PRAZISION

LABRADFORD was one of the very first bands to follow in the footsteps of Talk Talk's early creations that would retrospectively be tagged as post-rock. This Richmond, VA band formed in 1991 by Robert Donne (bass), Mark Nelson (guitars, vocals) and Carter Brown (keyboards) and would become one of the 90s most surreal versions of the newborn subgenre of the rock universe. While the group's strange sonic freeflowing experimentation has always relied on the drifting guitar effects and synthesized passages with the occasional murmured vocals and acoustic guitar, the earliest albums such as their debut PRAZISION (A German word for "precision" minus the umlaut) are almost exclusively a rather dark and detached mix of ambient and droning rock however the rock part of the equation is pretty much absent from the scene.

PRAZISION is very much a slow nebulous ambient album that is as cold and detached as the best Klaus Schulze material only has a more industrial feel to it. The sound effects are derived from various sources such as the Memorymoog, Polymoog, Korg Polysix, Roland Vocoder Plus and Moog Taurus II bass pedals which dominate as the primary forms of sound effects. While PRAZISION doesn't sound like post-rock as much as other bands at this point due to large parts of the real estate being swallowed up by the spaced out clouds of sound that meander randomly, the inclusion of tracks like "Sliding Glass" and "Everlast" are based on acoustic guitar chords strummed in a robotic manner with emotionless vocals struggling to emerge from a thick synthesized soup that permeates every cadence. These types of tracks are more similar to slowcore bands like Low and Galaxie 500 but the incessant droning makes this a far more freaky, even shoegazy affair.

While the early 90s was the beginning of post-rock emerging as a separate style of music, the more cute and cuddly bands like Talk Talk, Slint and Bark Psychosis seem to garner more recognition for their contributions to the scene but LABRADFORD was very much instrumental in adding many of the ambient and shoegaze elements that bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor would nurture to great effect on their popular and monumental albums of the late 90s. As LABRADFORD developed from a duo to a trio, they would implement ever more experimental effects that add many layers of ambience that create a much larger sum of the individual parts. This is defiantly one of those cloud cover albums where the sonic streams flow at a glacial pace around the slightest of rhythmic regularities, usually in the form of a softly strummed guitar accompanied by barely audible downer vocal performance, however droning effects also provide the stabilizing effect as well. This music is sombre, bleak and devoid of any enthusiastic expression but creates a unique amalgamation of different styles that no other band had juxtaposed together.

Post-rock is said to have derived from the mix of ambient, space rock, Krautrock and wall-of-sound production techniques along with minimalism and tape music. While others would go on to add elements of jazz and math rock, LABRADFORD instead of following Talk Talk's lead in creating epic sounding extended jazz-tinged post-rock expressions, rather focuses exclusively on the atmospheric possibilities of a sprawling epic soundtrack feeling backdrop that sounds half extraterrestrial and half industrial Earth- based at the same time, especially on the freakier tracks like "Gratitude" with the processed robotic vocals piercing through the thickened haze of synthesized sound effects but yet offer a slight organ recital finding its way through the sonic brume. While epic in sonic possibilities, perhaps what PRAZISION hadn't quite yet achieved in the post-rock paradigm is that of a satisfying ratcheting up of tension that climaxes in a thunderous crescendo, a technique Godspeed You! would make mandatory in the post-rock world.

To be fair, this debut album isn't quite post-rock yet as the elements were just freshly thrown into the pot and the stove recently lit to allow them to simmer into a new form of musical expression, however this album does embark on a very interesting ambient journey through a maelstrom of turbulent synthesized effects that create bizarre dismal soundscapes and atmospheric anomalies. If ethereally cold and dark, somber melancholy is your desire, then LABRADFORD's debut PRAZISION will fulfill those wishes many times over. As alienating as KIaus Schulze's "Irrlicht" with brief respites of codeine laced bouts of depressive overtones. Not a perfect debut but much to like from this one which launched LABRADFORD into the post-rock limelight of the 90s.