Friday Random Ten

  1. Godspeed You! Black Emperor, “Antennas to Heaven”: What can you really say about the greatest post-rock ensemble ever?
  2. The Windmill, “Please Keep War Stories to a Minimum”: a recent post-rock discovery of mine, via bitmunk. Excellent group.
  3. Rachel’s, “An Evening of Long Goodbyes”: Rachel’s is one of the more classical-leaning post-rock groups. They’re wonderful.
  4. Peter Schickele, “Listen Here, Tyrannosaurus Rex”: The discoverer of PDQ Bach, actually doing something really goofy in his own name. Fun, but silly.
  5. The Flower Kings, “Man Overboard”: The Flower Kings are, without the slightest doubt, one of the greatest, if not the greatest of the neo-progressive bands, and they could give the best of the original proggers a run for their money. This track is part of their double-album “Unfold the Future.” It’s an interesting piece – it starts off as a
    what seems like a simple little ballad, but the chorus involves a bunch of wonderfully strange chords and time changes. Just brilliant.
  6. The Redneck Manifesto, “Bring Your Own Blood”: Another great post-rock band in,
    roughly speaking, the Mogwai vein. Another really great group – The Redneck Manifesto is one of my favorites.
  7. Marillion, “Toxic”: a live version of Marillion covering a Britney Spears song. Who knew that a Britney tune could be anything other than total trash? Still not exactly a brilliant piece of music, but it’s not garbage, either.
  8. Apothecary Hymns, “The Marigold”: A nifty track by a very hard to categorize
    band. They’re sort of vaguely like early Fairport Convention, but with a very modern instrumental sound. I first heard these guys on New York’s NPR station. They’re really good.
  9. Mogwai, “I know you are but what am I?”: Mogwai – among the best post-rock out there. Not enough good things that I can say about them. This track is an ethereal wonder.
  10. Spock’s Beard, “Onomatapea”: the first track off SBs first album after the
    originally band leader found religion and quit. I know a lot of SB fans dislike this album, and particularly dislike this song, but I really don’t know why. It’s the first SB song I heard, and I still think it’s terrific – better than a lot of the older Morse-written stuff.

0 thoughts on “Friday Random Ten

  1. Orac

    Speaking of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, anyone know if they’re ever going to cut another album? It’s been five years since Yanqui U.X.O., and the various permutations of A Silver Mt. Zion (made up of some of the members of GYBE) just ain’t cutting it for me.

    Reply
  2. Eyal Ben David

    Great to see another Post Rock fan.
    Mogwai is by far my favorite ensemble.
    Mr. Beast is a masterpiece, my favorite post rock album. I really like their versatility.
    Although I really like Slow Riot for New Zero Kannada by Godspeed, which is a 30 minutes ep, that first got me into post rock.

    Reply
  3. apy

    Moya from new zero kanada is probably my favorite track by GSYBE. Also, Sine Wave from Mogwai rocks my pants off, a sweet song title and a sweet song, another mogwai fav (and probably everyones) is Christmas Steps, it really gets amazing about 4 minutes in. Awesome music selection Mark, you might try The Tree by The Pax Cecilia if you haven’t heard. Also, have you heard the new Mars Volta Cd (anyone)?

    Reply
  4. Michael

    post-rock: John Coltrane in Japan; World Saxaphone Quartet, Satoko Fujii
    post-rock pre-rock: Sonny Rollins, Monk

    Reply
  5. Davin

    Wow – was surpised to see such a great list of prog rock and related bands! I lurk here from time to time, so I’d thought I’d like to invite all prog fans to the internet radio station I founded Aural Moon. Lots of great prog rock and art rock bands from all over the world – from the well known to the ultra obscure.
    http://auralmoon.com

    Reply

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