Critic Simon Reynolds is generally credited as the first to use the term “post rock” in his review of Bark Psychosis’ album Hex in the March 1994 issue of Mojo magazine. As the almighty Wikipedia states, he used the term to describe music “using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords.” Since then, the genre has come into its own, remaining decidedly outside the mainstream. Simply stated, it’s music for music nerds.

I’d like to think that I can definitely tell you what is post rock and what is not (kind of like the rap vs. hip hop debate). But once I start to write a definition worthy of the dictionary, it gets a little tough. The term can mean any number of things depending on who you talk to. Is it a stand-alone genre or an umbrella term used to describe art rock, math rock and atmospheric rock? Is there singing or is it purely instrumental? How many computers should we allow before we cry foul and deem it electronica?

The point of this three-part series on post rock is to try to finally bring a little clarity to one of music’s most neglected genres. Let’s set the record straight right here, right now. Either that, or let’s get into a nasty debate.

Instrumentation

If we were being strict, we would say that post rock involves ONLY traditional rock instrumentation: guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. After all, the point of calling it post rock is only meant to denote a differentiation in style, not instrumentation. However, I think this definition is outdated, especially without acknowledging strings.

I would append the definition to not only include strings, but also horns and samplers. More importantly, I don’t think enough attention is paid to Reynolds’ main point: “using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes.” This means that post-rock bands generally utilize alternate playing methods to create experimental sounds. Not only that, but they often layer heavy effects like reverb, delay, chorus, envelope filter and an infinite number of others to create a lush atmosphere that you would never expect out of traditional instrumentation.

Sigur Ros, a quintessential member of the genre, is a prime example – they play guitar with cello bows (thank you Jimmy Page), the Ebow, and drum sticks. Even more interesting is the fact that lead singer, Jonsi Birgisson, will bring the humbucker pickups on his Gibson guitar to his mouth and sing through them instead of a microphone. Pretty interesting, huh (skip forward in the video to 6:20 to see what I’m talking about)?

Insofar as singing is concerned, yes it is allowed, but no it’s not used in a traditional way. Vocals are often treated like another instrument and not a focus of the track – if you listen to the mix closely, Mogwai vocals never take the lead and remain somewhat hard to understand, if not altogether masked in effects. As with most post rock bands, Mogwai seeks to use the voice as another tone, often just humming or “oooohing and ahhhhing” as a back-up singer might do in your run of the mill band. Listen to the vocals on “Hunted by a Freak” (if you can):

>MP3: Mogwai – “Hunted by a Freak”

When the vocals do take the lead their purpose is to state a theme and then repeat it. Sigur Ros not only made up their own language (Hopelandic), but every song on the album ( ) has the exact same lyrics. It’s almost as if they wanted to convey emotion through changes in timbre and melody while keeping any lyrical meaning constant. Again, a very post-rock, if not minimalist or classical, thing to do – the song itself is just a variation on a repeating theme. In the post-rock world, we assume everything has already been done and therefore the only new direction is timbre variation of melody (kind of like a remix, but don’t take the DJ idea to heart here).

This gets a little bit controversial when you consider the role of sampling and electronics in general. As I stated above, electronic effects over traditional instrumentation are the most common. But when you start to get a little crazy, overusing synthesizers, drum machines, and computer-generated noise, in my opinion, you are off the post-rock map and into the realm of experimental performers like Squarepusher.

Sampling vocals or found sounds is a staple of post rock, but more often than not it is done live, and thus not abandoning the performance aspect of the genre. While I wouldn’t consider Radiohead to be a post-rock band at all, they do implement this kind of live sampling a lot and it can be heard prominently on the I Might Be Wrong Live Recordings EP during the song “Everything in It’s Right Place.” Listen towards the end when Greenwood remixes Yorke’s vocals.

>MP3: Radiohead – “Everything In It’s Right Place” [Live] (Box.net)

When sampling plays a big role, it is often done in a very repetitious manner and serves as a constant texture to play over, almost like white noise. Wilco was clearly inspired by post-rock recorded sampling techniques throughout Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. On that album you can hear electric drills played into electronphonic pickups, wrenches banged on radiators, and even old movie dialogue. Jeff Tweedy explains that they did this to provide a more “interesting” sonic landscape for which to play folk and country tunes over.

>MP3: Wilco – “Poor Places” (Can you catch the movie dialogue or electric drills at the end? That ain’t no guitar.)

Ok, hopefully that didn’t put you to sleep. In part two, I’ll talk about form and structure, diving deeper into the ideas of repetition, crescendo and length. Until then strangers…