Post Rock

Hey Everyone,

This may not be news to some of you but it is to me and I thought that I would share it with those of you that may not be aware. What I want to share with you is a type of music that I discovered (not me personally but I have read about it on wikipedia [great site]): post rock. Wikipedia defined post-rock as music that used rock instruments for non-rock purposes. I describe it as emotional rock music without lyrics. In my research, I found that the following bands are considered post-rock bands; Godspeed You Black Emperor (not active right now), Explosions In The Sky (great band), Fly Pan Am, Do Make Say Think, Silver Mount Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band (Godspeed you members are focussed on this band right now) and Mogwai, who are resisting this title. Post-rocks bands are mostly independent and not really in the mainstream of rock music, save for Mogwai. I have often found that post-rock music is often used as 'background' or score music in films; Godspeed You black Emperor in 28 Days Later (one of my top five films), Explosions in the Sky in Friday Night Lights and Mogwai in Miami Vice. There may be other examples but those are the only examples that I am currently aware of. Post rock songs tend to be somewhat longer to much longer than the average rock song; songs from Explosions in the Sky average about 7-9 minutes and each albums usually contains about 6-7 songs, whereas songs from Godspeed You Black Emperor average about 16-20 minutes each and each album contains 3-4 songs. I love film score music as I have detailed in a blog entry on my other blog (Dave's Bizarre Movie Rants) and I think that is why I took to post-rock music. Post-rock music speaks to me in ways that mainstream vocal rock does not; I think this is because with vocal rock there is more of a fixed number of meanings that the songs can have, whereas post-rock songs, I believe have a multitude of meanings and they speak to or jar my emotions more than a lot of mainstream rocks songs do, although songs from some of my favourite bands do speak to me in the same way (Matthew Good, Snow Patrol). If some of you out there like me, enjoy film score music, I recommend that you give post-rock music a listen to and check out the description of post-rock music on wikipedia.

Take Care and listen loud.

Fanboy Dave