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Post-rock historian Jack Chuter, author of Storm Static Sleep, selects tracks across the sprawling genre

00:00 | 05:54
Slint - Breadcrumb Trail (Remastered) 0:05:54
Rachel's - A French Galleasse 0:06:13
Disco Inferno - Starbound: All Burnt Out & Nowhere To Go 0:04:01
Main - Spectra Decay 0:04:37
Tortoise - TNT 0:07:32
Mogwai - How To Be A Werewolf 0:06:22
Do Make Say Think - Bound To Be That Way 0:07:36
MONO - The Flames Beyond The Cold Mountain 0:13:29
Neurosis - Locust Star 0:05:48
ISIS - So Did We 0:07:30
Tides From Nebula - Only with Presence 0:05:14
This Will Destroy You - Memory Loss 0:06:01
Enablers - Look 0:09:52
Jakob - Everything All Of The Time 0:09:38
Jack Chuter is the author of Storm Static Sleep, the first book dedicated to the story of post-rock music. Below, he discusses the book and assembles a playlist to accompany it.

The book is the product of over 30 first-hand interviews with some of the most prominent names in post-rock (including members of Mogwai, Tortoise, MONO and Slint, along with producer Steve Albini and journalist Simon Reynolds) and 18 restless months of research. I've watched the term mutate as music critics have misunderstood it and carelessly reapplied it, dragging post-rock away from its initial purpose in the early 1990s – when it acted as the point of congregation for some of the strangest and most adventurous manipulators of rock – and rebranding it as an instrumental music of hyperbolic emotion and cinematic scale, which has steadily amassed an international fanbase and several dedicated festivals.

For the sake of listening coherence, I'd originally considered making a playlist that focused on just one aspect of post-rock music: perhaps the wave of rock contortionists that rose up through the UK music underground in the 90s (Main, Disco Inferno), or the sweeping instrumental music that turned post-rock into a codified genre around the turn of the millennium (Mogwai, MONO). Eventually I decided to include all of it. This 90 minute selection showcases post-rock as a sprawl of stylistic influences and semantic contradiction; a blur of musique concrète collages, democratic collaboration, excessive reverb, industrial noise and neoclassical flourishes. It's a beautiful mess.

Storm Static Sleep: A Pathway Through Post-Rock is published by Function Books. Subscribers can read Abi Bliss's review of the book in The Wire 384 online via Exact Editions.

Full track listing:

Slint
"Breadcrumb Trail"
From Spiderland
(Touch And Go/Quarterstick)

Rachel's
"A French Galleasse"
From Selenography
(Touch And Go/Quarterstick)

Disco Inferno
"Starbound: All Burnt Out & Nowhere To Go"
From D I Go Pop
(Rough Trade)

Main
"Spectra Decay"
From Motion Pool
(Beggars Banquet)

Tortoise
"TNT"
From TNT
(Thrill Jockey)

Mogwai
"How To Be A Werewolf"
From Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
(Rock Action)

Do Make Say Think
"Bound To Be That Way"
From You, You're A History In Rust
(Constellation)

MONO
"The Flames Beyond The Cold Mountain"
From You Are There
(Temporary Residence Limited)

Neurosis
"Locust Star"
From Locust Star
(Relapse)

ISIS
"So Did We"
From Panopticon
(Ipecac)

Tides From Nebula
"Only With Presence"
From Eternal Movement
(Mystic Production)

This Will Destroy You
"Memory Loss"
From Another Language
(Suicide Squeeze)

Enablers
"Look"
From The Rightful Pivot
(Lancashire and Somerset)

Jakob
"Everything All Of The Time"
From Solace
(Conspiracy)

oscillateur wrote:There's lots of good stuff in there but there should be more Labradford. Probably the first band I heard labeled as post-rock in the early-mid 90's...

Faldoe wrote:

the sprawling genre

Strange Tales wrote:Out of all the Mogwai albums you pick something off of Hardcore Will Never Die?

What?

Strange Tales wrote:Out of all the Mogwai albums you pick something off of Hardcore Will Never Die?

What?

Strange Tales wrote:Sounds like your heart got replaced with your asshole and it's dumping shit directly into your body.

(you're wrong)