Friday, August 3, 2007
Post-rock is one of the most contentious terms to emerge in the music scene in recent history. Musicians and critics alike still utter the term in quotation marks, preceding it with “dare I say” and “so-called” or suffixing it with “whatever that is”.
The earliest bands to be assigned the label rejected it vehemently, and nowadays there’s still an air of elitism and disdain for it from the emerging acts and from other areas of the music industry. In fact, there's so much confusion about this particular genre, it's worth asking, what the fuck is “post-rock” anyway?
Mac Nguyen is a senior writer for The Silent Ballet, an online publication covering the global instrumental music scene.
The term “post-rock” was coined by a British music journalist named Simon Reynolds who used it to describe the delicate, unconventional use of rock instrumentation to develop vast, enveloping soundscapes on Hex, an album released in 1994 by British experimentalists Bark Psychosis. The critique conceived not just a term, but a notion that largely revised the traditional utilisation of rock instrumentation. Glasgow’s Mogwai, one of the first “post-rock” bands, were spawn by the progressive, convention-defying mentality, and not surprisingly reacted strongly to the idea that they could possibly be pigeonholed by this label—something they, as non-traditionalists, were trying to avoid from the very outset. It was largely an ego thing, fuelled by the desire to be as unique and different and as difficult to define as possible, that way ensuring their isolation from anything else, especially that which resembled popular music.
Bands that emerged around the early stages of post-rock in the mid to late nineties sounded nothing alike, so it was somewhat bizarre that they could be referenced collectively by this one term. Montreal’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor were gloomy and highly textured, the aforementioned Mogwai tense and volatile, and Chicago’s Tortoise endowed with a jazzier, experimental edge. Recent and comparatively popular post-rock bands have expanded the scope of the genre further: Austin’s Explosions in the Sky employ Mogwai’s guitar-driven quiet-loud method of playing but emphasise the emotional dynamics through multiple layers of melody, while Reykjavik, Iceland’s Sigur Rós prefer an expansive and orchestral approach.
The fact that each band sounded worlds apart from the next says something about the term’s analogously unconventional application. It wasn’t about the stylistic factor; there was something else that united these bands: they were all essentially deconstructing the traditional form of rock and rock instrumentation and reapplying it to forms more closely resembling minimalist and classical composition. Post-rock has been said to be the conduit between the artistry of classical and the accessibility of rock. It was almost like using rock against itself, against the popular music doctrine.
The one other significant and defining facet was that bands assigned the post-rock label were generally instrumental, another characteristic that would further remove it from the grasps of convention. Lyrical exclusion wasn’t entirely a conscious decision for the most part, nor was it necessarily a coincidence. The minimalist and experimental compositional styles, which consisted of drawn out lengths (we’re talking ten to 20 minutes) to the point where some pieces were more considered “movements”, meant that an instrumental dominance seemed only natural. A point commonly stressed is that post-rock is not strictly instrumental, in that vocals can still be present, but not necessarily at the vanguard. Sigur Rós are the group arguably most notable for their instrumentalised vocals, as are Mogwai whose vocals are usually drowned in reverb.
Recent movements in post-rock have again slowly shifted the genre away from these initial defining characteristics. Bands are now writing pieces of shorter and more accessible length, and the drone-driven vocal presence is transforming back to proper lyrically-driven singing. The original breaking of rock convention has suddenly reverted back to rock convention, so how does it remain post-rock? The stylistic similarities have somewhat become the defining element now, contrary to the past. Testament to the genre’s refusal to adopt convention is its preference to turn back to conventional composition rather than allow trends in the genre itself to form new conventions.
As convoluted as fuck as that explanation is, this is not a result of any control over the term by musicians and critics, but more so the lack of. Its immaturity is a major cause for its nebulous nature. Even now, most people don’t really know what post-rock is exactly, this writer included. Two things I can say with a modest degree of certainty are that the genre is resultant of a common philosophical approach to music, rather than technical or aesthetics, and that it is definitely witnessing growth, not just in scope but geographically. Post-rock is growing in popularity amongst musicians, critics and listeners throughout all parts of the world. Even the cultural derivations of post-rock by region are evident: North America and the UK oversee a substantial rock influence, while the rest of Europe seems partial to electronica. Australia draws heavily on all aspects, and Melbourne especially is on the verge of an inundation of talented post-rock acts which draw their inspiration on a global scale. For the genre, it really is only just the beginning.
