A Post-Rock Renaissance

Seeing Mogwai a couple weekends ago had me fearing that post-rock may have kicked the bucket - that even the cinematic post-rock giants like Mogwai were simply kicking a dead horse with nothing left to say.  Seeing Swans last Saturday completely erased that fear and made me realize, post-rock just smells a little funny…and that a new renaissance of Post-Rock is happening.    

So for those of you asking, "What is post-rock?" - The genre's name was coined by Simon Reynolds in his review of Talk Talk's album from 1990 “Laughing Stock”.  He further expanded on the term later saying it’s basically "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and chords” and also talked about the relationship "between the real time, hands-on playing and the use of digital effects”.  The genre also uses rhythms, harmonies, melodies, and chord progressions that are not usually found in rock tradition and is primarily instrumental music.  The genre started in 1990, with Slint’s “Spiderland” and then Talk Talk’s “Laughing Stock” being the first albums in this genre.  The peak of the genre was from the late 90s to the early 2000s, and as the 2000s continued landmark albums in this genre came along less and less frequently.

One of the Post-Rock giants is the Scottish band, Mogwai.  If you've never heard Mogwai the tracks "Mogwai Fear Satan" and "Like Herod" from their 1997 album "Young Team" are great places to start.  The fist time I saw Mogwai in 2009 was one of the most unique concert experiences of my life.  They played in a relatively smaller theater for nearly 3 hours from all over their catalogue and it was the loudest show (in decibels) I had ever seen.  The level of volume they played at was so important to this show as it added a somatic experience to the concert.  I felt every chord vibrate inside my body at a different rate.  And despite not being on any drugs, this multi-sensory experience from such brutally loud (but minimalist) music caused a synesthesia in which when I closed my eyed vivid and beautiful visuals were being triggered more intensely than I had ever seen.  And some of my friends who were at the show shared a similar experience - it was the kind of thing that was hard to put words to as it was so unlike any other show I had been to.  The show made me realized why Mogwai and the style of post-rock that they helped popularize was a thing – that had the ability to create a epic, cathartic, psychedelic experience to folks who allowed themselves to surrender to it - and that’s what this stuff is really all about.  

However, the last couple times they were supposed to play in Boston they had to cancel the show for heath related problems and such.  So obviously when the show came up last weekend I was ecstatic. I got in the front row once again and was prepared for a similar experience.  Unfortunately, the experience was very far from my expectations.  They played about a third as long (only a little over an hour), a third of the volume as when I saw them in 2009, and primarily only from their most recent releases (which are considerably less interesting than their earlier work).  Their new album is especially boring as fuck (with the exception of the track Remurdered - where everything they are going for actually works) and is easily the worst album they have ever put out.  

I walked away extremely disappointed (having looked forward to seeing them again for half a decade) as well with the fear that post-rock was truly dead – or at least this more cinematic branch of it (which would be excluding the more groovy jazz influenced branch of post-rock which was pioneered by bands like Tortoise - which never really got the mainstream exposure like the other school of post-rock has).  In regards to the giants in the cinematic branch of the genre - Sigur Ros’s last great album was in 2005, Mogwai’s last great album was 2006, Explosions in the Sky’s last great album was 2003…and EITS were a huge disappointment live as well when I saw them last year compared to when I had seem them in years before that.

It has been kind of heartbreaking seeing these great bands release painfully mediocre records for some time now and to see the genre become watered down, cheesier, and more commercialized.  With the success of bands like Explosions in the Sky and Sigur Ros – there have been a great deal of bands making similar sounding music that lacks the musical depth of the music they are inspired by.

On the ride home from the Mogwai show as I was thinking about this, I had to remind myself that on the contrary - in the past couple of years many of the pioneers of post-rock had come back after a hiatus of over a decade: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Swans, and Slint (the latter is the band that released what is widely considered the first post-rock album).   

Slint I had the pleasure of seeing on April 29^th at the Paradise and then got to see the documentary about them the following night called “Breadcrumb Trail” which I can’t recommend seeing enough.  They’ve got a pretty rad story – check out the trailer here. 

Their 1990 album Spiderland is easily one of the greatest post-rock albums of all time and is probably my favorite album of the 90s.  I’ve got my fingers crossed that there will be new material coming from them at some point in the near future.  From some of the things mentioned in the documentary it sounds relatively promising. 

I have seen Godspeed You! Black Emperor three times so far since they reunited, and every show has been a unique and amazing experience - the first being at St. Paul the Apostle Church in New York, then in Boston which was the first show where they debuted their new record Allelujah! Don't Bend, Ascend!, and the most recent time I saw them I got to hear at least a full new records worth of material when they opened for NIN last year.

Swans are a band I was recently turned on to, who was a great influence on Godspeed.  They started in the post-punk New York “No Wave” scene, then in the later 90s started making music that was more cinematic and more in the post-rock vein, and then also went on a ten year hiatus (where the leader of the band Michael Gira had a folk project called “Angels of Light”) until 2010 - and Swans are now releasing what some consider the greatest music of their career.  And last Saturday night they totally blew my mind. 

They tried out some new material, which Michael Gira said was like “trying to have sex with six condoms on” - but hearing a band that is over thirty years into their career and at that level explore new territory live was truly amazing.  They also played “A Little God in My Hands”, “Apostate” (the second part of this song which starts at 13:20 is an excellent place to start if you'd like to check out what Swans sound like nowadays) and “Bring the Sun”.  The grooves were hypnotic and it was some of the heaviest music I've ever heard.  

If you want, check out them playing “Apostate” slowed down 800% (thanks to Kyle Boston who filmed this and slowed it down):

(the last 30 seconds of this is pretty darn rad)

It was moments like this where you could see Gira become hypnotized and lost in the sound – and they took me there as well, and again - that’s what this music is all about.  And in a way it’s still derived from punk-rock – at times as a front-man his presence brought to mind folks like Ian Curtis (or even Iggy Pop before that).  And at times it’s brutal, intense and scary…but beyond this there’s a hypnotizing, psychedelic, meditative force.  And Swans’ sound today is one that I believe is already starting a new rebirth of Post-Rock.  A sound that is once again derived from the punk-music that it was originally born from.  A sound that is perhaps to some extent a reaction against the commercial watered down version of the genre that has become more popular in recent years.

If punk’s attitude can be summed up as with “fuck you”, and the existential anxiety ridden post-punk’s attitude can generally be summed up with “I’m fucked”…well, this new breed of post-rock’s attitude might be something along the lines of “fuck off, get free” (as the title of the new Thee Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra record states).  It’s psychedelic, it’s spiritual, and it’s heavy as fuck...  

"Benji" (Sun Kil Moon)

Every so often an album comes along that you can’t take your mind off of no matter how hard you try and makes it difficult to listen to anything else.  As I’ve gotten older this has happened less and less frequently (party because of how much more music I’ve heard and party for being overwhelmed by the realization of how much more music out in the world to listen to), but last week while driving up to New York I heard Sun Kil Moon’s new album “Benji” and after listening to it basically on repeat since, I've realized I have never heard an album quite like this before.

Initially I was pretty shocked at how lyrically it is incredibly dark, but how simultaneously it has a certain humor about itself.  And despite this strange emotional juxtaposition - it also seemed incredibly honest.  It has a trailer-trash poetry vibe that first reminded me Isaac Brock (of Modest Mouse), which makes sense since they are friends - but has more of a rapped flow (such as on "Richard Ramirez Died Today of Natural Causes"), is darker..and even more embracing of trailer-trash culture (for lack of a better term).  In not only a humorous way, but embracing it with his full heart authentically.  Whether it’s frying frog legs, serving KFC at funerals, or burning trash...I mean…there’s two songs that are dedicated to his relatives who burned to death in freak aerosol can explosion/trash-fire accidents that are both emotive and beautiful (“Carissa" and “Truck Driver”).  

And after listening to it more and more - the thing that I dig most about this album lyrically is how literal all of it is.  The lyrics are very verbose and stream of consciousness, but all are very much events that happened or his feelings about these events.  And there are a lot of references that are initially kind of shocking hearing in song (such as the multiple times Panera Bread is mentioned and a wide variety of music references), as well as how straightforward and openly he addresses and sings about people on this album, such as the tracks about his parents “I Can’t Live Without My Mother’s Love” and “I Love My Dad”.  And when he sings about tragic events that happen on this album, such as the shootings in Newtown, it’s done not only in a way that pays respects to those effected - but effectively uses these tragic events to paint a bigger picture.  And this is what to me is most impressive and emotive about his writing - is he’s able to say something so poignant and make the listener feel something so transcendental while all the while avoiding being metaphorical or abstract in what he’s singing about.  

Let me briefly talk about an anecdote involving my dad and brother to further expand upon this point: So my dad digs really sad songs.  The ones he’s often most drawn to are the ones full of melancholy, death, and tragedy.  For example one of his favorite songs of recent artists is “John Wayne Gacy Jr” by Sufjan Stevens.  We give him a lot of shit about it - in a joking and loving way of course.  But anyway, to get to the point - my dad once proposed a song idea of his to me and my brother about someone who worked in the twin towers.  The song was written from the perspective of someone in the tower after it had been hit, addressing his wife who he felt he never truly let know how much he cared for her.  He wanted to write the words and me to write the music.  While I didn’t want to discourage my dad’s attempt at this creative idea and trying to see what he was trying to tap into with it, my brother quickly responded “You can’t do that!!!!”, since my dad wasn’t there at the tragedy.  My dad argued he would be using the event and people’s ties to it to say something about something bigger with the song.  After hearing out both sides of the argument, I had to agree with my brother as this song idea seemed to aim at moving the listener’s hearts more with the connection to this tragedy than their connection with the music itself.  We then joked about this and the idea of an album where every song was about a different tragedy.

And anyway - after hearing this album I’ve realized that this album is basically the real deal of what my dad was sort of aiming for and what we were later joking about in a lot of ways (and avoids just using these events to tug at the strings in people's hearts).  I mean, he mentions the San Ysidro McDonald’s Massacre, the terrorist attacks in Oslo, Norway, the shooting at the Century movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, the shootings at the Clackamas Town Center in Clackamas Oregon, and the shooting in Newtown - all just in the song “Pray for Newtown”.  And a ton of this record really does focuses on death - not just the death of those in these tragedies, but the the death of relatives and friends and animals...and I can’t exactly describe how - but there is a sense of humor in this darkness that works and still pays tribute and is extremely moving.  Where one could either laugh or cry to the same song, and either reaction would be totally reasonable. 

And musically, I dig every choice that was made - which is something that is rather rare for me with artists in this genre (modern-folk, indie-rock and such) and if went into my thoughts on it musically god only knows how long this post would be…

But just check it out already: