Something 4 The Weekend # 97

Mogwai: The Hawk Is Howling: "The Sun Smells Too Loud" [mp3]

Mogwai are a bunch of hard-drinking troublemakers from Glasgow, Scotland who were inspired by Post-Rock bands such as Slint and My Bloody Valentine to start their own band around 1995, and they've been pretty much the standard-bearer of instrumental Post-Rock ever since...

But what is "Post-Rock"?

Well, it's pretty much a completely useless term for music that uses "traditional rock instrumentation (bass, drums, guitar) for non-rock purposes", a definition put forward by legendary critic Simon Reynolds (often mis-credited for coining the phrase) that is just as useless as the term itself. Useless because many of the bands who get categorized under the umbrella of "Post-Rock" don't sound anything at all alike. Semi-discerning and knowledgeable ears would never confuse Mogwai with Stereolab, for example, and neither of those bands sound anything like Gastr del Sol...

If we were to try to pin a certain sensibility and style to the "Post-Rock" name, it might be long, repetitive instrumental tracks that are more about textures and layers built around a simple, central melody, and variations emerging from that central idea. If we accept this premise, we then might point back to Krautrock bands such as Can and Neu! to find the movement's genesis, although we could never completely discount some of the music being made under the banner of Prog Rock by bands like King Crimson. Personally, I think the first true Post-Rock band (at least some of the time) was The Velvet Underground, with songs like "Sister Ray" or "Heroin".

Whatever.

Now, at heart, I'm a Pop purist, and what I mean is that when all is said and done, I tend to prefer well-written songs with verse-chorus-verse-bridge structures built around a strong melody and a well-defined lyrical conceit. When I tell you that my favorite band of all time is The Kinks, I think you get the idea.

But damn, do I love the Krautrock bands, or any band that builds long, repetitive "groove" tracks around a good melody and a spiffy bassline. Can and Stereolab rank among my favorite bands of all time because of this general style of songcraft, and I gotta say, the music that I myself have made over the past 25 years has tended to gravitate towards this kind of style moreso than anything else...

Anyways, I was smitten with Mogwai the very first time I heard them, and they really haven't disappointed me since. If I do have a major disappointment, it's the fact that Mogwai are one of the few bands I love that I have never actually seen live in concert. Thankfully, there's still time and hope that I can rectify this, because as I understand it, Mogwai shows are loud as fuck, and oftentimes transcendent.

Hotcha! Hank