If some average Joe casually asked what genre of music you’re interested in and the response you gave was “Oh yeah, I’m big into post-rock”, you'd be forgiven for being met with a quizzical look. The sort of look normally reserved for someone who has built a scale model of the Eiffel Tower from Creme Eggs. Say you’re favourite album is ‘Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven’ and they might think you're taking the piss out of them. Post-rock is not a type of music that really troubles the charts or gets playlisted on prime time radio, because it doesn't conform to the standard three-minute radio-friendly blueprint.
Post-rock is the tag usually applied to bands that play instrumental rock music with a style that puts emphasis on the rhythm, tone, and texture of the guitar parts. This is not simply music without vocals adhering to standard verse-chorus-verse structure.
Like most genres of music e.g. 'Trip Hop' or 'Chillwave', a journalist -Simon Reynolds, Mojo- coined its label and it stuck much to the chagrin of some bands playing this type of music.
Ask Mogwai how they feel about being a leading post-rock band and it could descend into a Michael Parkinson-Meg Ryan type standoff. For some bands, it can be a case of "the first rule of Post-rock is don’t talk about post-rock". Others though, have embraced it and see it has a badge of honour.
The Origins of Post-rock
It’s one thing pigeonholing a load of bands into a genre, but how did this style of music come to be? There has always been instrumental rock music in the past but it doesn’t collate to post-rock, as we know it today. Think back to Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac and the guitar lead instrumental Albatross or even to The Shadows' Apache.
Trying to pinpoint influences of post-rock’s origins isn't an exact science as there isn't a singular song or release which can lay claim as being the birth of the genre. You can point to the claustrophobic atmosphere of The Velvet Underground. The use of drones was something pioneered by The Velvet Underground’s John Cale on the song Heroin and later carried on by Lou Reed on 'Metal Machine Music'. The freeform experimentalism of PIL’s 'The Flowers Of Romance ' was also important as it explored a non-conformist use of instrumentation, vocals and samples. The rhythmic complexity of post-rock was explored by prog-rock bands such as King Crimson, while Krautrock bands like Neu!, brought improvised minimalism into the sphere of influence. On their own, none of these elements constitute a starting line for post-rock but combined the supplied the building blocks from which the genre emerged.
However, if you’re searching for post rock year zero, then the formation of seminal Kentucky band Slint in 1987, is as good as any . Their debut album 'Tweez’ was full of strange lead bass rhythms, but it’s their landmark album ‘Spiderland’ that is regarded as the type specimen of post-rock. Dense, intricate guitar work, that built soundscapes of dissonance and distortion, piled on top of irregular beats and rhythms. ‘Spiderland’ is one of those albums whose influence is huge compared to the number of records it actually sold.
Around the same time in the UK, a more unlikely band was careering away from their New Romantic roots into something that resembled post-rock. when Talk Talk released It’s My Life, the idea of them becoming one of the Godfathers of Post-rock was about as alien as Robin Thicke writing an original song today. But in the late '70s, Talk Talk made an abrupt U-turn on 'Spirit Of Eden', so much so that EMI sued them for making an uncommercial album (which EMI lost). By the time their last album ‘Laughing Stock' arrived their sound had taken a rocket into space with It’s My Life long since jettisoned. It’s only in retrospect that we can appreciate, just how influential ‘Laughing Stock’ was. It was freeform, obtuse music, floating from one point to another following no set rules.
The evolution of post-rock
Two separate strands of post-rock on either side of the Atlantic. In North America, Tortoise became the standard-bearers of post-rock (particularly after David Pajo of Slint joined) and produced a sound regarded as the definitive post-rock sound today. Slint’s Brian McMahan later formed The For Carnation, which further progressed the post-rock template into more experimental jazz territory. Elsewhere in the US, Caspian and Red Sparowes built up strong followings: the latter using pedal-steel guitar to distinguish themselves from the rest of the genre. Gradually post-rock spread over North America like a zombie plague, eventually reaching Montreal, the home of Constellation Records. Not quite the Madchester of post rock, Montreal, has nevertheless proven to be a fertile incubating area for such bands. Alumni of the label include Fly Pan Am, Thee Silver Mt Zion Band, Do Make Say Think and the 200lb gorilla of post rock Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
However, in the UK, Talk Talk had inspired a new breed of band like Stereolab, Seefeel and Bark Psychosis. They differed from their US peers by embracing elements of electronica, ambience and drone. The beauty of post-rock is that it transcends language barriers due to its largely vocal less nature. It inevitably spread worldwide with Sigur Rós talking inspirations from both sides of the Atlantic to fuse their Hopelandic post-rock style. Japanese band Mono took their influences not from other post-rock bands, but from Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. They are regarded as one of the finest exponents of the scene, not that Mono consider themselves part of any genre.
The inevitable crossover between the US to the UK saw the likes of Mogwai, 65 Days Of Static, Maybeshewill and Fuck Buttons emerge, that further blur the lines from post-rock into Math-rock and electronic territory. There is festival in Bristol called ArcTanGent, dedicated to these genres of music, successfully carving its own niche for the past few years.
The reach and influence of the post-rock sound has transferred to music not normally associated with the genre. Think about Anthony Gonzalez's M83 and huge swathes of synth pop spring to mind, but go back to M83's 2004 album 'Dead Cities, Read Seas And Lost Ghosts' and it's undeniable that songs such as On a White Lake, Near a Mountain have similar structures & tone to post-rock. At first glance, it appears a million miles away from what Slint were doing, but it’s a natural progression of the sound.
Back in the US, there is a new wave of bands taking the post-rock template and ramping it up even further. More bass-heavy than your prototype Post-rock bands Russian Circles, Isis and This Will Destroy You stray from the standard build to a crescendo format, instead focusing on building as big a sound as possible that veers into Post-metal.
Post-rock in Ireland
Here in Ireland, we have been lucky enough to produce some fine exponents of the genre including The Redneck Manifesto whose debut album ‘Thirtysixstrings’ has become a cult-classic in international circles. The Jimmy Cake emerged as a multi-headed musical hydra delving into space prog-rock around the same time delivering the much-lauded album ‘Brains’. The two aforementioned bands tie in with our stereotypical view of what post rock is, but the new breed of Irish bands that have followed in their wake are straying from that path as much as their US or UK counterparts are.
Cork‘s Rest combine elements of black metal and prog-rock with post-rock, while on the other side of the island, And So I Watch You From Afar have jet propelled the formula adding in the fury of post hard-core with the discipline of math rock. Guy Montag, one of the newer post-rock bands to emerge. Formed from the ashes of C!ties this County Clare act are bursting with potential. Their début EP 'We Lost Our Singer In Oman', released in 2014, was kaleidoscope, jumping from jazz tinged jams to more orthodox crescendos before running off in weird and wonderful directions.
Much is expected of Overhead , The Albatross following some critically acclaimed EP's. Last but not least we cannot forget Adebisi Shank who released three magnificent albums of math/noise/post-rock and played some bonkers live shows. They have sadly decided to call it a day but left a much-loved legacy on the Irish scene.
Ten Post-rock bands you need to hear
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
GY!BE’s cataclysmic symphonies have established them at the forefront of the genre. They have morphed from their early sound, where fragments of conversations and samples were interspersed with their signature, emotive crescendos. New album ‘Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress’ shows a greater understanding of dynamics and texture, delivering a hitherto unknown sense of hope; but they have lost none of their grandeur, scale or liberated use of exclamation marks in song titles.
Essential listening: Storm, Dead Flag Blues, Mladic
And So I Watch You From Afar
Firmly established as one of the hardest working bands on the planet, we have watched with pride as And So I Watch You From Afar have grown in popularity and creativity in equal measure. Their live shows are joyous explosion of energy and riffs. They have been gradually ushering in a change of direction with anthemic vocals now firmly in the mix. Their fourth album 'Heirs' is released May 4th.
Essential listening: Set Guitars To Kill, Gang (Starting Never Stopping), Young Brave Minds
Mogwai
Nowadays Mogwai are more musically sophisticated beasts than their formative years where building to a crescendo was the de facto thing to do. They no longer bludgeon your senses with a sonic assault, instead they have been incrementally increasing their use of electronica; even venturing into soundtracks for French TV show Les Revenants. 2014’s ‘Rave Tapes’ arguably their finest to date is an amalgamation of everything that has brought them to this point.
Essential listening: Mogwai Fear Satan, Remurdered, Xmas Steps
God Is An Astronaut
The Wicklow based Kinsella brothers (Torsten and Niels) differ from their contemporaries thanks to their luscious use of synth on top of the standard staple drums, guitar and bass. Noted for their great audio-visual live shows, God Is An Astronaut are cinematic and stirring in equal measure. Their seventh album, 'Helios | Erebus' drops later this year.
Essential listening: Dust And Echoes, Calistoga, Coda
Do Make Say Think
No list would be complete without Do Make Say Think. Their use of wind instruments separates them from their peers. Multi instrumentalists Ohad Benechetit and Charles Spearin seamlessly integrate sax, trumpet and flute into the standard guitar/bass/drums formula. There are rumours that they have a new album due in 2015 but for now they have a strong back catalogue to keep you more than occupied.
Essential listening: Auberge Le Mouton Noir, A Tender History In Rust, Do
Overhead, The Albatross
We are beginning to fear that Dublin post-rockers Overhead, The Albatross debut album will never arrive and become the 'Chinese Democracy' of the Irish music scene; a wild, ambitious, untameable beast. But every now and then they tease us with a new morsel of music such as Telekinetic Forest Guard that reassures us that unlike Guns N Roses they are worth waiting for.
Essential listening: Pignometry, Telekinetic Forest Guard, Think, Thank, Thunk.
Mono
Japanese post-rock legends Mono straddle the space between Explosions In The Sky and Sigur Ros. As capable of capturing the fragile emotive beauty of their Icelandic counterparts as they are ratcheting up the intensity with growling guitar crescendos.
Essential listening: Silent Flight, Sleeping Dawn, Dream Odyssey, Kanata
Explosions In The Sky
Explosions In The Sky first unfortunately came to notoriety with the release of their second album ‘Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever’. Thanks to the caption “This Plane Will Crash Tomorrow” appearing on the album artwork, which was released a week before 9/11. Unfortunately some conspiracy nutters put two and two together and the media latched onto it. Thankfully the intricate guitar work of Explosions In The Sky has brought them more appropriate media attention. Their finely constructed mini concertos rise and fall bringing a sense of awe, sorrow and reflection. Guitarists Mark Smith and Munaf Rayani’s dovetailing textures provide the emotive depth to their swirling climatic instrumentals.
Essential listening:Let Me Back In, First Breath After Coma, Welcome Ghosts
Sigur Rós
Crossing the post-rock spectrum into a realm of ethereal dreams Sigur Rós have long been pioneers of their own brand of glacial post-rock. There is never any rush to reach the end; when it comes to Sigur Rós it is the journey that is to be savoured. They are noted for Jónsi Birgisson’s vocals acting like another layer of instrumentation.
Essential listening: Hoppípolla, Sigur 3 (unknown), Ísjaki
Russian Circles
The blunt force of Russian Circles makes them stand out amongst their peers. As a three piece, they generate a gargantuan sound that belies belief. Pummelling drums and weighty bass allow guitarist Mike Sullivan to lay down giant chainsaw riffs. Sullivan’s use of samples and loop pedals are essential in helping Russian Circles achieve their skyscraper sound.
Essential listening: Deficit, Mladek, Geneva