what is post-rock - seriously?

Led Zeppelin, I - IV, Houses of the Holy, Physical Grafitti, Presence, The Song Remains the Same, In Through the Out Door, Coda.

Here's some wonderful AMG genre-wisdom, all actual entries I just looked at on their "style" tab:

Liars = United States of America [??!?]
Oneida = Stoner Metal
Ex Models = Alternative Pop/Rock
YYYs = Garage Rock Revival

1. disco inferno - the five eps
2. disco inferno - di go pop
3. disco inferno - technicolor
4. seefeel - quique
5. seefeel - polyfusia
6. bark psychosis - hex
7. bark psychosis - scum
8. main - hydra-calm
9. main - above axis
10. techno animal - re-entry

Scaruffi - Post-Rock 90s
http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt521.html

But this overview of post-rock ain't too bad:

http://altmusic.about.com/library/weekly/aa021301.htm

Post-good I agree with. Ho ho.

The agreed-upon center of post-rock seems to = the Chicago bands: Tortoise, Gastr del Sol, Sea and Cake as pop-post-rock adjunct. BUT the stuff Jess mentions is the stuff Reynolds originally applied the term to, if I remember correctly: this sort of post-shoegaze dubby/ambient British "Lost Generation," Bark Psychosis and Seefeel and the last Slowdive record -- trace back to Talk Talk and Durutti Column, even.

Stereolab wind up getting included partly because they kept working with the Chicago axis and because their late-period records started to sound like that stuff -- but mainly because early use of the term "post-rock" was also maybe meant to encompass the stuff on Too Pure in the early/mid 90s. Seefeel were on it; Laika and Pram were on it. Mouse on Mars were on it, and they sit the margins of the post-rock umbrella, coming from a different genre but obviously working with and around the edges of post-rock proper. (Post-shoegazers like Th' Faith Healers and Long Fin Killie were also on there, and probably initially thought of as a new direction, but they seem to have been retrospectively and probably accurately cut out as just late-period shoegazing with some early post-rock impulses.)

I think the focus on the Chicago guys is sometimes counterproductive, cause you get these "post-rock is just jam bands for grad students" barbs that don't take into account the other/initial conception of what post-rock encompassed. For a completely different idea of what "post-rock" is, was, or could have been all about, there's stuff like the Slow Death in the Metronome Factory and Pop: Do We Not Like That? comps: Pram, Colin Newman, Scenic, UI, Sugarplant, Moonshake, Seefeel, Laika, Mouse on Mars, still early and more entrenched in just "rock" than the late-90s stuff, but definitely a slightly different direction to the whole post-rock "project" than things wound up taking by the end of the decade.

brise-glace, When in Vanitas… (Skin Graft, GR17) LP
Disco Inferno, D.I. Go Pop (Rough Trade, R3071) LP
The For Carnation, Fight Songs (Matador, ole 131-2) CD
The For Carnation, Marshmallows (Matador, OLE 172-1) EP
The For Carnation, s/t (Touch & Go, tg214cd) CD
Gastr del Sol, The Serpentine Similar (Teen Beat, teenbeat 95) CD
Gastr del Sol, Crookt, Crackt, or Fly (Drag City, DC-43) LP
Gastr del Sol, Mirror Repair (Drag City, DC54CD) CD
Gastr del Sol, Upgrade & Afterlife (Drag City, DC90) 2LP
Gastr del Sol, Camofleur (Drag City, DC133) LP
Isotope 217, The Unstable Molecule (Thrill Jockey/New Beyond, Thrill 049) LP
Isotope 217, Utonian_Automatic (Thrill Jockey, Thrill 063) LP
Isotope 217, Who Stole the I Walkman? (Thrill Jockey) LP
Labradford, Prazision LP (Kranky, KRANK 001) CD
Labradford, A Stable Reference (Kranky, KRANK 006) LP
Labradford, s/t (Kranky, KRANK 013) LP
Labradford, Mi Media Naranja (Kranky, KRANK 023) LP
Labradford, E Luxo So (Kranky, KRANK 037) LP
Labradford, Fixed::Context (Kranky, krank 047) CD
Matmos, The West (Deluxe/Vague Terrain, DLX 212) EP
Mouse on Mars, Cache Coeur Naif (Thrill Jockey, thrill043) EP
Mouse on Mars, Audioditacker (Thrill Jockey, thrill045) 2LP
Mouse on Mars, Instrumentals (Sonig, sonig 01) LP
Mouse on Mars, Glam (Sonig/Thrill Jockey, thrill058) LP
Mouse on Mars, Niun Niggung (Rough Trade/Our Choice/Sonig, RTD 195.3611.1) LP
Mouse on Mars, Idiology (Thrill Jockey, thrill098) LP
Jim O'Rourke, Bad Timing (Drag City, dc 120) LP
Jim O'Rourke, Eureka (Drag City, dc 162) LP
Pan-American, s/t (Kranky, krank-025) LP
Parlour, Octopus Off-Broadway (Terminal Sketchpad, no number) CD-R
Sam Prekop, s/t (Thrill Jockey, thrill061) LP
Pullman, Turnstyles & Junkpiles (Thrill Jockey, thrill 055) CD
Pullman, Viewfinder (Thrill Jockey, Thrill 090) CD
Radian, TG11 (Mego/Rhiz, MEGORHIZ001) CD
The Sea and Cake, s/t (Thrill Jockey, thrill016) CD
The Sea and Cake, Nassau (Thrill Jockey, Thrill 021) 2LP
The Sea and Cake, The Biz (Thrill Jockey, Thrill 026) LP
The Sea and Cake, The Fawn (Thrill Jockey, Thrill 039) LP
Seefeel, Quique (Astralwerks/Too Pure, asw 6123-2) CD
Stereolab, Peng! (Too Pure, Pure LP 11) LP
Stereolab, Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements (Duophonic, D-UHF-D02) 2LP
Stereolab, The Groop Played “Space Age Batchelor Pad Music” (Too Pure, PURE CD 19) CD
Stereolab, Mars Audiac Quintet (Elektra, 61669-2) CD
Stereolab, Emperor Tomato Ketchup (Elektra, 61840-2) CD
Stereolab, Refried Ectoplasm [Switched On Volume 2] (Duophonic/Drag City, DC82) 2LP
Stereolab, Fluorescences (Duophonic, DUHF-D14) EP
Stereolab, Dots and Loops (Duophonic, D-UHF-D17) 2LP
Stereolab, Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night (Duophonic) 2LP
Tortoise, s/t (Thrill Jockey, Thrill 013) CD
Tortoise, Gamera (Duophonic, DS33-09) 12"
Tortoise, Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters (Thrill Jockey, thrill019) LP
Tortoise, Millions Now Living Will Never Die (Thrill Jockey, thrill025) LP
Tortoise, TNT (Thrill Jockey, thrill050) 2LP
Tortoise, Standards (Thrill Jockey, THRILL 089) LP
Turn On, s/t (Drag City, DC131) LP
Windsor for the Derby, Calm Hades Float (Trance Syndicate, TR-46) LP
Windsor for the Derby, Minnie Greutzfeldt (Trance Syndicate, tr 63) LP

there's so many connections in those releases between other types of music, other musicians, other labels, etc.

Also, a question: were the post-punk Rough Trade-era bands looked on with as much scorn/derision as the post-rockers are now? 'Cause I can see a lot of the same arguments being levelled against them, 'xcept of course the hindsight consensus is that they're all classic now....

Well yeah, esp. when you consider that the only member of Tortoise that went to college (I think) is McEntire, and he took forever to graduate!

You'd think with the number of undergrads and grads who post here, the anti-higher education slant of a lot of these posts would be challenged a little. I mean, shit, in America lots of non-rich, non-middle-class kids go to college. Ever hear of scholarships? Grants? Loans? The GI freakin' Bill? ROTC?

I don't think my mom would bat an eye if I put on a Tortoise or For Carnation or Stereolab record while we were fixing Christmas dinner and drinking in the kitchen, but A Trip to Marineville would be something else altogether.

I keep forgetting about BundyKen, since he quit Tortoise. Great fucking guy, great musician. If his music's bloodless, his shirt isn't: he's a paramedic.

Actually, along these lines I pulled out the Dif Juz Extractions album a couple months ago, and I think my motivation was exactly along the lines of trying to tease out any aesthetic connections with the nineties groups (atmospheric, instrumental music). But I really couldn't get into it, it seemed blander than the worst post-rock.

actually the two biggest influences on the brits are probably mbv and ar kane

(Crossposting bitch!)

Also, were the RT bands specifically trying to distance themselves by name from punk w/use of "post punk"? I don't know enough about the specifics of that world to know whether that was the case, or if it was a term bestowed by confused critics. From the stuff I've now read about post-rock, it seems an epithet that bands try to play down or disclaim; was post-punk different as a term? (Not trying to argue about this; I genuinely don't know at all.)

we must all not forget the influence of SAMPLING (i.e. the bomb squad) which perhaps ties back in with sasha's thread, hurrah!

I like this. :-)

Sampling! Jess ist un genius.

But my question is simpler -- is there a lot of sampling visible (ouch, audible, I guess) in this ostensible post-rock community/world/canon?

But really, there is not much in common with jazz is there? (other than that blasted vibraphone, and the instrumental nature)

I'm not deriding the "post-rock" bands - I'm just trying to understand how much substance there is to that label and how much these bands really have in common. I can see why bands would have tried to disown this label: "post-rock" is much worse than "post-punk". "Post-punk" is straightforward enough, meaning bands that came after punk and drew on it. But "rock" is a much bigger target than "punk", and "post-rock" can't escape from its pretentious "rock is dead" implications. It also suggests that these bands are not making rock music, which is a dubious claim. "Rock" is a big umbrella - over the years it has accomodated bands as diverse as Faust, Can, Swell Maps, Captain Beefheart, Kraftwerk, and Supertramp - so to say that these recent bands are really sooo innovative and sooo different as to make them a new animal altogether seems unjustified, at least in many of the cases in which it's been applied.

what comes after a rock show? the DJ!

I'm curious -- Weather Report:yes, others:no due to personal taste, or philosophical/aesthetic kinship?

Yeah, htstencil, there's a similar broadening of music and influences in these two groups of music, but the Rough Trade-rs were still operating from the emotional and political perspective of punk, just giving it more sophisticated and diverse musical setting. The post-rockers seem to aspire to professional artists/muso status by comparison, the emotion and politics (if at all) are consiously very muted...

(70's Miles Davis doesn't seem to, but I always think of this as somehow unclassifiable, or beyond labelling. I guess some of this is subjective, surely.)

..."post-rock" can't escape from its pretentious "rock is dead" implications.

You might wanna blame the coiner of the phrase then (aka Mr. Simon Reynolds) and not the bands saddled with it.

The post-rockers seem to aspire to professional artists/muso status by comparison, the emotion and politics (if at all) are consiously very muted...

Uh, do you mean muted like a shredded American flag on the cover of Standards?

I do! As I wrote before, I don't blame the bands for trying to disown the tag. I think you're right about this turning out to be as hard to pin down as "post-modernism". In fact, both terms suffer from the same weakness - an inherent lack of substance. Both terms are defined in terms of what they are NOT. But lots of things are NOT modernism, just as lots of things are NOT rock. Therefore, before too long you find the term can be applied to just about anything.

oy, I meant "lame" in the literal sense of "ineffectual" or "weak", cause an (artfuly?) shredded american flag (particulary on an album cover) (of instrumental music) is an ambiguous symbol at best. I think it has as much political impact as the use of the american flag on the Black Crowe's "Amorica" album ;-)

And "valid" was not my word...

This is Post Rock
Living In A Post Rock Nation
Po 'StroXXX: Volumes
It's Only Post Rock To Me

(the term shoegazing alone annoys me)

well the comparison to post-modernism is completely valid, but I don't think that makes it useless. AT best, you could say that post-rock is a way to define a method or a mindframe rather than an actual recognizable signature sound. Maybe in that case the term cannot qualify as a "genre" but I'm happy with that.
As with post-modernism, some guys reached the conclusion that there was really nowhere/nothing to look ahead and therefore started to look sideways (or in many cases looking behind). In other words, as with most other art forms, a general consensus emerged at some point in the 90s around the idea that linear musical "progress" was futile and that, to grow, rock had to incorporate approaches from other genres (and here i'm not talking about merely borrowing sounds or production tricks from other styles of popular western music, ie. "adding a dance element to your music")
I guess the idea is not that new and that's why some of the post-rock stuff doesn't sound all that fresh (hello Can, jazz-rock, ...) but, hey, I still see a point in having a term for it.
oder?

If "post-rock" exists at all, it exists as a common tendency that is visible in a number of otherwise dissimilar bands of the mid to late 90s: the tendency to downplay certain traditional elements of the rock sound (loud guitars, riffs, blues influence, short songs, emotionally direct lyrics) and to deliberately adopt elements of other genres (tropicalia, jazz, classical, exotica). The bands that went the furthest in this direction are the ones to whom the term applies best (e.g., Tortoise), but for most bands that get tarred with the "post-rock" brush, these tendencies were only one part of a sound that still remained solidly within the confines of a recognizably "rock" style.

You're thinking of Mark Perry on ALternative TV's first album. He has a lot of albums spread out on the floor and they're all fucking great, I think he has Beefheart, van Dyke Parks, Gil Scott Heron, lots of stuff.

There is no substance to this label (but then again that applies to a lot of labels).

There isn't much substance to the music either.

I can't stand these historically revisionist inaccuracies! We ALL had capes, but they were strictly for religious ceremonies.

what about henry cow? area? 'lark's tongues in aspic'?

I go on the internet a few days later, and apparantly they have SURPASSED rock. Wow.

Postrock. A relatively new genre which continues to evolve in scope and definition, postrock is a treat to the ears. With bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Rós, Do Make Say Think, and Mogwai at the helm, it has slowly grown in recognition through movie soundtracks. Yes, there's quite a plethora of postrock bands, but is anything necessarily revolutionary, or just a rehash of past ideas brought into contemporary context?

Is this true? ''Very few things are easier to play than adequate post-rock, which is why so damn many bands do it.''

I wouldn't apply it to that album, which I've enjoyed a lot, but it's certainly easy enough to make a tongue-in-cheek post-rock bingo checklist and see it all played out to cringeworthy effect in any number of sub-par uninspiring instrumental bands.

I would say that statement is pretty true, you do need to attain a certain level of proficiency at your instrument, however once you have, there are a whole mess of songwriting & structural issues that you can completely ignore if you wish.

Play a lot of really vague, noodling open string interweaving guitar with practically no harmonic movement, add occasional noisy guitar effects and some laptop glitch/circuit bent toys for a bit of that modern flavour. If the drummers girlfriend plays violin or cello even better.

Thinking about it Drone music is maybe more applicable to that statement, trouble is both genres are easy and enjoyable to play, hence the surfeit of draggy-arsed post-rock and drone.

fearless
THE MAKING OF POST-ROCK
JEANETTE LEECH

The definitive guide to some of the most groundbreaking music of recent decades, from Talk Talk to Slint to Godspeed You Black Emperor.
Cover designed by Graham Sutton of Bark Psychosis.

Published June 6th 2017

‘The best thing about the so-called post-rock thing was it had this brief moment where the concept of it was to make music that came from the indie scene but had no limitations.’ KIERAN HEBDEN, FRIDGE/FOUR TET

‘There was no earthly reason, no logical reason, no pragmatic reason, to function the way that most bands functioned.’ EFRIM MENUCK, GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR

‘The main reason we were coming together to try these songs was as an alternative flavour to being in a rock band. Not to replace that experience, but in addition to it.’ RACHEL GRIMES, RACHEL’S

‘We were young and naïve.’ STUART BRAITHWAITE, MOGWAI

‘When you don’t know anything, you’re much more fearless about it.’ GRAHAM SUTTON, BARK PSYCHOSIS

In 1994, the music critic Simon Reynolds coined a new term: post-rock. It was an attempt to give a narrative to music that used the tools of rock but did something utterly different with it, broadening its scope by fusing elements of punk, dub, electronic music, minimalism, and more into something wholly new.

Post-rock is an anti-genre, impossible to fence in. Elevating texture over riff and ambiance over traditional rock hierarchies, its exponents used ideas of space and deconstruction to create music of enormous power. From Slint to Talk Talk, Bark Psychosis to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Tortoise to Fridge, Mogwai to Sigur Rós, the pioneers of post-rock are unified by an open-minded ambition that has proven hugely influential on everything from mainstream rock records to Hollywood soundtracks and beyond.

Drawing on dozens of new interviews and packed full of stories never before told, fearless explores how the strands of post-rock entwined, frayed, and created one of the most diverse bodies of music ever to huddle under one name.

Published June 6th 2017 • 392pp paperback, with dozens of rare images

Jeanette Leech is a writer, researcher, DJ, and music historian who contributes regularly to magazines including fRoots and Shindig!. She also writes extensively in the health and social care fields. Her first book about music, Seasons They Change, a history of acid folk, was widely praised as ‘an engaging celebration of music from the fringes.’ She lives in Canterbury, England.

I'll definitely pick that one up. Curious where she ends, on what subset of bands.

seasons they change is dope

And here's an excerpt from the book. Great read

http://thequietus.com/articles/22977-post-rock-fearless-tortoise-bastro-gastr-del-sol-book-review

Funny how TNT was perceived - also by McEntire - as a 'difficult' album to get into. It had an immediate 'swing' to it, sounding way more organic than anything they ever did.

The excerpt certainly selling the book, can't wait to read it.

Which is crazy considering they recorded it one part at a time (was reminded of this in McEntire's Trap Set interview recently).

By the artists quoted/cited in that books' promo blurb above and this thread generally, "post-rock" houses some of the few "rock" acts from the 90s I still really like (Tortoise, Stereolab, Rachel's, Talk Talk, Slint, that Louisville/Chicago spectrum generally) and the stuff I still viscerally feel annoyed at ever having to hear back then (Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Sigur Ros).

I wonder if the divide is between people who listened broadly to music, and then made music informed by eclectic tastes; vs. those who thought they were "post" everything without ever listening to almost anything, such that they just made boring epic rehashes of Universe Zero and Crispy Ambulance and Savage Republic kind of stuff and thought they'd reinvented rock music because they didn't have a singer?

Is Storm Static Sleep by Jack Schuter any good? Anybody read it?

McEntire is such a douche and Doug is so cool

Reading Fearless now, unexpected appearance of The Police in the first chapter

Funny how TNT was perceived - also by McEntire - as a 'difficult' album to get into. It had an immediate 'swing' to it, sounding way more organic than anything they ever did.

The excerpt certainly selling the book, can't wait to read it.

― Le Bateau Ivre, Tuesday, August 8, 2017 1:46 PM (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That is weird. I remember friends trying to sell me on Tortoise and I just didn't really *get it* until TNT. Then I went back and listened to the first two records and they made sense to me.

Very much enjoying this, am gathering vast playlist of stuff to listen to as I go

q: what do you call a group of post-rock lawyers?

a: the torteoisie

i'm here all week, folks

In the words of James Murphy I was there, so curious what I might get out of a book like this. At the time, I just thought a lot of the groups were kind of proggy and really into Morricone, which was fine with me. I really wished Tortoise, full of jazzbos with good chops, improvised more. But Gastr, I thought what they were up to was totally different. Same, obviously, with bands like Sea and Cake. It's kind of like the CBGB scene, when every band was branded Punk but no two bands sounded remotely similar.

That Jack Schuter book Storm Static Sleep is an earlier book on the history of post-rock that I've had turn up on Amazon recommend searches several times.
I think it's been out for a few years so I thought at least somebody on a post-rock thread might have come across it.
I don't think there are an abundance of books on the subject.
So has anybody here actually read it?

Yes, I read it and I wasn't terribly keen, it felt a little slight although that could just be the spread of bands he chose to write about.

I read it but can't remember anything about it. On that basis I'd hazard a guess it's not essential.

I can't see Savage Republic mentioned in the Fearless index. I thought they were an influence mentioned by several of the bands crucial to post-rock.

Does Leech mention any connection between Rhys Chatham and Nina canal at all. I remember hearing they were married at one point, but can't find confirmation. been wondering if taht was a relationship or marriage of convenience since she was a Brit living in NYC.
She was also in the band the Gynecologists with him and tehre seems to be quite a lot of space given to Ut.

BTW thinking of Ut I really like Sally Young's later band Quint who do a proggy folky thing on their 1 lp Time Wounds All Heals.

fearless is a really great book. though I still think there is a complete division between the US stuff and the UK originated stuff to the point where I don't really think they are they same gentre; but I'm happy to read about all of these bands together I guess.

I still think there is a complete division between the US stuff and the UK originated stuff to the point where I don't really think they are they same gentre

yes to this, but without slint + gybe it would be hard to connect first wave uk stuff to the quiet/loud boreathons of latter day uk + global post rock

fearless is a really great book. though I still think there is a complete division between the US stuff and the UK originated stuff to the point where I don't really think they are they same gentre; but I'm happy to read about all of these bands together I guess.

― akm, Friday, August 25, 2017 9:41 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i sort of agree with this, other than the fact that mogwai - the biggest uk post-rock group? - are hugely influenced by slint (later stuff not so much)

actually i was thinking that this would make a pretty good audio companion to the book and i guess the mix of uk and us wasn't especially jarring to me at the time:

https://image.ibb.co/iTVRrk/moon_men.jpg

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Monsters-Robots-Bug-Men-A-Users-Guide-To-The-Rock-Hinterland/release/178563

I thought there wasa lot of interplay between bands across the Atlantic anyway. Not sure if results would be immediately recognisable but know taht a band like Bark Psychosis was heavily indebted to the Swans dynamics and both Graham Sutton and John ling hitched following Dinosaur Jr around in '89.

I know taht NYC nouise thing as well as bands like the Butthole Surfers were very popular among bands that went onto be significant in Post-Rock. Also Slint of course.
Trying to think what fed back across the opposite direction.

Not got very far into the book, just reading about MBV being a jangle pop band which wasn't the way I remembered seeing them when i did before they became ghuge. I was thinking more noisey garagey stuff verging on psychobilly back in 1986. So was janglepop a transitive stage or was it a longer term thing somehwere between there and '88. Just trying to think when I followed teh first Silverfish tour which was as support for them and by which time i was thinking much more Sonic Youth.
I keep coming across things in the book that I disagree with and clunky sentences. So I think she's not going to be one of my prefered writers. I found Seasons They Change far too listy too.

Has Leech effectively excised all the bands who had ties in with the garage/psychobilly scene's pasts? I haven't seen any reference to the Wolfhounds or the early pre Debbie Googe days of MBV. Would have tghought it might be something taht she might at least refer to possibly as the primitive rock they were supposed to be post i.e. as a major contrast.

Did I hear that MBV actually first formed as ex-pat Irish in Berlin and already had some influence from Einsturzende Neubauten etc from formation or was that a revisionist history at the time.

Here to muddy the water further re: "what is post-rock?" how about post-rock 1979-1989:

'Post-Rock 1979-1989': https://t.co/XCJUpvI8J9

Post-rock as a continuum of exploration...

w/ Gigi Masin, Laughing Hands, Massacre, Michael Brook, @_thisheat_ Hraold Budd, Material, Spacemen 3, Dif Juz, Dome, The Cure, MBV, Glenn Branca, @DuruttiColumn Colin Newman, Talk Talk pic.twitter.com/zT2nMSNzHE

— Musicophilia (@musicophiliamix) January 19, 2021

it's when you play the guitar and post to ILX at the same time

Soundslike, this mix is wonderful! Thank you.

Thank you, glad you're enjoying it!

I'd missed this until now: Bundy K Brown's band Directions (In Music, sometimes) released a single in 1997 that seems to have vanished out of sight. It was re-released last year and a couple of the remixes are wonderful. This could be on Underworld's Drift series or the Alabaster DePlume record we all lost our minds over during the first lockdown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUCO5J5E0QA