Now Boarding

If boarding the subway is an apt analogy for my introduction to post-rock, I'm likely standing up. As with many things in which I claim to have serious interest, I can't claim to be a trailblazer. My introduction to post-rock was hap and circumstance.

Oddly, seated on board a train in the Irish countryside somewhere between Dublin and Cork, I found Tortoise while sifting through my father's iPod. This was not the first time that I recognized from amongst my dad's heterogeneous music collection a band that had been previously recommended to me. It was then that I first heard It's All Around You. I have since come to acquire, in addition to It's All Around You, TNT, A Lazarus Taxon, and A Brave New World.

Having been asked recently to burn some music for a buddy, and subsequently having done some considerable brain-storming, it has come to my attention that a lot of people have no idea what kind of music "post-rock" may allude to. Whether or not it is an appropriate name for the vast expanse of music it supposedly denotes, I feel compelled to discuss.

The common threads of post-rock, as I see them, are the absence of lyrics, or at least a lesser role, an added emphasis on texture, and the presence of some element traditionally associated with rock and roll. To a certain degree, dubbing the aforementioned vagaries "post-rock" is the easy way out. On the other hand, it does successfully provide a sense of expectation by utilizing a universally recognizable genre to describe the way this music transcends it.

Musically, this can vary. Almost jazz, with a band like Tortoise on an album like TNT, to almost metal, for a band like Pelican on an album like City of Echoes. Somewhere in between you'll find bands like Do Make Say Think, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and Explosions in the Sky, though, to clump these bands together is a crass oversimplification. In some instances, post-rock is jazz light (I mean not to be pejorative) in terms of how demanding the music is to play and listen to. This is, of course, an unfair generalization, however, because it presupposes an absence of demanding passages, for which contradictions are plentiful. Moreover, it eschews varied approaches and intentions, as if music were merely fodder for overzealous bloggers.

If you enjoy the elements of music that are found between the lines; those that do not enact repetition, utilize traditional song structures, and have the patience and inclination, "post-rock" might be something you want to look into.

Tortoise- "Salt the Skies"

Tortoise- "Seneca"

Sigur Ros- "Svefn g englar"

Sigur Ros - "Glosoli"

Explosions in the Sky- "First Breath After Coma"