An Overview of Post-Rock and Avant-Garde

For decades there have existed certain genres of music that were dedicated to counteracting the tendencies of popular music. Whether it be their opposition to popular song structure, chord changes, song lengths or typical time signatures and phrasing, many bands have become successful simply from becoming a stark contrast to their more trendy brethren. Seven years have passed into our new millennium, and musicians are currently racking their brains on how to come up with something new and fresh. Instead of continually plodding through the avant-garde however, many bands have decided to take their art full circle by reverting back to their musical roots and simplifying their songwriting process. With so many modern bands attempting to fill up their songs with superfluous passages and cram as many ideas as possible into one 4 minute song, the progression towards a more simple approach to songwriting seems like a logical step forward in many regards.

As mid-80s hardcore punk bands began drawing heavy influences from metal, the lines blurred and a hybrid genre, simply called "hardcore", emerged. This brief exploration was almost immediately spearheaded by the same political meandering that originally led to the downfall of punk music, but a handful of great experiments made it through – one of them being a band called Isis, a pioneer at the forefront of the “simplification” movement. From this movement spawned a new genre, which is now referred to as post-rock – the “post” referring to a reinvention of an established concept, as in postmodernism or post-structuralism. Along with the creation of this genre came an entirely new mentality where bands attempted to make their music come across as a work of art, rather than just a few songs to bob your head to. There is a definite attitude amongst these bands that art and music are interchangeable, and Aaron Turner, the front man for post-rockers Isis, feels that "the songwriting and the artwork come from the same place. This logic relates to visual and aural aspects as well as overt intellectualization, through both literary references and driving philosophies.” In addition, books such as Don Quixote, House of Leaves, Labyrinths and the philosophies of Jeremy Bentham all play a role in shaping the themes of Isis' releases.

Being one of my favorite bands in recent memory, the artistic aspirations of Isis is a very admirable trait – one that would be refreshing to see more mainstream bands take a hold of as opposed to only the underground “artists.” When you listen to an Isis album, it is more than just a listening experience. The texture of the musical pieces come alive and captivates you in their own environment, similar to the way films pull you into the lives of the main characters and compels you to invest emotion into their lives and experiences. There is an overt intention of progressing heavy music present in Isis' output; a desire to further the intellectual cause that pushes them forward. This is evident within the clear progression of their sound from release to release, their influence on heavy music, and their acceptance in art circles where other metal and rock bands are not so readily embraced. Their stated goal is to not break away from the scene that they came from, but rather to expand upon it. Publications such as Terrorizer attest to how Aaron Turner has completed his goal, "Turner has loosened hardcore from its geographical roots, and in the process created an intimate, yet immeasurable vision all of his own". Turner has complained that "metal in general has long been unjustly maligned as solely the province of knuckle-dragging meatheads. That said, there's never been a group of musicians like there is now, who are helping to advance the form."


While hoping that more popular bands may also see the light at the end of the proverbial artistic tunnel may not be entirely hopeless, it would seemingly go against the other half of what post rock stands for. In addition to simplifying the songwriting formula, post rock is also defined by its unique structure: songs tend to evolve to a crescendo or climax (or multiple ones within a song), building upon a repeated theme or chord shift, whereas more mainstream and popular music, however, often adheres to verse-chorus-verse conventions of song structure. As Aaron Turner of Isis states, "the standard song format of verse-chorus-verse-chorus is something that has been done and redone, and it seems pointless to adhere to that structure when there are so many other avenues to explore". The result of this is often long songs, commonly in the range of six to eleven minutes. Therefore a typical post rock track is not generally suitable for radio play, nor is it commercially viable. Similarly, albums are often created as quasi-conceptual, creating the greatest impact when listened to as a whole rather than picking out one or two favorite songs for listening.

Heavy metal reached a commercial apex with the hair-metal bands of the '80s, but those spandex-and-lipstick connoisseurs were often looked down upon within the greater heavy metal scene. Metal, many argued, should be punishing and morbid, not garish. So while the flashy acts caught on in the pop arena, the metal mainstream focused on technique and form, honing a high degree of technical complexity. By the early '90s, eccentrics like the Melvins and the Flying Luttenbachers were acting on the belief that heavy music was compatible with an avant-garde sensibility. Albert Mudrian, editor of the year-old metal magazine Decible asks: "Is art conscious or unconscious? Up until now, there was art in metal, but there wasn't for the most part a self-awareness about it. Now, these new artists have that, and they want to be painted as such." Some fear that the self-conscious positioning of art-rock and art-metal bands has done a disservice to worthy acts who stick closer to tradition, and who are often ignored, if not outright scorned, by outsiders. John Darnielle, the singer-songwriter who performs as The Mountain Goats and writes frequently about metal, said, "People want to listen to harder stuff, but they don't want to venture far beyond their own backyard."

There is a reason why radio stations and channels like MTV continue to churn out formulas of the same bands and artists, rehashed and unchanged in auditory qualities. "I think a lot of bands underestimate the intelligence of their audience, as well as people’s willingness to experience different things,” Turner claims. Mainstream listeners are often either too afraid to exit their listening comfort zone to experience new music, or simply do not care enough to dig deep and search for more interesting bands that they could enjoy on a greater level. As Turner’s band slowly grew in popularity in the underground rock and metal scene, they were invited to open for the wildly popular hard rock band, Tool. Isis’ front man Aaron Turner isn't stupid - he knew that his band was certain to get booed by Tool fans when Isis would head out on the road with Tool’s collection of avant-metal cohorts, but that did not stop him from trying to open up a few minds. Prior to going on stage, Turner realistically predicted the near future, “You're bound to have a larger meathead contingency in your audience when you open for a band as big as Tool, and we're very aware of the fact that a good portion of the people at these shows will be bored to tears or perhaps even angry while we're playing. In one way, we're really excited about it, but in another way, we're realistic about it too.” When fans become dedicated to such a formulaic approach to music, it is difficult to introduce new ideas and concepts into their listening equation.

While bands like Isis are attempting to reinvent a somewhat classical songwriting formula, there exists a small group of unique bands who are attempting to scrap everything that human beings have conceived as music and gone back to a more “primal” methodology. The most popular band in this group goes by the title Sunn 0))), named after an amplifier company that produces ultra-low frequencies. The genre of music that Sunn 0))) plays under is identified as “drone”, mainly because this style consists of droning notes that last for long periods of time. Melody, vocals or any sense of rhythm are usually absent from these types of songs, and instead focus on extremely distorted guitars. Quite probably some of the most atmospheric soundscapes in music today, the key to creating successful drone ambience is through minimalistic riffs and sounds to paint a picture in your mind. The lyrics, if present, deal with abstract concepts, but are usually melancholy as a whole. Music that contains drone style instrumentation can also be found in many parts of the world, including the Japanese gagaku classical tradition, Scottish pibroch piping, didgeridoo music in Australia, Hindustani classical music, and pre-polyphonic organum vocal music of late medieval Europe . However, concept of motionlessness and long tones occurring in classical compositions during adagio movements, as well as in Northern European folk music in the form of "slow airs" has recently descended into modern popular and electronic music. The modern genre of drone music is most often applied to artists who have allied themselves closely with underground music and the post-rock or experimental music genres. While the hallmarks of drone music are easy to recognize, the backgrounds and goals of the artists vary greatly.

Now that music has seemingly come full circle in a structural sense, you may be asking yourself why there have not been very many fresh ideas in the music industry for the past couple of decades. Has music taken a step beyond the limits of our current technological limitations? Have we succeeded in creating every type of music that is enjoyable to the human ears? Are the instruments we have been playing for hundreds of years too simple to allow for any advancement in musical discovery? To answer these questions, one must first observe the concept of music in and of itself.

At its core, music is an art form consisting of sound and silence expressed through time. Elements of sound used in music are pitch, rhythm, structure, and sonic qualities of timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture. The human ear can only pick up a certain number of frequencies, and while the globally used concept of a chromatic scale only has twelve notes, this number can be multiplied depending on the octave capability of a particular instrument. At a maximum, one instrument is only capable of producing 48 different sounding notes. Even with the rare tendencies of some experimental artists incorporating quarter-step intervals into musical scales, this leaves us with a total combination of 144 musical notes. While chords may incorporate multiple notes and may sound different than playing a single note, a chord always reverts back to its root, which may be any of the 12 notes in the chromatic scale. Throw in diminished, augmented and minor chords to the equation and you may be increasing musical variety by a slight margin, but nothing drastic when considering how musical chords are designed. While all this technical talk may be just crunching numbers, try applying to it music in a more practical sense. A common, three to four minute song usually only encompasses between four and six different types of chords, which is then only a handful of different notes. Out of all of the millions of songs that have been created over the past few hundred years, only recently have we been seeing similarities in melody and structure. There have even been a few lawsuits between bands because one inadvertently created a song that sounded almost identical to an older song (Red Hot Chili Peppers versus Tom Petty, for instance).

With such a limited amount of melodic possibilities, it would be safe to say that our musical system has worked very well, given the duration of its usage. But, since more and more modern musical artists have been cutting it close between the fine line of copyright infringement and original material, what can we possibly change or create to add even more variety to this seemingly stale form of entertainment? Bands like Isis and Sunn 0))) took an interesting step both backwards and forwards by delving in the post-rock/post-metal and reinventing an existing concept with a new spin, but you can only go so far with something that has been done before. Since there is no definite or clear cut solution to this dilemma, the only thing we can do at this point is to voice our own personal opinions. I feel that there needs to be a collective effort within society to do just that – have everyone voice what they feel needs to be done to give music another push forward. Maybe listeners could propose sounds that they would enjoy embracing through their ear drums in ways they never have; want to get rid of musical structure completely? Try creating a genre that is wholly dedicated to improvisation, as well as experimental by incorporating instrumentalists that are unfamiliar with each other or by involving unfamiliar instruments to particular virtuosos. It may seem difficult to add experimentation and variety to something that has outwardly remained unchanged for so many years, but the possibilities are right under our noses (or ears, as it were).