RockRoast

Thanks to a recent blog post from the WFMU radio station, I’ve been made aware of a band who’s entire discography is available online for free.

Go back and read that again. Yeah, it’s free. Pretty much all of it, including compilations and live performances. I think there’s even a single thrown in there. But the catch is that the band is Bourbonese Qualk. It’s not like U2 decided to make their dozens and dozens of well-known, well-loved songs available for free. It’s Bourbonese Qualk.

Never heard of them? I hadn’t. Apparently they were an experimental band formed in the early eighties. From 1983 to 2000, they released nine full-length albums. They disbanded following the death of guitarist Miles Miles in 2002. Since then, former members of the band have dedicated a website to the free distribution of their music.

I’m only finishing up their second album now, but so far the music has been very intriguing. “Experimental” certainly is the easiest way to describe Bourbonese Qualk, but it’s not an exact descriptor. What I’ve heard so far is ambient music that, in places, is strongly reminiscent of funk, no wave and electronica. I’m also wondering if this stuff is one of the earlier incarnations of–or at least an influence on–post-rock. It’s weird. It really is. But it’s also kind of cool.

If you’re interested in ambient, funk, no wave, electronica, post-rock, or the broad genre of “experimental music,” you should give it a try. All nine albums are available at . Download to your ears’ content.

Although, a word of advice…if you try going through it chronologically and you don’t like the first album, Laughing Afternoon, don’t give up just yet. I didn’t much like Laughing Afternoon, either, but I found Hope to be much more enjoyable.

A Silver Mt. Zion’s most recent release, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons, has one of the most unconventional tracklistings I’ve seen in a while. The first twelve tracks are untitled and serve as a brief introduction to track thirteen and the four substantial tracks on the record.

13 Blues is pretty much par for the course as far as post-rock is concerned, although its use of vocals is a bit adventurous. Even though the song “1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound” contains a very well-layered vocal arrangement, for the most part, the vocals suffer from disuse and misuse. A Silver Mt. Zion seems to treat the human voice as just another instrument. As such, instead of carrying a melodic tune, the voice is used to produce the same repetition, dissonance, and occasional blandness as the rest of the instruments in the band. This kind of thing can work with a guitar or a violin, but with a voice, it becomes annoying very quickly. The title track is good evidence of this, as the flat, repetitive vocals tarnish an otherwise polished song.

The lyrics, penned by guitarist Efrim Menuck of Godspeed You! Black Emperor fame, are abstract and impenetrable. Menuck manages to get across his anger and frustration and radicalism without ever actually making any sense, a feat that could is both admirable and idiotic.

Other than the vocals and lyrics, the 13 Blues seems to have the advantages and drawbacks typical of most post-rock. The songs suffer from lengthy compositions that can lose the listener’s interest in places and the occasional dissonances are at times too ugly to be effective. However, the music has obviously been arranged with care, and the haunting, beautiful introductions invariably build powerfully to dramatic climaxes that can make the boredom and cringing of the last ten minutes totally worth it.

Although two of the songs are relatively weak, the tracks “1,000,000 Died to Make This Sound” and “Blindblindblind” make the album worthy of a few listens. But in the end, 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons is far from a masterpiece and far from an abomination.

Buy it if: you like post-rock, you rebel against everything popular, or you don’t mind waiting ten minutes for a song to finally get around to blowing you away.

Score: 5/10

Available at Amazon.com

Top Albums of 2008 To Date

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven (2000)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor

This is not an easy album to describe. It’s good, though, I can promise you that. Antennas to Heaven is composed of four lengthy tracks (the shortest is almost nineteen minutes long) presented in complex arrangements. True to the post-rock genre, the songs are all structured around repetition and gradual modification of their themes.

But, surprisingly, despite the lengthy and repetitive nature of the music, the songs seem pass you by pretty quickly. Perhaps the first listen of Antennas to Heaven will leave you feeling confused, as it’s nearly an hour and a half of slow-paced, moody instrumental music and occasionally abrasive sounds. Give the record another chance, however, and you’ll find yourself being drawn into the long, slow-building crescendos to Godspeed’s masterful, cinematic peaks. The band obviously know how orchestrate a dramatic climax, and they demonstrated those skills several times on each of these four songs.

It’s long, and it’s probably boring the first time, but Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven is undeniably worth the time required to properly appreciate it. And most importantly, it gets better every time you hear it.