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Post-rock is a music genre characterized by the exploration of textures and timbres as well as non-rock styles, sometimes placing less emphasis on conventional song structures or riffs than on atmosphere, for musically evocative purposes.
Jun 14, 2021 · Beginning in the mid-1990s, a number of indie rock bands moved beyond traditional blues-based guitar riffs and introduced a new subgenre known as post-rock.
- Godspeed You! Black Emperor – F # A # ¥ (1997) The Canadian collective’s debut long-player – pronounced “F Sharp, A Sharp, Infinity” – is an eminently quotable treatise on taking rock music elsewhere, anywhere, but where it’s allowed to feel comfortable.
- Rachel’s – Selenography (1999) Kentucky’s Rachel’s saw their final album, 2003’s Systems/Layers, mined for cinematic use, most prominently in the Will Smith movie Hancock.
- 65daysofstatic – We Were Exploding Anyway (2010) Sheffield foursome 65daysofstatic have been mixing dance beats with intense riffs and devastating live drums since day one.
- Mogwai – Young Team (1997) A debut album every bit as exhilarating as Godspeed’s, albeit charged with a more pronounced positivity and optimism that may be a product of the musicians’ age at the time – ostensible frontman Stuart Braithwaite was 21 at release – Young Team ripples with inspiration that surpasses its on-sleeve influences.
- Slint – “Don, Aman” (from Spiderland) 1991. I generally chose to leave the proto-post-rock bands off this list because including them would mean we’d have to stretch it back another ten years and fifty tracks, but leaving Slint off would be like not inviting Dave Mustaine to the Metallica alumni party.
- Tortoise – “Djed” (from Millions Now Living Will Never Die) 1996. It’s not an exaggeration to say that this song from Millions Now Living Will Never Die changed my life.
- Mogwai – “Helicon 1″ (from Ten Rapid) 1997. I’ve been listening to “Helicon 1″ at least once a month (and in bad months, many times more) for two decades.
- Dianogah – “What Is Your Landmass” (from As Seen From Above) 1997. Just four songs into this thing and we’ve already got another one produced by Steve Albini, from Chicago trio Dianogah’s debut As Seen From Above.
- Bark Psychosis. Hex. (Circa, 1994) It seems fitting that our number one album should be Hex, the record which, as legend has it, was the first to be described as “post-rock”, in a review by journalist Simon Reynolds.
- Slint. Spiderland. (Touch And Go, 1991) Slint released the now-iconic Spiderland in 1991 while still a bunch of Kentucky nobodies. People couldn’t find out anything about them: by the time the album was released the band had split ways, meaning no interviews, and at a time where there was of course no internet for online sleuthing.
- Tortoise. Millions Now Living Will Never Die. (Thrill Jockey, 1996) With seven albums recorded over a 26-year career, Tortoise are practically establishment figures.
- Talk Talk. Laughing Stock. (Verve Records, 1991) Talk Talk spent the late ‘80s spending EMI’s money on the perverse dismantling of their glossy avant-pop formula, which had delivered them huge, and somewhat unlikely, commercial success earlier in the decade (who else on this list has written anything remotely as catchy as ‘It’s My Life’?).
Post-rock was the dominant form of experimental rock during the '90s, a loose movement that drew from greatly varied influences and nearly always combined standard rock instrumentation with electronics.
post-rock, genre of experimental rock music that combined elements of art rock, jazz, and alternative with electronic influences to create richly textured soundscapes. The term post-rock was coined in 1994 by music critic Simon Reynolds in his discussion of the music of Talk Talk and Bark Psychosis.
