Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada

The first EP by the Canadian post-rock band Godspeed You! Black Emperor, released 8 March 1999 (vinyl) and 29 March 1999 (CD). Spelled Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada in its CD release.

The Hebrew characters on the cover, תֹ֙הוּ֙ וָבֹ֔הוּ, transliterate as “Tohu va-Vohu” or “Tohu wa-bohu” and translate variously as “formless and empty”, “without form and void”, “waste and void”, “unseen and unformed”, and others. They first appear in Genesis 1:2 and later reappear, among other places, in Jeremiah 4:23. The former occurrence describes Earth before God separated light from darkness, and the latter describes the Earth after the Lord’s Day. The inside of the CD case (which opens in the opposite direction from a traditional CD case, owing to the Hebrew text on the cover) reprints Jeremiah 4:23-27 in both Hebrew and English (apparently the Jewish Publication Society version). The back cover of the CD contains a diagram with Italian-language instructions on making a Molotov cocktail.

Unusually, owing to the disparate lengths of the material, the first side of the vinyl edition plays at 45 rpm, and the second side at 33⅓ rpm.

Users of the website Rate Your Music have rated this the best EP of all time.