Math Rock

I think Slint is mathy enough to be mentioned here.

i seem to have forgotten about the ILx0r "contentless list" disorder afflicting many...

1) Primarily instrumental, and if there are vocals they are typically of the sing-speak-then-shouting variety.

2) Guitars are typically clean. Distortion is rarely employed. Reverb never is.

3) Bass parts carry the melody in most cases, leaving the guitars to do little wanky bits here and there, or to drone away on open chords. Also, bass parts can sometimes be heavily dub influenced (thinking June of 44 here).

4) Lyrical content (if there is any) must be completely oblique. The illusion of a storyline is a good technique (ahem... Spiderland).

5) Song titles should be long and even more oblique. '80s jokes always work.

6) Technical prowess is important, primarily from your guitarist. Sense the music is amazingly unfunky, the rhythm section is of lesser importance than guitar ability. There are exceptions to this, like: Don Caballero and A Minor Forest.

7) Long songs are not uncommon.

8) As far as the importance of theory and all of that, I say bullshit. Lots of math-rock sounds heavily Krautrock influenced to me, so I think it's just looking at music as something clinical. There isn't much feeling in math rock, and when it does arise I see at as being primarily inferred from the listener.

9) For some reason, the vast majority of math rock bands come from the Midwest.

That's what I can come up with off the top of my head.

it's post-rock on speed

Don Cab and Hella are very math rock

math rock = prog rock from a fan zine writer's perspective... what "the kids" called prog because they didn't know what prog was.

weird time signatures. weird tunings. complicated structures. raising the technical bar of indie rock and pop. not to say that all off kilter indie rock is prog tho... i mean, folks say drive by jehu was math rock... and i don't think dbj was prog.

i've frequently read it as a put down... but honestly, most of the bands that i think are worth listening to in the underground realm have elements of math in them.

ultimately, i think it's better used as a descriptor than a genre. better to say, hell yeah, sweep the leg johnny is quite mathy and intense than pigeon hole it soley as math rock.

m.

I agree with msp that it's more of a descriptor than a genre. But there are bands that can be classified as math-rock.

what made pitchblende a mathrock, or a "mathrock" band? what elements of their sound set them apart from other bands to validate their distinction of being mathrock?

For example.. Thinking Fellers Union Local 282. Complex time signatures, sure.. but I get a lot more out of their music than that, so I wouldn't think math rock band. Don Caballero, Turing Machine, etc. sound like they write songs mainly making sure they get a quota of time signature complexities in their song, hence they're more math rock to me.

Now to others, maybe the Fellers sound more mathy than Don Cab. It's subjective. That's my (subjective) take on this.

To that end, i submit Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects' Sol Niger Within Version 3.33. It's nothing less than a calusly clarified cacophony of combined calculus compendiums. ¥

Not especially..

if DLJ are math rock i want nothing to do with them, and that would make me sad.

DC are prog-rock dammit!

it's quite a sad thought, seeing as they were soooo much more than that

but listening to some of their tracks, you can see how current mathrock bands ape stylistic traits from them and come off very mathy

Laddio Bolocko fits into this perfectly. but i'd like to think that they aren't math rock either

ya i guess sometimes the label can be a lil derogatory.

DLJ is NOT mathrock (too distorted, too few tempo changes, too "stoopid" at times [the surf-inflected parts]) but IS prog (the guitar parts are certainly too intricate to ignore the comparison.)

i like my rock pretty much how i like the rest of my music: at its least blues based (although certainly not un"funky"), most motorik, and with a lack of attention brought to "playing" (studio play is sort of a grey area given my love for post-eno/anti-carducci pop).

Math rock, pejoratively, means nothing.

i don't see the kraut influence AT ALL

I don't see it in a musical technique type way, for the most part, but I see it in the approach. Making music that is, as I said before, clinical. Of course there's emotion in Kraftwerk/Neu!/Faust/Can, but it sometimes seems as if it's accidental. This cannot be backed up subjectively, at least not without listening to it closely (I have some Neu! with me at work today, maybe I'll examine this).

And This Heat -- I heard This Heat for the very first time a month ago (I bought the Peel Sessions) and the first words that came out of my mouth midway through the first cut: "So this is where Don Cab comes from."

Ouch, thanks pal. Hey, she's got a job. Then again, so do I. And so do you.

Don Cab sounds like This Heat? Uh, not any This Heat I've ever heard (and I've had their records for a long time). The first Don Cab album sounds like Bitch Magnet without vocals (how come they haven't been mentioned yet? Or Breadwinner?).

(all that said: i still kinda like that last song on the june of 44 album with the green cover in a triphop/narco-muzak kinda way.)

i think i can see what you mean by "clinical", although i don't agree with it. (i remember reading an interview with steven stapleton from nurse with would where he described kraut as "cold" and "clinical"...and all i could think was "yeah, maybe some obscure synth trio from cologne, but who can't hear the emotion and warmth in future days, or "jennifer", or "leb wohl"??" i guess it has a lot to do with what you were talking about above: what the listener brings to it.)

True, but esp. as they had a singer, wrote more in the trad. song role. I mean, if you're gonna include them (for argument's sake of course, I don't think it's a genre), you'd have to include MX-80 Sound, which sounds similar, but predates a lot of this stuff.

jess: I absolutely feel the warmth in all those songs that you mention. "Jennifer," "Swan Song" and "Neon Lights" in particular, for me. I'm not arguing that krautrock is devoid of emotion, I just don't think evoking emotions was the main intent (but is it ever?).

WARNING: NERDY/GEEKY almost to the point of that embarrassing Superchunk "Laughter Guns" Analysis

i always attributed harder, more metallic indie-rock with varying time signatures as math-rock. "nosferatu man" by slint is very math-y to me because it starts in 5/4 and britt walford adds drama to this odd time sig. by coming in right behind the beat, almost stalling in places on his high hat before he "exhales" into the next bar.

"rome plows" by drive like jehu is like the ultimate time sig. exercize (at least to my ears)... alternating between 5/4 and 10/8 (this is quite contrary to something jess said earlier) but the kicker is the rhythm section (exhibit #1 why DLJ>>>>>>Hot Snakes) does not even blink nor budge... mabye because the rhythm is much simpler than what i'm hearing but it is a very unusual tempo and structure to write a song around (i'm always asking myself how they come up with foundations for these songs). Both of the Yank Crime "epics" are in 3/4. "New Math" takes "New Intro"'s 6/8 and speeds it up to adds that really stuttering section for the intro and chorus.

anyways, i was listening to Isn't Anything this morning and the song that I think is called "(when you wake) you're still in a dream" and i thought that it was similar to "nosferatu man" and "rome plows" not in SOUND and EFFECTS but more in STRUCTURE and was wondering what the roots were in this type of songwriting... obv. Dave Brubeck did that whole album back in the 50s of odd time sigs. but i was thinking of a touchstone more in the und. rock spectrum.

Yeah yeah, DAF would later invent EBM/industrial dance years later, or at least give something for Nitzer Ebb to chew on and regurgitate, blah blah... but that first record is a weird sketch book of scraping proto-Albini jamming that foreshadows so much of that whole "math rock" scene.

As far as krautrock being cold and clinical.. um, yeah, there definitely are examples... A few Neu! tracks come to mind, as well as Einsturzende, and the aforementioned DAF. Though for some reason, these bands often don't get mentioned as krautrock, strangely. At the very least, there's a very direct connection (one of which is a man named Connie Plank, in DAF's case)

Just playing Jess's devil's bitch. I still stick to my general "If your only goal is to make your listeners count, you're math rock" stance.

(that is to say, no i don't... should i?)

i would think that math indicates planning, not freeness....

nothing like math club competitions tho... math on the go!

m!

''Actually, there is one record I can think of that bridges krautrock and "math rock"... Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft's "Ein Produkt Der Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft".. (or DAF's "Ein Produkt" alternately).''

Interesting connection as i love that record except DAF weren't krautrock: more like german post-punk (though yes, krautrock was an ''influence'' (sorry mark but I'm too tired right now) on post punk, its all in that 'neither here nor there' mode of guitar playing that Biba kopf describes in the liner notes).

honourable mention: rockets red glare

the fucking champs (math metal)
heavy vegetable/thingy (math pop)

I like that, my response exactly. That Yancey guy makes me grit my teeth, hes talking arse. Odd time sigs AND odd verse lengths have been rare in most Western music for too long; its an artificial, narrowing of creativity. Using 4/4 and 3/4 exclusively is like only knowing how to paint in blue or occasionally orange.

I dont like this categorising by style that yancey is attempting. We dont need another 15 Don Cabelleros (unless theyre all going to be as good - unlikely).
Trouble with calling it 'math rock' is that it focuses on the paint too much and not on joyous results.
I've got a slot on ResonanceFM tomorrow (9.30 - 10.30) called the Other Rock Show where you dont get played if you stick with the orange and blue. Thinking Plague, Mr Bungle, Lozenge, Fantomas, that sort of stuff. Nice to just let the music speak for itself than be forced to use pigeonholes to spread it around.

If you like Voivod, UK band Sikth are the closest I've heard to nothingface era twistyness. More so than DEP.

Odd time sigs AND odd verse lengths have been rare in most Western music for too long; its an artificial, narrowing of creativity. Using 4/4 and 3/4 exclusively is like only knowing how to paint in blue or occasionally orange.

What does that have to do with me "talking arse?"

and as for math/krautrock, personally I don't like to think calling something "math rock" signifies a vague limitation in scope, but ultimately - unlike krautrock or prog - it *does* pretty much all sound the same (like most other indie sub-genres!). context defining the band's sound, not vice versa. example: compare can & faust's output ca. 1971-73

Sweep the Leg Johnny
Don Cab
Rumah Sakit
Breadwinner
Faraquet
Hella

Yes, I know--this isn't what's meant by math rock. But I heard a (probably ubiquitous--I don't keep up with hit radio much anymore) dance/hip-hoppy thing in the car tonight, and the singer said the square root of 69 was "eight-something." I think that's the first time I've ever heard the square-root function mentioned in a pop song. Totally stumped, of course, as to why he went with 69 rather than the perfect square, 64.

Schoolhouse Rocks to post.

Totally stumped, of course, as to why he went with 69 rather than the perfect square, 64.

This line is a joke, right?

Yes. More like the square root of a joke--not all that good.

Anybody know the name of the song? I'd like to hear the line again.

Rihanna & drake "what's my name?" I cant figure out if Drake thinks he's being clever with that line or if he thinks he's being sensual or what. I really like the song, but I hate his verse, and especially that line.

I mean, he's basically making a horrible third-grader joke about the 69 position and "eating". Hence "ate (8) something".

He should have said, "I'm like 8.3, cause I'm just a square who roots for a 69"

my little sister mentioned that line the other day. she said it was stupid

it is called #HashtagRap you n00bz. there is a 50,000 post thread about this particular style of punning if you so desire:
most pathetic excuse for wordplay in Young Money's "Bedrock"

In non oral sex related news:

Dark Forces Swing Blind Punches: Math? Rock!: A DFSBP mixtape

With accompanying essay and descriptions.

Did anyone get the Loincloth album?

Don't think Breadwinner guy is in them anymore though.

is math rock just joe satriani for the post-2000s?

Rights - Schnellertollermeier

I don't like much rock music, but this is excellent!