To the band's credit, Godspeed You Black Emperor! has outdone its parent label, Constellation Records. Even music stores that should know better file a good portion of Constellation's output under "G," presumably thinking that it's a series of Godspeed side projects. It's a remarkably tidy marketing ploy for record stores, but wouldn't it be a wee bit more fair if the label and the seven bands on its roster were approached on their own terms? Although not entirely a harbinger of justice, Earpollution thought it good and proper to talk to Don Wilke, co-founder of Constellation. "I remember one of the most inane things I've read was when we released Sackville. A reviewer from an English publication--I think--went on and on about how it sounded nothing like Godspeed...I mean, that got past an editor even," he said during a phone interview in July. Indeed, Sackville's Principles of Science is not Constellation's most distinguished record, yet its five plaintive songs are gorgeously arranged and its lighter touch shouldn't be slighted. Besides, Godspeed's musical melodrama is overrated. Sackville, by the way, features Ian Ilavsky, also a founder of Constellation, on piano, organ and guitar.

Constellation and Ilavsky's previous band Sofa made a joint debut three years ago, the former as a strongly principled label, the latter as an intense brooding quartet. "It was never meant as a vanity label," said Wilke. He was the one who pushed Sofa to release first a seven-inch, and soon after a full-length album.

Sofa has since disbanded, but Constellation on the other hand has obviously prospered. A sign of what they've accomplished: A few months ago I spotted Sofa's Gray in the rarities and collectibles display case at two different New York record stores. I suspect it wasn't the band's bold dynamics, or Brad Todd's blood-and-guts voice that landed it such prominent display. It was the CD's sleeve--its cardstock paper and thin wood C-frame--that got it there. According to Wilke, the first pressing of 1,000 copies took a whole year to make. "We don't want to be a niche label making fetish objects. We make a big effort of avoiding commodification, of just putting out product," said Wilke. Nonetheless, I couldn't help myself when I first saw the Sofa CD; I wanted it regardless of how the band sounded.

As Constellation's roster has grown, so has its reputation. Exhaust, Do Make Say Think and Fly Pan Am have pushed the Constellation imprint higher and higher still. Curious as to what, or rather who, lay behind the label's notoriety, Earpollution called Montreal, Canada.

Wilke asked if eP was affiliated with any major labels, and only after seeing the site did he agree to an interview. We talked to him twice, and offer an edited transcript of our second conversation below.

I was looking through your releases and it surprised me to find you and Ian credited with recording a couple of songs on Godspeed's first album. Do you work on many of the records, or are you otherwise involved in that arena?

Don Wilke: I guess it's really all over the map. We are certainly very interested in the whole recording process. As far as the Godspeed f#a#oo record goes they asked us to back them with the recording. We were all pretty much neophytes as far as recording goes, them as well as us. It was a fairly unsophisticated process. It was Ian and I who pretty much, as the insert says, "sat through the night riding the faders." Since that time, Ian in particular has become very involved in recording both his own projects and a lot of the stuff that happens on the label. Ian recorded Fly Pan Am and was heavily involved in the Sackville recording. We were both heavily involved in the Sofa recordings. But it really depends on what the band is up to, where they are recording and what they want. So there's no formula for any particular record. If there is a chance to get involved, we enthusiastically do so. That said, we' ve been involved with--I'm just guessing--half of the recordings at some level.

How are the duties divided between you and Ian? Do you see eye to eye on most things? I imagine not, but you must have some sort of working system.

Wilke: Strangely enough, we see eye to eye on virtually everything. It would be a whole lot harder given the amount of ground we try to cover on a particular week, if we were constantly trying to make decisions while at odds on something. The workload sort of shares itself out in some (not predetermined) way. For whatever reason, on major and even most minor things there's really no need for an intense discussion. There is rarely a question about large issues, be they musical or about running a label.

Your first two releases were Sofa's, obviously through Ian. But then came Godspeed. I'm wondering if you can hark back to the moment when you heard Godspeed for the first time and you said: "Oh, here's our second act?"

Wilke: Godspeed was in its early, big band incarnation around the time that the Sofa album was beginning to record. They played sporadically around town as a large ensemble. At that time they had just come together as a large group, and there was still a rotating cast of members.

I guess the eureka for me was... There's a small watering hole in Montreal called the Miami, just a smoky little dive in which we tend to do a lot of drinking and which occasionally has live shows. Godspeed played there one night. It was the first night that I looked at the band in a completely differently light, and heard what was then the promise. I think that was actually the last show they played before the recording happened. It was really during that recording process, though, that Ian and I looked at each other and realized what was actually there.

I guess at that point you really became a label owner.

Wilke: Well, we were still... "Label" would have been a big stretch for us at that time. With one CD and one single out, we were still very much struggling to find our way. There was never really any ambitious release schedule. It was still very much, "We'll go as we go." Certainly the advent of f#a#oo propelled us along, but even then, from f#a#oo to our next release was almost a year. It was really during that period that a lot of the musicians in Montreal started to come into their own, and suddenly there was all kinds of stuff happening and bands that were interested in recording. It all sort of rolled from there.

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