Soundtracks to the End of the World: The Post-Rock thread™

[tragabigzanda]

[E.H. Ruddock]

oh yeah, that's a great playlist that I still listen too. If anyone wants to read it, I'll post the review I sent you.

[Brett]

Cool. I'm gonna throw it together in a playlist on Spotify and give it a listen. Should be interesting to hear all the songs in a different context, a bit like a show.

Ruddo, I'd love to read your thoughts if you're up for posting them on here.

[E.H. Ruddock]

Cool. I'm gonna throw it together in a playlist on Spotify and give it a listen. Should be interesting to hear all the songs in a different context, a bit like a show.

Ruddo, I'd love to read your thoughts if you're up for posting them on here.

Yeah man, it is a great mix. Here is my original email to him reviewing it:

So with a lot of instrumental music I have this tendency to get lost in it if I'm really into it. I usually let my mind wander and depending on the vibe of the song, I imagine different scenarios in my head. Sometimes they are plausible/real, other times they are wacky and improbable. This playlist did that for me, which means I was really into it. So instead of breaking down song structure, etc. (I'm not a musician and only know how to mildly play the ukulele), I'm taking you on my journey of thoughts as I ventured through this. I loved most of it trag, thank you. I'll definitely be exploring them a lot more. I'm sorry if this isn't a conventional way of reviewing songs, but when music can get me to think or pull some kind of emotion, I love it. And this stuff did it. Most of it is right up my alley.

1. Seneca - great opener choice, I liked the little intro diddy before the main song. This got me interested for the rest of the songs. Really great psychadelic rock vibe to this song.

2. It's All Around You - Short, chill song to drink my morning tea to. I kind of got lost in this song and pondered the day ahead.

3.Dots/Eyes - I like the nice steady bass and beat of this song, while the guitar explores some stuff with the sound effects going on. I imagined myself stepping foot on a new planet for the first time with this song, exploring those crucial first few minutes. Then it abruptly ended and almost startled me because I was so lost in it.

4. Ten-Day Interval - so this is going to sound strange, but this song made me think "this is the kind of music I wish PJ would do at this point in their career". It has a very stone/jeff/matt collaborative vibe. Nice slow build to a steady drone that made me think about/pick out each instrument and concentrate on them each for a moment.

5. I Set My Face to the Hillside - oh man, this has that cool SW/desert vibe I love in music. Makes me remember all my time surveying in the hot sun. I want to be sitting on a porch in a run down house in Needles, CA with the windows open behind me, drinking a shitty beer after a long hot day in the sun.

6. Gigantes - Percussion driven, and one I am easily playing the air drums to. Feel like this would be playing in a movie scene where I was trying to seduce the russian spy so I could get to her room to find a hidden thumb drive.

7. Five Too Many - Nice funky jam. Kind of vibe I get from Stereolab's Dots & Loops songs, lounge rock from the 60's? I like it.

8. Hot Coffee - Haha, the title of this song wouldn't leave my head when it started. It kind of starts out on a high note, and all I could think of was trying to keep taking sips of hot coffee. Each time the song slows for a second, I think it is ok to take the sip, then BAM, nope, coffee is still too fucking hot.

9. Monica - This was ok. The weird sound effect in the beginning made me think T-Pain or some other Auto-tuned R&B singer was going to come on.

10. Yinxianghechengqui - Probably my least favorite song on the list, not to say it was bad. Just sometimes that type of fuzzy guitar over and over gets to me. But I did at one point expect the Beastie Boys to start rapping over this.

11. Swung From the Gutters - Another psychadelic jam, actually watching people walk around to the airport while listening to this. Where is everyone going? This song slowed everyone down for me, so I made up stories about what they are doing and why they are travelling as they walked by me.

12. Gesceap - Very Daft Punk/Tron-esque feel to this song. I like it. Walking around in a dystopian future mega-city kind of vibe. Probably my favorite song on the playlist.

13. Charteroak Foundation - So the first time I listened to this, I got lost watching bubbles float up on my sparkling mineral water. Then, last night, I imagined the almost chaos of this song being when I was banning users left and right without remorse. Kind of the point I decided not to go back for a while, thanks Charteroak!

14. Everglade - Great closer, Alex. Very "post-rock". Kind of Sigur Ros meets Pullman. Takes you out nice and quick.

[Brett]

Hm, seems as though Trag changed the tracklist a little bit from what he sent you to what he posted above. If so, swapping out "Yinxianghechengqui" was definitely an improvement. It was cool hearing it the first time when I saw them live, and then again for the first few listens on the album, but it got old quick and is my least favorite tune on its home album. He also took out "Gigantes" and "Charteroak Foundation," completely removing anything from Beacons of Ancestorship. That leaves the mix with representatives from four of Tortoise's seven albums, which seems a little weird, but I guess I could see the argument that the first two albums don't offer a lot of mix-ready material. That said, if I was making a mix, I'd probably include "Ry Cooder" from Tortoise and "The Taut and the Tame" from Millions Now Living along with either "Gigantes" or "Northern Something" from Beacons so as to have something from each album.

[Brett]

Cross-posting from the Albums of 2019 thread:

Gavin Johnson was the bassist of Cambridge, UK instrumental rock band Gwei-lo whose brief career in the late '90s was suddenly snuffed out with the onstage death of their guitar player Al Brooker from a heart attack at age 24. Earlier this year Johnson started a website chronicling the details of his musical career including his time in Gwei-lo. As part of this he has released two compilation albums of Gwei-lo material consisting of demos, outtakes, remixes, etc. They're available on most of the major digital platforms; Spotify, Amazon, Apple. Demos & Rarities is made of the demos that the band recorded prior to getting signed for their only album and some cast-off tracks. Frontside - Backside & Demos is older material from when the band was still known as Smegma and consists of the tracks from their self-released tape and a few other demos they recorded before changing their name.

Demos & Rarities: https://open.spotify.com/album/4FjwKwvijolF8VLXOFQvsc
Frontside - Backside & Demos: https://open.spotify.com/album/0YsHqNcSiOqlQLhS1Dfxlh

Furthermore, the self-titled LP and EP are also now available on all of those digital sources, and more info can be found at Gavin's site: https://thejohnsonsound.com/

[tree_]

Good genre. I think I'll blast some post-rock again soon.

[run2death]

Just bought Caspian tix for December.
Mogwai, EITS and Caspian all in the same year.

[BurtReynolds]

nice

[run2death]

Finally got around to listening to Lost in Kiev's new album, Persona. It's pretty great.

[Brett]

Anybody else doing the 65daysofstatic subscription thing? They're putting out a series of 12 EPs, one a month, all loosely gathered under the concept of a collection called "Unreleased/Unreleasable Vol. 4: A Year of Wreckage." It's £30 to subscribe, and you get each EP a month before it's released to the general public, as well as bonus material like a bunch of early EPs and the Silent Running soundtrack. This month is month three, so there's nine more yet to go.

In addition to that, the band have announced that their first proper full-length since 2013 is coming out in the middle of this, and it's going to be called replicr, 2019, out September 27. Pre-order goes live on Friday along with the release of the first single, "Popular Beats."

[LetMeSleep]

Nice. Haven't listened to 65days for a while.

[psychobain]

New God is an astronaut album is good

[BurtReynolds]

The new Collapse Under Empire is pretty good, if standard, too.

[washing machine]

Yes.

[Ello Sailor]

I only recently got back into post-rock, and I'm making up for lost time. Currently listening to This Will Destroy You - Young Mountain

[Brett]

I'm falling in love with Tortoise's It's All Around You again. I hadn't listened to the whole thing in a while and had kind of relegated it to a post-peak album that was a little overdone. Listening with fresh ears recently, though, and now I'm hearing really strong performances and writing with some lovely, layered arrangements. I really miss the marimba in their last couple of records, and it's all over (or all around you) on this one, which I feel was a vital part of their original identity and sound.

[tragabigzanda]

[Brett]

I could probably cut "Yinxianghechengqi" and "De Chelly," but otherwise I enjoy most of that album even if it's not on the same level as their best work (and some of the songs I would say are). The Catastrophist remains the one that leaves me mostly cold.

[tragabigzanda]

Top 10 maybe?
Hello Morning
Close Captioned
The Kill
Place/Position
Do You Like Me?
Latest Disgrace
Recap Modotti
Nightshop
Break
Life & Limb

I'd maybe bump Life & Limb for Epic Problem