The fall of math/One time for all time/The destruction of small ideas

Some experimental music (and the same can be said of any experimental art) seems to be making a proposal: let's take this direction and see where it goes. This type of experiment works with what there is and takes it somewhere new. Other experiments are way out there. They don't begin with what there is; they begin way off the scale and stay out there. Other experimental stuff is nothing more than the sound of guys who simply have no decent ideas, and cannot work in an accepted idiom.

I tend to prefer the first type of experiment, because let's face it, the second is largely unlistenable, and the third is no good because, simply, if you are experimenting because you're bad, your experiments will also be bad.

Most postrock is in one way or another one of the first kind of experiment. At least, the first band in each subgenre of postrock is. Several bands stretched the boundaries, but this kind of music can quickly become generic. It's a bit like IDM: you have guys like Aphex, Autechre and Squarepusher, who are genuinely innovative, and then you have others who hear it, like it and do it themselves. Not that the generic bands can't be good: Chris Clark, for instance, is clearly Autechre lite, but his work is excellent.

65daysofstatic fit in the postrock genre, and definitely the song structures and dynamics are not a million miles from those of Mogwai, say, but they distinguish themselves in a couple of ways. Notably, they incorporate elements of electronica, and particularly glitch, in a way that, despite its brazenness, feels organic, or at least does by the third album. The heavily treated instruments on the first record, Fall of math, hold the listener at arm's length, and distract slightly from 65's strength in composition. One time... shows much better integration, although the set is on the whole weaker. Both the first two albums are indulgently heavy. It's curious that electronica and heaviness fit so well together (several metal bands integrate electronica to some degree or other, although 65 is not at all metal). Destruction... is somewhat more restrained, but no less powerful. I read somewhere that 65 had aimed for a quieter album, and I think that it's more successful, because whereas the first two yelled and got in your face, the third growls. It's much more reliant on keyboards, and features some really sweet piano. It has a broader emotional range too: Fall of math aimed for a paranoid, apocalyptic fury (and hit it bang on fairly often), and One time..., although slightly drier and fuller, was fairly narrow (which is not a criticism; some bands have made entirely satisfactory oeuvres out of basically one idea, one emotion, or none at all). Destruction... doesn't exactly let the light in, but it feels broader, more human. I think that's what distinguished the first album: the electronics were used to dehumanise the music, to drain it of anything you could sympathise with and render it ice-cold and hard. Which makes for a fine album, and I enjoy listening to it when I put it on, but not one you fall in love with. (For the same reasons, I doubt you could fall in love with Confield or Untilted.)

Destruction... also plays less on the stop-start dynamics of the first couple of albums, and several of the songs return to a somewhat more standard rock. There's even a pumping 70s-feel rocker in Distant glow..., which could almost be Yes: the keyboards are wonderful spacey analoguey sweeps and burbles.

But it's still experimental, and the math rock label is not misplaced. A lot of the joy in 65daysofstatic is in the clever interplay of ideas, the shifting tempos and sliding composition. I doubt that you'd find this appealing if you weren't previously into postrock, postmetal or noise in some way, but if you are, you'll find plenty in this to chew on.

posted by Dr Zen @ 8:40 pm