Atmospheres and Textures: The Unsung Heroes

I absolutely agree, in fact, music that lacks these things is of little interest to me, such as some technical prog metal. Music that has nothing but these things, on the other hand, is often amazing, for example Kluster, Merzbow, Klaus Schulze...

I find its the melding of atmospher and texture, technical ability (both in playing and composing) and the sense of melody that is what makes certain music so strong. I can easily appreciate an album that has 1or 2 of these aspects perfected but the masterpieces are the albums that successfully meld these aspects together that garner the most praise from me.

I love textures, the whole reason I dont like DT is because of the lack of textures, and the reson I love post rock is because of the textures.

in my opinion GYBE! is the god of atmosphere and texture

Textures is a Dutch band that sounds a lot like Meshuggah. They are great, extremely proficient in what they do; any "technical" metal fan should give them a try. And they are called Textures for a (good) reason. Oh my, what shall we do with these ambiguous terms?

"Atmospheres" are in our minds, not contained a priori in the music. They aren't "something" you swallow without chewing. If they are, then you're probably listening to Michael Bolton. We, listeners, make our own work of art from what we hear. Of course Porcupine Tree make things very obvious - that's precisely why they sell so well. That doesn't mean that more cryptic, "dry" music is devoid of these valences. There is potential beauty in everything and it's often a matter of education whether or not we "get" it.

Edited by Uroboros - April 24 2007 at 19:07

One thing I fell in love with when I fell in love with Porcupine Tree was all of the textures.  Now for some reason I can't write a song without something going on in the background that builds up the song

In terms of texture and atmosphere, I'd say the most important recent musicians I've heard are Toby Driver (Kayo Dot) and Mark Hollis (Talk Talk).

Kayo Dot's The Antique might be their most profound composition in terms of atmosphere. The initial five minutes of the piece, taken by themselves, seem merely consist of uninspired improvisational work, but in hearing the entire piece, these five minutes are necessary to create the brooding atmosphere that leads up to the chaos later in the piece. This composition feels almost like being pulled into the mind of a murderer: a brooding build-up, a chaotic, brutal middle section, and a brooding and almost mournful conclusion.

The other band I mentioned, Talk Talk, uses texture as a means to reaching an incredibly unique atmosphere. Despite being labeled as minimalistic works by some, Laughing Stock and its predecessor Spirit of Eden typically have no less than three to four instruments playing at a given time, and while this may not seem like an impressive feat, the array of instruments used on these albums is more diverse than most any band I've heard, excepting maybe Gentle Giant. The atmosphere created using improvisational tidbits atop raw song structures that is so characteristic of Talk Talk's later albums hasn't even been scratched by any modern post-rock band, IMO. Mark Hollis' solo album reaches similar depth but without the aforementioned improvisation -- this album is more meticulously composed and probably more personal (though not necessarily better) than Talk Talk's.

It seems like a sin to me to close this reply without mentioning some classical music though. In terms of texture and atmosphere, my favorite composer is Maurice Ravel. Many of Ravel's contemporaries were either interested in perpetuating the Romantic idiom or in devising their own compositional techniques, such as Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, Debussy's infatuation with whole-tone scales, and Messiaen's entirely newly devised harmonic system. Ravel was dabbling in his own experiments himself, and indeed he was a rather unconventional composer, but he seemed to mostly rely on the established tonal system for his compositions, whereas many of his aforementioned contemporaries left me a bit cold with their avant-garde experimentalism. I've never heard any music as harmonically brilliant as Ravel's piano works. While his output was unusually unprolific for a classical composer, each of his compositions was superlative.

But this is a prog forum...!

So yeah, to summarize, post-rock bands are usually more interested in creating atmospheres than simple melodies. I think this is one of the genre's defining characteristics. Avant-Garde bands like Univers Zero, Kayo Dot, Art Zoyd, are usually pretty crazy when it comes to that as well.

I must say you freakin nailed it OP... God, I cant stop using those words...

I have always loved Yes for their textures, almost evocative of the Roger Dean album artwork; it's the vocal harmonies that do it, not necessarily the keyboards. The best example of that is Siberian Khatru; it's just Jon, Steve, and Chris singing, with keyboard taking a rest for that section; the "Bluetail...Tailfly" part.

i think alot of black metal and avant garde- rock and metal bands have really experienced with this more than anyone, and the best examples i can think of where textures are really used would have to be cynic's focus album and any early opeth up to still life. Cynic did a brilliant job with their recording, alot of people tend to bash them for it, but if you open your mind and let your ears hear everything that is going on within that album then you appreciate a whole lot more. Atmosphere is probably one of the reasons that Cynic became one of my favorite bands. And for people who say the band doesn't have atmosphere or textures they have a bloody song name "textures". Opeth's acoustic interludes also use alot of atmospheric sound, and it adds alot. Also check out kayo-dot they probably experiment with atmosphere more than anybody.