Le rock math, I like Shellac, but were it regards the usual suspects for the most part I find it lacking in both content and real-world experience.

There are/were some great drummers in those bands who are/were awesome to watch, but I never felt like going into the records.

Don Cab, the stuff that I've heard, always sounded like a guitar instruction video to me. They must've done some good stuff and obviously had some momentum for a while, but I was listening to other things, and I don't feel like going back now.

I love Natural Dreamers though, and I can see how people would call that math rock. There's this really monolithic approach they apply to every aspect of playing in a band and it's awesome. US Maple, too.

Beyond that I can't recall any lasting experiences. Not for me I guess.

tommydski wrote:

Isabelle Gall wrote:In actuality, Math Rock means sounding a bit like:

Shellac
Slint
Don Caballero
Fugazi

These bands don't sound alike though.

They are all rock bands but beyond that, I don't really understand the comparison.

Oh Tommy, your post brings to mind Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls saying, "but, like, we don't have a problem with cliques and stuff at this school." When it's your preferred style of music, musical ideology, whatever, in question, then of course it's yeah, math rock, that's not really a genre. Right.

To me, math rock is music that's all about the super-sweet drumming, and it tends not to have a whole lot going on melodically. I'd add Battles to the above list. Also, it isn't readily sold to the folks who now pack Of Montreal shows grâce à Pitchfork and other websites--folks who probably wouldn't have sought out indie-rock fifteen years ago when you had to learn about through zines and independent record stores.

I agree with Marsupialized and Isabelle Gall. It seems like music with an ethos of refusal and it's not much fun.

That said, it can be charasmatic and interesting. I like Slint and Fugazi a whole lot.

double post

I find most math rock to be completely uninspired. I find that there's a lack of actual REAL song craftsmanship, that despite any weird time sigs the bands are often focused on a certain 'sound' that they allow to warble on and on and on.

NoMeansNo? Too biting to be math rock. While they did have a tendency to warble no, NMN always seemed to me like something of a weird power-rock band or something.

Shellac? Their songs are a LOT better than the average math rock band. Their sound, while they've influenced those math rock bands, is a lot tighter, a lot more original.

Fugazi? Yeah, sorry, but no way.

I don't know. The last few concerts I've gone to with "math rock" bands on the bill seemed to have songs that completely went nowhere.

lynx, i like them. i've even sampled them, and morphed the sample so it can't be recognized (it's from one of the more straight-up, 4/4 passages of a song of theirs).

anyhow i should reiterate... botch made some great music. i don't think i can stress that enough.

Adam I wrote:The 'math' part of 'math rock' (assuming that we're running with the notion of 'math rock' rather than writing it off as standard journalistic nonsense) describes fancy-pants time signatures/changes, non?

Isabelle Gall wrote:It has absolutely nothing to do with 'playing complicated time signatures in punk rock music'.

Adam I wrote:Also, 'math rock' usually seems to imply fairly competent musicianship. The guitaring half of Fugazi are not so much meedly-mee as clanky-skreee.

Surely there's an element of clanky-skreee in Shellac though, and you've already established that the Wiki must not be challenged! I don't really follow you here, as Ian, Guy and Steve all seem like completely rocking guitar players to me and i'd love for nothing more than to be able to play like any of them.

Adam I wrote:Alright then Ms Gall.

The bands No Means No, Bastro and Faraqet could (I reckon) be described as math rock, but they don't sound like your listed bands, nor each other.

Also Meshuggah and Dillinger Escape Plan.

The last two are metal bands, and are both solid examples of what I mentioned earlier regarding listening to complicated time signatures in music other than Math Rock. No Means No, I still know nothing (sorry, John CIV). Never heard Faraqet, although i'd quite like to now that you've mentioned them. Bastro, I almost included them with Dazzling Killmen alongside Breadwinner and Johnboy of examples of fantastic bands which haven't been appropriated as much as the main four (now three) examples, for some reason. You could say that one thing which made all those bands great was the fact they didn't attempt to co-opt an existing stylistic signature, such as Math Rock.

Anyway, what about Mogwai Adam, how do you feel about them in relation to all of this?

tocharian wrote:Oh Tommy, your post brings to mind Rachel McAdams in Mean Girls saying, "but, like, we don't have a problem with cliques and stuff at this school." When it's your preferred style of music, musical ideology, whatever, in question, then of course it's yeah, math rock, that's not really a genre. Right.

Weak and ill conceived straw man you've thrown together there with a handful of completely ridiculous premises to prop it up. Namely the idea that there is a 'Math Rock Ideology' (there isn't), that I subscribe to said 'Math Rock Ideology' (I don't because it doesn't exist and I wouldn't if it did) and the assumption that alleged 'Math Rock' bands are a specific preference of mine (they aren't).

I can tolerate and acknowledge the term 'Math Rock' as a form of journalistic shorthand but as soon as people decide it is a rigidly defined set of principles, I can't help but roll my eyes. The whole concept is ambiguous because there's no way to definitively, scientifically prove that a band is Math Rock. They are only on the basis that you decide to say they are. While this is true of many catch-all terms, I think it's fair to take the entire thing with a pinch of salt or ten.

Incidentally, I set an equal amount of store in any loosely defined sub-genre of music. I can't take the definitions seriously because I genuinely don't give a shit. It's all music at the end of the day. If it makes you happy to believe there is a genre of music called Aerodynamic Gelatinous Cuntcore, that's pretty much fine with me as long as you enjoy it and let me be.

At the risk of starting to make things ugly (and sorry Tommy, I wasn't trying to bash you), I definately do think there is a Math Rock ideology. Whenever you've got a somewhat coherent set of ideas 1.) regarding how music should be made and 2.) for evaluating how it should sound, then you've got an ideology. I'd say everyone on this board with strong opinions about music has some sort of musical ideology.

Since when have you needed to empirically verify that something is a genre? When someone says to me such and such is a math rock band, and I can more or less anticipate what that band will sound like, that's enough.

On the one hand, I dislike the term "Math Rock".

What has this music got to do with "math" (or "maths" as it's called in my part of the world)?

On the other hand: Shellac, Fugazi, Don Caballero (and the cloned Piglet), Slint, Bastro, Breadwinner, Johnboy, Uzeda make music that seems to me to be heavily focused on instrumental interplay, stark contrasts (low-end, high-end), dynamics and structure. This approach could, metaphorically, be called "mathematical".

Thankfully they all rock as well.

tocharian wrote: I definately do think there is a Math Rock ideology. Whenever you've got a somewhat coherent set of ideas 1.) regarding how music should be made and 2.) for evaluating how it should sound, then you've got an ideology.

Broadly speaking, I suppose it's fair to say that Slint and Shellac had vaguely similar intentions. Presumably they wanted to write, play, record and tour. They both share a preference for analogue recording and favour raw performance with few or no overdubs. To an extent, they share an aesthetic of sorts.

Then again, so does Jason Molina or Nina Nastasia.

tocharian wrote: I'd say everyone on this board with strong opinions about music has some sort of musical ideology.

Feasible. Personally, I give quite a lot of thought towards how bands record and how they choose to conduct themselves. I also consider their intentions as a band. I think other people might do the same but I'm not entirely sure. Specific genres that bands may or may not fall into (as we can see, it's subjective) are a tertiary concern.

tocharian wrote: When someone says to me such and such is a math rock band, and I can more or less anticipate what that band will sound like, that's enough.

I agree. That is why it is useful as journalistic shorthand. I just don't think there's a firm definition either. Once anyone tries to establish one, it gets a bit silly. Foals don't sound like Slint. I'm not nitpicking there. They just don't.