Entertainment For Lively Minds
Math rock. WTF?
Posted by robram on 5 November 2009 - 1:59pm.
So I was out last night and the talk in the pub got round to stuff we'd been listening to.
One guy who I'd never met before suddenly came out with Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies and proceeded to tell us they are part of the math rock movement.
I've done a bit of looking up on wikipedia and I'm still none the wiser and am not sure if I've missed out on something. Have I?
More to the point, is this the most bizarre genre of music out there? Other suggestions welcome...
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Well you could start here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Heavy_metal_subgenres
and follow your nose. Then you start looking at the band names. Oh dear.
ATP
a couple of years ago was a Mathrock paradise -- for those who like Mathrock. Youthmovies were there, plus Battles, who are also considered Mathrock. I have to say, though, I didn't see much commonality between the two, apart from their spectacles, an earnest approach and an obvious musicianship, so I left no more able to define Mathrock than I was when I went in.
They are definitely more boring than Post Rock bands, though, that much I did notice -- and infinitely less exciting than Post Metal.
Battles
Seemed, at the time, to be the ultimate in Math Rock...really quite good and this is a great video.
They are fantastic
but then they GROOVE which is not a very math-rock thing to do!
You gotta love any band that has a drummer in a sweater
It's only just struck me how glamtastic Atlas is.
That particular one
was insanely good live.
Bad heavy metal in 'unusual' time signatures
65daysofstatic
are also considered by some to be a Math Rock band. I only discovered this recently, having previously described them to anyone who would listen as an instrumental guitar-bass-drums band with glitchy electronica bits. In other words, a lot like Post-rock but a bit less spacey and a bit more arty.
I remain confused and frustrated by genre terminology.
NME
proclaimed Foals as the leaders of Math rock when they first appeared. Still none the wiser on what it is but if Foals were its leaders I won't lose sleep over it.
I have a maths degree
but at no point was it discussed what math-rock is.
Shame...
then ye've got yer
ROI - Rock in Opposition, wtf!?
Mathrock
Been around a while. Replace any groove with itchy & scratchy synth/guitar workouts. Get a fringe, tight jeans and a sleeveless t-shirt. Be sh*te.
Glad to see
that no-one else seems to have a clue what it is, either.
According to the wikipedia article I referenced above, the likes of Zappa and Yes were great influences on math rock. Not sure if that's a good thing or not.
What baffles me is, are we so devoid of musical ideas that we have to count beats specifically?
Eno does far more interesting things with his looping...
This is not math rock but
it does contains a sensible riposte to the damned young people that may or may not be practising math rockists...
Best of Math Rock compilation:
Cosine Your Name Across my Heart?
American Pi?
Something by Pythagoras Lee Jackson?
Euclid's on the Block?
I see what you did there
You went off on a tangent.
Ba-dum, and, indeed, tish.
Yes ~ Close to the E=mc2
BAD ~ E-mc2
The Shamen ~ EbenE=mc2 Good
Altern 8 ~ Everything Begins with an E=mc2 (I think it was them?)
E=mc2treme ~ More than Words
sorry but badartdog startE=mc2d it
I've never heard 'math rock'...
but it sounds like modern prog rock played by nerds with 5 pens in their jacket pockets.