post-rock

BebieM wrote: Ok, now that I checked out GYBE, Mogwai and explosions in the sky, I'd really like to know more about the post-rock bands. Are those 3 the top bands or are there comparable or even better ones? You guys said something about slint in another thread, but is their musc really similar? I also have some Tortoise stuff, it's not bad either Seems like I've found a second favourite genre.... But I think post-rock may even be a subgenre of prog, is it?

Slint are the god fathers of post rock, formed in 1987 and even though they had a very short career they influenced nearly all of the post rock bands of today. Their album Spiderland is probably one of the most famous post rock albums and some say its overatted. Slint stripped down music then built it up to a wall of sound using complex unconventional guitar techniques with a kind of fuzzed out drone back ground, they were the masters of the quiet/ loud noise and vocals too.

Check out A Silver Mt Zion or for some lo-fi post rock then David Pajo (former slint member) band Papa M.

As much as I love Post-rock I don't think it should be classed as a sub-genre of Prog. A lots of Post -rock bands touch too much on other genres like Math-rock and Noise-rock to be prog. I think Tortoise is probably the closest  post-rock band to prog though.

Now don't get me started on Math rock either..

There aren't too many bands who 'sound like' the Big Three, but Mogwai owe a huge debt of gratitude to Slint (though they also claim Black Sabbath as a major influence...!) Nuff said about them already.

Sigur Ros (the guy plays his guitar with a violin bow a la Page, but creates a totally different chilled ambience - you wont get the loud bang if you know what I mean).

Wilco are definitely worth checking out, especially their second album.  Quite Krautrocky - long tracks, some completely instrumental - Pavement meets Can

And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (like Explosions, they're from Texas, and very loud, but with some excellent songs and nice quiet bits to lull you in....)

Arab Strap - some tracks actually SOUND like Mogwai, and many have Mogwai members playing on them.  More song-based than Mogwai, but definitely heading into the post-rock realm.  As I said on another similar thread, try and get their live stuff first.  You will already have heard Arab's singer Aidan Moffat on Young Team, whilst the guitarist also contributes to tracks on several Mogwai albums.  I saw them play together in Edinburgh a few years back, and it still ranks as one of the best shows I've seen.

German band Neu! are also worth a listen, as co-pioneers of this style of music.  They often just get lumped under the generic label of Kraut Rock, but I think there is more modern-day influence in their first few albums than people are willing to acknowledge. 

Happy Xmas

ok, seems like there are very many post rock bands.... Well, im looking forward to discovering that!

@petra: there's something called math-rock? I need to give that a listen... please tell me one good album