Ever
find yourself cancelling plans because you can’t shovel your car out from the
snow? The snow that has piled up
around all four tires of your rear wheel drive 4 cylinder car? You could say thanks to the man that
plowed half of the one way street you live on…but you wouldn’t…Cause in
reality, he has only trapped every car on your street in a 3 foot high ice wall
of inconvenience. So, you could
get pissed. You could try to
shovel yourself out to no avail.
Or you could go back inside, admit defeat to your friends that you were
going to hang out with, and listen to some moody post rock to take the edge
off. Nothing warms the soul like
an atmospheric build. So when you
inevitably find yourself in this EXACT situation, here are 3 songs (or a half
hour in post rock time) to patiently listen to while the salt you scattered
around your tires works to melt your car’s ice prison.
1. Sigur Ros - Hoppípolla (Takk) – Hoppipolla is Sigur Ros at their most delicate and beautiful. The song opens with a fragile piano
line that slowly opens up into a gorgeous string arrangement with a textural
reverse delay that takes off as soon as the drums are introduced. This is a song that to this day, every
time I hear it, I get goosebumps and a warm feeling in my chest that I can only
describe as the pure embodiment of hope.
Despite not knowing what Jonsi is singing about, the music bridges the
language gap with its elegant movement.
Two minutes and fifteen seconds into the song, after dynamically
dropping to almost nothing, everything comes back in with so much power and
grace that it seems to stop time around you.
2.
Explosions in the Sky – Postcard
from 1952 (Take Care, Take Care, Take Care) – EITS is a band that is
continuously evolving and pushing themselves to do different things with the
signature sound they have developed.
From giant noisy effected guitars with huge drums, to ambient room
sounds with traces of tinkling piano, EITS is moody, but in the best kind of
way. They set the mood, and they
take their time doing so. In Postcard, you get a little bit of
everything that makes EITS so cool.
Clocking at a little over 7 minutes (a shorter song for them) Postcard is a good introduction to the
prolific post rockers.
3.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – We
Drift Like Worried Fire ('Alleujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!) – Godspeed’s most
recent album gained them recognition on multiple levels. Obviously the most important being that
the album is fantastic and won critical acclaim on almost every major
review. They won the Polaris Music
Prize (a 30,000 dollar check) and promptly mocked the very notion of music
awards and the “culture money” that funded it. They are more punk rock in nature than the most devoted
punkers. 'Alleujah! Don't Bend!
Ascend! is a journey (as are most of their albums), but We Drift Like
Worried Fire is my personal favorite.
In a similar fashion to how EITS showcased their characteristic elements
in Postcard, Godspeed has a similar
showcase on Worried Fire. If you’ve never listened to Godspeed
You! Black Emperor, this is the song to start with.
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