Godspeed You! Black Emperor Win 2013 Polaris Music Prize

have been announced as winners of the 2013 Polaris Music Prize, for their 2012 LP ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!’.

It was the band’s first release in over a decade, following up 2002’s ‘Yanqui U.X.O.’ The band initially reformed in 2010 before recording new material that eventually led to this prize-winning return. It spans four tracks and goes beyond the 50 minute mark.

Beating off competition from Purity Ring’s ‘Shrines’ and Metz’s S/T record, alongside others, Godspeed You! Black Emperor receive a prize fund of $30,000. FACT notes that the band are donating their winnings to help fund music initiatives in the Quebec prison system.

Over 200 jury members helped decide on the winner.

‘It feels nice to be acknowledged by the Troubled Motherland when we so often feel orphaned here. and much respect for all y’all who write about local bands, who blow that horn loudly- because that trumpeting is crucial and necessary and important,’ reads a statement from the band.

They also quip that ‘maybe the next celebration should happen in a cruddier hall,’ adding three ‘bullet points’ about the prize:

-‘holding a gala during a time of austerity and normalized decline is a weird thing to do.’

-‘organizing a gala just so musicians can compete against each other for a novelty-sized cheque doesn’t serve the cause of righteous music at all.’

-‘asking the toyota motor company to help cover the tab for that gala, during a summer where the melting northern ice caps are live-streaming on the internet, IS FUCKING INSANE, and comes across as tone-deaf to the current horrifying malaise’