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Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there One way to describe something that we've moved beyond is to affix the word post to it. If, for example, we want to talk about the era following the fall of the Soviet Union, that would be post Cold War. If we're studying everything that came after the cultural, political, and psychological vestiges of when countries like Britain and France conquered foreign lands, that's post colonialism. There's a certain section of the art world that's called postmodern. This not only applies to painting and other visual arts and literature, but also disciplines like architecture. Frank Gehry was a postmodernist architect. We also talk about post industrial societies, post feminism, post gender, and even post Internet. And then we get to music. There's a lot of post stuff out there. Post punk is the most common term that's easy to figure out. It's all the music that the punk explosion encouraged to happen after 1977 or 78 or so. Post hardcore is hardcore punk, but with more emphasis on melody and experimentation with song structure. Post disco, obviously dance music born out of the disco boom of the late 70s. And then we have post rock. Oh dear, this is a tough one. This term implies that there is already something that comes after rock, but rock is still very much with us. So what's so post about it? This requires a substantial amount of deconstruction, and this is part two of our attempt to define post rock. So prepare to hear the future again. This is the ongoing History of New Music podcast with Alan Cross. Welcome again. I'm Alan Cross. And let's keep at this task of trying to figure out what post rock is. Are we talking about a genre? Are we talking about an aesthetic? Is it a sound or an attitude? Or is it just some box where we store rockish music that doesn't fit in any other box? Here's where we left things on Part one. Post rock is still very much rock, but it's different enough to make it stand outside what we would consider normal rock. All right, so what's normal rock? Well, for our purposes it can be basically anything you want. I read this somewhere. Post rock is the answer to the question, what happens if rock instruments stop behaving like rock instruments? If we look at post rock through that lens, it's not a genre or a sound. It's more like a philosophy. The Velvet Underground was probably the first post rock band for reasons we discussed on part one. Then we traced this attitude towards experimentation through things like kraut rock, David Bowie, Public Image Ltd. And the no Waves scene in New York. There were some left left, left of center bands during the first decade of MTV in the music video era, and Talk Talk was one of those. And then we eventually got to the 1990s when the alt rock explosion created subgenre after subgenre and many of which were on the experimental side. And because grunge and everything else that went along with it opened people's ears to new ideas. We got bands like Stereolab and Tortoise and the Wild. Godspeed you Black Emperor, the Montreal collective that went a long way towards defining what we're talking about here. So now we're in the 90s and it's still mostly a pre Internet world, although we were online by then, just not to the extent that we'd be over the next three to five years. And by the end of the decade we encounter a couple of very important bands. Canada's Godspeed you Black Emperor kept doing whatever they were doing. And from Louisville, Kentucky we got a group called Slint. Slint was formed in 1986 and over eight years laid some of the key foundations of the whole post rock approach to sound making in this world. Slint is legendary. In fact, when Billy Corgan broke up the Smashing Pumpkins, he. He recruited Slint guitarist David Paello for this short lived band called Zwan. And I had a chance to talk to Billy about Slint and he gushed about them for almost 15 minutes. I'm paraphrasing here, but one of the things he said was being in a band with a member of Slynt was a dream come true. Payo has also had gigs with Stereolab, Interpol, the Breeders and Gang of Four. There were only two Slint albums, but the one that every post rock fan talks about is Spiderland, which was released in 1991 and it found an audience even though the band had broken up by the time it came out from that album. This is Slint and a track called Good Morning Captain. Slinter, one of Billy Corgan's all time favorite bands. And did you pick up on the pumpkin esque sounds in that song? Now we head to Scotland for Mogwai. They were formed in Glasgow in 1995 and their thing has always been mostly long form instrumental pieces based around fuzzy guitars, melodic bass lines and plenty of dynamic contrast in their material. And yes, the band's name does come from the movie Gremlins. The guys in Mogwai are highly influenced by post punk bands like Joy Division, Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine. They also like to cop ideas from Fugazi and Kraftwerk and Nirvana and electronic outfits like the Orb and the Aphex Twin. Again, most of their stuff is instrumental. Leader Stuart Braithwaite once said this. I think most people are not used to having no lyrics to focus on. Lyrics are a real comfort to some people. I guess they like to sing along and when they can't do that with us, they get a bit upset. Judging by streaming numbers, this is the most popular song from Mogwai. It's from their 2001 album Rock Action and it's called Take Me Somewhere Nice. This one does have lyrics, but they're so subdued you barely notice. Mogwai and Take Me Somewhere Nice from 2001. The band is still together, still releasing albums, and are still very much postmodern in post rock. Then we have Sigurus. They're from Iceland and they were born in 1994 and the word that goes best with them is ethereal. There are lyrics, sort of, but they're a mixture of Icelandic and some random meaningless vocalizations the band calls Volenska, which roughly translates into English as Hopelandic they call it, and this is a quote, a form of gibberish vocals that fits to the music and you'll see what I mean in just a minute. Siguros, which means victory Rose by the way, comes from the tradition of groups into shoegaze such as My Bloody Valentine and Ride Dream Pop. The Cocteau Twins are very important here, along with the Verve and anything Radiohead did with OK Computer and Beyond. Their first album was entitled Vaughn and came out in 1996, but it was their second album in 1999 that blew up so big that they were profiled in a long story in the New York Times Magazine. I've had more than a quarter of a century to learn how to pronounce the title of this particular track, and I'll try it again. It's I think it's E. Getis Buren. There are 10 songs, all of which are very lovely, very soothing. It's been described as cosmic and gentle. Pink Floyd, which I like. My favorite track from the album is a song that translates as Sleepwalking Angels, but is actually derived from a pun that only people from Iceland will understand. This is called and Here We Go again. I'm trying to get it right. Sven Ben Genglar it runs over 10 minutes on the album and over nine minutes is a single. Hell of an edit that but this excerpt will give you an idea of what Sigurus is all about. Sigurus from 1999 with Sven Benglar I think their stuff has drifted through some very strange areas of popular culture. One of their songs was even used in an episode of the Simpsons. An interesting spot for post rock. Our last turn of the millennium post rock band comes from Texas. They're called Explosions in the sky, and they've toured with Nine Inch Nails, Fugazi, and here's that name again. Godspeed, you Black emperor. There are four members who first got together in 1999. Three guitars and drums, but bass and keyboards creep in from time to time. Everything is instrumental with lots of dynamics. They are masters of the crescendo, yet they don't forget to include hooks. At last count, there are eight albums, but you may know them from the music from the 2004 film Friday Night Lights, along with a bunch of other movies. They've also contributed music to some BBC programs, a series of documentaries, TV shows like csi, and video games such as Street Fighter and Major League Baseball 2K12. The biggest album I'd probably have to go with the Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place from 2003. They say it's a concept album featuring love songs, but I'll let you be the judge. This is called you'd Hand in Mind, which incidentally was used by Senator Ted Cruz in his 2016 presidential run, something that greatly annoyed the band. Because they don't like Ted, that campaign video had to be removed. One more thing about Explosions in the Sky. They were caught in a 911 conspiracy. On September 4, 2001, they released an album entitled those who Tell the Truth Shall Die. Those who tell the Truth Will live forever. The liner notes featured a picture of an airplane with this plane will crash tomorrow. And it was an idea that they'd been kicking around for about a year. After 9 11, rumors spread that the album was released on September 10th. So this plane will crash tomorrow. There were also rumors that they'd written a song called this Plane Will Crash Tomorrow. Not true. But that didn't stop bass player Michael James from being stopped by airport security when they discovered one of his guitars was inscribed with this plane will crash tomorrow. Fun times with the tsa. More to come as we continue with this quest to define post rock. New CBS Sunday the Grammys baby. History will be made live. Unfiltered, unexpected. Bigger than ever. Bigger stars, bigger performances. Music's biggest night is getting bigger. Now you see what all the hype is about. Trevor Noah hosts the Grammy Awards live. Anything is possible. CBS Sunday and streaming on Paramount plus Ever feel like your brain just won't click? Onnit Alpha Brain is a daily supplement engineered to support memory, focus and mental speed. Made with science backed ingredients, Onnit Alpha Brain helps you lock in, tune out distractions and stay sharp. See what your brain can really do. Visit onnit.com and shop Alpha Brain to unlock your next level. That's o n n I-t.com we're trying to get a handle on the concept of post rock to review it's rock music that focuses on experimentation, unusual uses of traditional rock instruments, a focus on texture and atmospherics, lots of dynamic range, attention to repetition of musical motifs, and often but not always completely instrumental and very cinematic in scope and nature and I find this very interesting. Post rock is very regional in its approach. Bands from the UK tend to be rather spacey while at the same time exhibiting some restraint in their music making. Montreal Post Rock and to a certain extent Chicago and is more political and intellectual. And Texas post rock bands are among the most cinematic. We can also look to Japanese post rock. That scene is largely about precision. A good example would be Mono, a Tokyo group formed in 1999. Lots of instrumental soundscapes in their catalog, which consists of about a dozen albums. They're heavy on emotional impact and some people even consider them to be a modern classical band. So am I saying a classical band influenced by Sonic Youth and my buddy Valentine? That's absolutely what I'm saying. The best way to illustrate this is to have a listen. This is from a 2009 album entitled Hymn to the Immortal Wind which is a big fan favorite and recorded by the legendary Steve Albini, who did all those albums with Nirvana and the Pixies and the Breeders and Bush and here we go again. Godspeed, you black emperor. This is called Follow the Map, Tokyo's very restrained post rock heroes mono with Follow the map from 2009, the last big scene I want to mention is Scandinavia. We've already looked at Sigurus, who are from Iceland, but I'm going to put them into a category unto themselves. If you have to summarize the rest of Scandinavian rock, I'd have to say it's quite melancholy, but with an eye to beauty. And to illustrate that, let's look at Cult of Luna. They came together in Umea, which is a city in northeast Sweden. It's at almost 64 degrees north, so the winters are long and dark, which may be a contributing factor to this music. At least that's what I take away from this 2022 album entitled the Long Way North. And the song is into the. Sweden's Cult of Luna with into the night from 2022. Here's another thing that we can say about post rock. Beyond it being more of a musical philosophy than a sound, it's also a network. This music travels by word of mouth. It travels by touring, and sites like Bandcamp and YouTube and Discord all play a big part. By now you may have realized that this post rock approach has bled into other areas of rock. It does lend itself to much hybridization because it's largely instrumental, free of language barriers. It is also a global thing. Beyond the us, Canada, the uk, Japan and Scandinavia. There's post rock from Eastern Europe, China, Latin America, Israel and many other countries. If you've liked what you've heard so far, then you have a very deep rabbit hole to explore. Up next, though, we're going to look at some of that hybridization, how post rock has figured into the evolution of more traditional rock. Hang tight, Amadeus. Yeah, that Amadeus shows up in Vienna at 25. He's jobless, totally free from his dad and ready to make some noise. He finds love in an amazing partner, Constanze Weber, and suddenly he's dropping beats that nobody can ignore. Salieri was convinced that Amadeus was God's chosen one, so he had to be silenced. Tune in to the story of history's most infamous musical rivalry, Amadeus. All new Mondays on Showcase Stream on STACK TV. New year, same extra value meals at McDonald's. So now get two snack wraps plus fries and a medium soft drink for just $8 for a limited time only. Prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher in Hawaii, Alaska and California. And for delivery Good morning Crust. It's a great day to be a bread brother. Ugh. Mornings are not my jam or jelly. Oh come on, stop loafing around. I just woke up feeling hollow inside. Just grab one of the new Morning Uncrustable sandwiches like Bright Eyed Berry or Up an apple filled with 12 grams of protein and tons of deliciousness crust. What are you eating? It's just granola. Not even yogurt. No crust, no fuss. Uncrust your mornings. If you are in a noisy guitar band it is really easy to become besotted with post rock. These groups experiment. That experimentation allows everyone else to pick up the ball and run with the best bits. Let's talk about that for a while first, by diving a little bit deeper. Again, when it comes to post rock, we're looking at using traditional rock instruments, guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, and all the requisite outboard gear like amps and pedals. And what we're doing is producing non rock outcomes. That means compositions without the usual verse, chorus, verse structure, and more atmospherics and more experimentation and more of a cinematic approach to audio. We've heard plenty of examples of that over the last two episodes. Long tracks that slowly and leisurely evolve with plenty of dynamics ranging from whisper quiet to overwhelming loudness. Many pieces are wrapped in a sort of oral narrative that can be best described as an emotional arc. Riffs? No, it's more about texture. Lyrics Nice but not necessary. Much of the time the focus is on the instrumentation, and the goal is to take the listener on a wordless or nearly wordless musical trip. We heard how Slynt influenced the Smashing Pumpkins, and that influence is pretty obvious when you play songs from both bands back to back. Shoegaze bands have played with post rock. Both are immersive sound experiences. You get lost in the effects and the distortion. But some post rock is clean and clear. Personally, I put a band like Alt J somewhere in the post rock universe. Slowdive Definitely Shoegaze, but their later stuff was also very post rock. Shoegaze has more melody, but it's often buried deep in the mix. Math rock can overlap with post rock. This is music that's very challenging to play because it's so complicated and precise. It requires a lot of precision. A big difference is that math rock loves weird time signatures. Post rock tends to prefer smooth beats, almost always 4 4, but 68 comes up once in a while. There's a lot of tension in Math rock songs, much of which comes from the angular nature and the physicality of the playing. Math rock is about building complicated structures. Post rock is about long flowing fields. What about ambient music? It's all about creating a musical environment that bathes you in sound. But ambient music drifts. There's almost no climax or defined end. Post rock takes you on a journey with a destination. We can also look at post metal. This is heavy, crushing, slow, doom laden stuff that comes with a feeling of dread. There's post rock like that, but post metal gets us back into riffs as a central part of the song structure. So after all that, we're kind of now in a position to hear the post rock ness. In Toronto's Broken Social Scene. They produced material that was complex, with interesting textures, but a little softer around the edges. I think we can also say that BSS played with more swing than traditional post rock groups, and they had more of a sense of humor and joy, in my opinion, anyway. Yes, they are primarily categorized as indie rock, but I might even classify some of their material as post indie rock. This is from 2005, in their third album, which is simply called Broken Social Scene. It's 74 Shoreline, The globally famous Toronto collective Broken Social Scene. Maybe not pure post rock, but definitely post rock adjacent, if that makes any sense. If I had to point to the biggest post rock band, I'm going to have to go with Radiohead. They are a rock band, but they are also so much more. The band that released Creep in 1993 no longer exists. Since OK Computer, they have constantly evolved away from most traditional rock. There are lyrics most of the time, but not always. And if I were to point to a great Radiohead post rock album, I would go with Kid A from the fall of 2000. This was the follow up to OK computer, and in the years between those albums and fans and critics were crawling all over themselves to predict what Radiohead might do next. And when the first single was released, it surprised pretty much everyone. Here's everything in its right place. It's rock, yeah, but something more atmospheric, cinematic, a sonic journey. It's post rock. Radiohead. So where have we landed with this tricky assignment of defining post rock? I think I did the best I could while staying away from the weeds, which when it comes to post rock bands are very, very thick. One thing for sure is that it's not a scene or a sound. Like I said earlier, it's an attitude, an aesthetic, a distinct musical philosophy, and how those things manifest themselves differ from band to band. Some are more cinematic, some have jazz elements, we have the kraut rock followers and then there are a few who at first listen are almost indistinguishable from metal or modern prog rock or electronica. One thing is for sure though, post rock shows no sign of abating. There are always areas and sounds to explore and some of those experiments will continue to trickle down to the rest of the rock world. I know we went way out on the fringes for these shows on post rock, but even if you've been curious about that label and love discovering what rock can be beyond your basic three chords and the truth, I hope this has been of help. If you want to go deeper, look into bands like Talk Talk, Slint, Bark, Psychosis, Tortoise, Mogwai, Stereolab, Godspeed you Black Emperor. We always keep coming back to them. Sigurus Explosions in the Sky, Mono this will destroy you, God is an Astronaut and Russian Circles. You won't be dancing much, but you will be taken on a very interesting musical ride. There are hundreds of ongoing history podcasts available for download. They're all free. And if you're looking for another podcast, try My True Crime Project. Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. And yes, it is true crime meets music. My website is a journal of musicalthhings.com. it's always being updated and comes with a free daily newsletter. I'm on most of the social media platforms and I'm always into getting email. Use Alan Alencross Ca Spell Allen A L A N Technical Productions by Rob Johnston. We'll talk to you next time. I'm Alan Cross. Well, the holidays have come and gone once again, but if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift or. Well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now. 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