• A Brief History of Post-Rock

    August 14, 2014 - By 

    Of the countless genre names that describe modern music, post-rock is probably the vaguest of those widely used. Open to generalisation, uncertainty and blind exaggeration, it has no commonly accepted definition and many acts including Tortoise and Mogwai have distanced themselves from the term. That said, much like postmodernism or the avant-garde, there remains a general consensus about the development and essential traits central to this most ambiguous of labels, currently used to describe the likes of This Will Destroy You, Mono and our very own Adebisi Shank, And So I Watch You From Afar, etc. Brian Coney attempts to trace…

  • Classic Album: Talk Talk – Spirit Of Eden

    May 16, 2014 - By 

    Mark Hollis sits alone in his front room. He is tall, shaggy haired and slightly stooped. Frameless glasses are perched on the tip of his long nose as he flicks through a library hardback on the workings of the inner ear. In the corner of the room is a piano draped in grey oil cloth. It resembles a stunted pygmy elephant with unnaturally dainty feet. The piano is covered with books and the books are covered with dust. Hollis hasn’t played it in years, in decades. Not since he perfected music, in fact. Not since he finished it. Mark Hollis…