thing. What it means is a spiritual transcendence, that form of escapism. We're always examining things like escapism, we're obsessed with people's different forms of how they can escape the world, or how they can become more involved, or how they can be a slave.” (taken from Metal Maniacs, June 1995 issue).

via Last.fm

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