BLOOM & RUIN is the collaboration between Efrim Manuel Menuck, co-founder of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Bhutanese-born guitarist and improviser Tashi Dorji. Their debut album, Two Liberations, draws from the traditions of free improvisation, experimental rock, and contemporary drone music. The album explores the possibility of beauty amid collapse, offering music that is at once elegiac and defiant.
Two Liberations, was released in 2026 on The Garrote.
Efrim Manuel Menuck is a Canadian musician, composer, guitarist, singer, and producer based in Montreal. He is a co-founder of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra. Menuck has also released solo recordings and worked on film and sound projects. His work includes guitar, voice, electronics, composition, and recording. Through his bands and collaborations, he has worked with musicians from the fields of improvisation, experimental music, and contemporary composition. He has released music through Constellation Records and other independent labels. His most recent collaborations include work with the guitarist Tashi Dorji, with whom he formed BLOOM & RUIN.
Tashi Dorji is a Bhutanese-born, Asheville-based experimental guitarist whose fiercely intuitive improvisations have carved out a unique space in the contemporary avant-garde and improvised music. His expansive discography includes deeply felt solo works like Stateless (2020),We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit (2024), and his newest album Low Clouds Hang, This Land Is on Fire (2026) on Drag City. Dorji is one half of MANAS, the dynamic improvising duo with drummer Thom Nguyen, and a founding member of the free jazz trio KUZU, alongside saxophonist Dave Rempis and drummer Tyler Damon.