post- rock

[Thorngrub]

mary you need to get into post- rock, it's as simple as that. Might I recommend to you japan's own mono. If you dug lift yr skinny fists, you'll fall deeply in love w/mono.

finally found in the store yesterday & purchased on CD:



mono's 1st release: Under The Pipal Tree (2001)

I listened to it once, after getting home from work. I drifted in & out of sleep on the couch while it unfurled its silences & ominous crescendoes, and unraveled its sinuous, lucid arpeggios. I'm not sure how to describe the difference between this debut & their devastating followup "one step more and you die". Under The Pipal Tree is @once rawer, perhaps more stark (although one man's stark is another's gauze, I'm afraid), but this one has fatter basslines and a more syncopated, irregular style, like a dream constantly interrupted by clouds passing above. There is obviously a motherlode of inner, hidden melodies under the bright surface of this music's water. I can tell it will take more time to grow on me; something I immediately like about it. The anticipation of a well-earned love affair with an album. First comes the shy introduction. Then the brazen attempts at intimacy, which the music constantly rejects. Then that moment when the listener suddenly falls through a widening crack in the cadence, and is swallowed whole by the loving madrigals at its muscular center.

Yeah I should've travelled the 500 miles to see these guys live last month. *heart broken*

[Thorngrub]

skvorisdeadsorta said:

Tarantel is from San Francisco. They have a few records out on Temporary Residence and a couple on Neurot Recordings. Very beautiful stuff that I think you will dig. Man, I totally just got that Twilight on vinyl and it is SWEET!

Godspeed does have a ton of side projects. There is Do Say Make Think, A Silver Mt. Zion, Set Fire To Flames, and even Broken Social Scene. They have other stuff that is really good, but man, no one and I mean no one, comes even close to eclipsing Godspeed.

I looked at a Tarantel album yesterday, before deciding on mono's debut. It was a Neurot recording (can't recall the title).

I'm really looking forward to acquiring some Silver Mt. Zion and the like. Question 4U: is anyone from Tarantel in Red Sparowes?

[Thorngrub]

rileydog said:

i need someone to tell me if "math rock" is for real.

there are some very cool bands around town who seem to get tagged with that little bright idea by people who don't realize how funny they are, but to me they just sound to me like Pavement if they were prog, which is brilliant.

"math rock", lol. The only band that comes to mind which I've personally heard described in those terms is (believe it or not) MUDVAYNE.

Now, mudvayne is the furthest thing from post- rock. They're fuckin heavy nu-metal. So I find it curious that on one side of this argument you've got "Pavement if they were prog", and the other side you got MUDVAYNE-? *scratches head*

Just goes to show ya nobody knows WTF they're talkin about when they say "math rock". Or at the very least, they can't add.

[Thorngrub]

ritalinpants said:

math rock is apparently for real.

i think it's somethng approximating a mix between Emo and Prog.
Emo-prog-post-rawk = that's Math rock.

Well, first one must isolate the real meaning of "emo", which I personally consider the absolute most ludicrous, and meaningless, term ever invented to describe a subgenre of music.

All music is emotional *duh*.

[Thorngrub]

(But I do think that was a brave, and decent, attempt at describing it, Rit)

[Thorngrub]

I haven't heard Kinski, Ayinger, so maybe skvor can answer that question 4U.

Rit: I'm sure mogwai have their good and bad days .. . govt. commissions, for instance = bad
(or at the very least, boring, as mary pointed out. But I've heard earlier stuff that perked my ears)

skvor I can't believe you found that TwilighT on vinyl - - that is sick. I got XashtuR's Telepathic With The Deceased as well as LeviathaN's A Silhouette In Splinters both on vinyl. . . and they are excellent. Silhouette was released only on vinyl - - 500 copies -- and I got 1 ;D

[Rit]

i was talking about the concert live show of Mogwai, which was excellent. you'd have to be there, not listen to a live show on a disc. Govt Comisions were John Peel sessions anyway, not really "live".

[skvorisdeadsorta]

ritalinpants said:

classical music is not the same as post rock. classical music is dead boring, and a lifeless artifact, to me.

i've seen Mogwai in concert, and i thought it was one of the more exciting things ever.

I totally concur with the Mogwai thing as when I saw them they were just crushing and intense.

I have to disagree with you on the classical front though. With the 20th Century, classical music became more than just entertainment for the upper classes in powdered whigs.

Kinski is not post-rock, they are space rock CRAP that I often wonder how they ever got a deal with Sub Pop. I find them silly and disgusting on one of their good days.

Don Cabellero = the ultimate Math Rock. Math Rock is exactly what it is: Hipsters who've read to much Legs McNeil and are too embarrassed to say PROG or admit that they like it.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

I should point out that good space rock such as Acid Mother's Temple and the Boredoms please me just fine. I DO like many spacier bands. You could also say that Space Rock and Krautrock are one in the same really. Genrefication is getting ridiculous and making my head spin!!!

[skvorisdeadsorta]

Red Sparrows is comprised of members of Halifax Pier (Temporary Residence put out their stuff, not bad) Isis (better than Pelican in my opinion, nothing against Pelican though), and Neurosis. The whole metal/post rock crossover, honestly, I feel is probably due to Neurosis who have been changing their sound for the last five years it seems like. I personally love the new Neurosis stuff much more than the old records.

A Minor Forest is a great band that was on Thrill Jockey in the late nineties that were another band like Slint, that formed what is now considered to be "post-rock".

[Rit]

the Boredoms are amazing.

i agree with your dipiction of mathrock as being for people embarrassed to say that they like prog.

[Rit]

as for classical music in the 20th century being somehow vital, i disagree. rock music took that over, and you have ranges of intelligence, art and music in popular music alone, which is all you ever need.

classical music is an outdated mode, now kept alive by the institutions of musical academies and theory specialists.

[skvorisdeadsorta]

I never said it was vital, I just said that there was actually exciting things being done with the form. For example, Tortoise is really when you get down to it just a rip off of Steve Reich. Listen to Steve Reich and the school of percussion minimalism and you can see exactly how and why a band like Tortoise existed. I would hardly agree that it is outdated, especially with people like Phil Niblock who are changing with the times, adding computers and many other elctronic applications. Condemning it as nothing more than a genre for nerds to specialize in theory is complete and total bullshit. May I remind you that had not Electronic devices not been mined and created by the composers of Russia, England, and America, most electronic music would not exist as it does today. A perfect example of taking some thing from the classical field and then mutating with rock with simple melody and tight packaging. There you go.

[Rit]

so they are the vanguard for forms which will be appropriated by more discerning craftsmen in later years and turned into offerings fit for mass consumption?

then i guess classical music still has it's place. but only just so.

[Thorngrub]

Acid Mother's Temple was just here in salt lake - - *& I missed em*

AS for classical music having its place or not:

Music is music. And good music (whether 'classical' or not) is timeless.

Period.

NP (in my head): Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony "Pathetique" (Von Karajan conducting)