This is a thread for the people who had expressed interest in being linked to my article on math rock. It's up now. Check it out. Discussion of bands like Hella, Tera Melos, Planets, Giraffes? Giraffes!, Twain Harte, etc. is enthused.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/feature.php?id=5305

We already have a math rock thread in the indie section..

Why'd you choose punk? That's odd.

Because this particular brand of math rock that I'm looking at grew more out of punk than anything else. Read the article and you'll see what I'm talking about.

...I know the bands that you mentioned... and we already have a math rock thread.

Dude just read the article. Math rock has hands in a wide range of parent genres. The stuff I'm going out of my way to talk about is more punk than anything. Also, this is more to give the link to the few people who had asked for it so ya.

..I don't even know how to respond.

Ok, here's a hint:
use the search feature. PM the people who were interested in your article (I was one because, HEY! I listen to Math Rock... incl. those bands you mentioned..)

This thread is called Math Rock. There is already a Math Rock thread... called Math Rock.

Crazy how this shit works, huh?

As an aside: good article; I'll have to check out Twain Harte and SWIMS.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: JGlass,

quote:

Originally posted by JGlass:
..I don't even know how to respond.

"Ok, here's a hint"
"Crazy how this shit works, huh?"

Mr Drug induced coma,

Why do feel compelled to use patronizing tones and condescending responses so much of the time?

And the "..this is how this forum should run..." approach you appear to relish, needs to be tempered with a little courtesy as well.

a band from Athens GA, We vs the Shark. Album "Dirty Version" Not too much math rock down south. By default, this may be the best.

quote:

Originally posted by Blankenfeld:

quote:

Originally posted by JGlass:
..I don't even know how to respond.

"Ok, here's a hint"
"Crazy how this shit works, huh?"

Mr Drug induced coma,

Why do feel compelled to use patronizing tones and condescending responses so much of the time?

And the "..this is how this forum should run..." approach you appear to relish, needs to be tempered with a little courtesy as well.

Why do you feel compelled to come on a music forum and do everything but talk music?

quote:

Originally posted by DFelon204409:
This is a thread for the people who had expressed interest in being linked to my article on math rock. It's up now. Check it out. Discussion of bands like Hella, Tera Melos, Planets, Giraffes? Giraffes!, Twain Harte, etc. is enthused.

http://www.sputnikmusic.com/feature.php?id=5305

sweeeeeeeeeet

quote:

Originally posted by subguy:
a band from Athens GA, We vs the Shark. Album "Dirty Version" Not too much math rock down south. By default, this may be the best.

good to see that this band is getting some love. i posted about the album in the best of 2008 thread, but no one responded so i figured no one cared about the release much. any other "math rock down south" i should check out subguy?

I grabbed the album very early in the year but it didn't do much for me.

Are they releasing another album this year? Wiki lists one called Murmurmur

quote:

Originally posted by JGlass:
I grabbed the album very early in the year but it didn't do much for me.

Are they releasing another album this year? Wiki lists one called Murmurmur

never heard of it, but i found this online about it:

We Versus the Shark are proud to present "Murmurmur," an ongoing collection of renditions of songs we've been inspired by in the past few years. Starting today, January 1st, and finishing up on December 1st 2008, each month we'll be posting a new MP3 to Quote Unquote Records of other people's jams. Some of the songs are by artists who have gained accolades in some circles but remain obscure in others; a few will be Athens bands we're excited to big-up. We here at We Versus the Shark believe that "interpreting" (whatever) other artists is a good way to learn about structure, melody, and other things we're generally confused by. Enjoy "Murmurmur."

quote:

Originally posted by subguy:
a band from Athens GA, We vs the Shark. Album "Dirty Version" Not too much math rock down south. By default, this may be the best.

There are some pretty great bands from down souf though. Circle Takes the Square has some degree of mathiness (though the point of their style is not at all to be all teched out and "mathy" but almost the exact opposite). I can't think of any that'd be considered math rock off the top of my head but I'm sure there are more than a few.

I tend to disagree with the assessment that Math-Rock sort of came from punk. Though parts definitely owe a great debt to post-punk, i tend to believe that Math-Rock usually only shares a similar tempo to punk rock (that is, generally pretty fast). I think of math-rock as hyperactive prog, and would align many bands to the genre. Included would be Deerhoof and Battles alongside Drive Like Jehu (who you mentioned in the article) and that San Diego scene (I love me some Clikatat Ikatowi). However, i think your focus left out a lot of bands, ranging from Speedking (James Murphy's pre-LCD Soundsystem band) on through to Shellac and Polvo. Math-Rock tends to fall under several variations, but the one here seems to be tightly-wound post-punk.

Check out anything with Toney Joy after Born Against, name The Convocation Of... and Universal Order of Armageddon. Universal Order especially has that kind of spazzy math-punk feel.

I tend to think that you are actually referring to spaz-rock or technical post-hardcore if such a thing exists (like Botch or DEP). Math-rock, to my mind, consists of bands that sound like King Crimson on speed, or a tighter Captain Beefheart, like Don Cab or Shining or even Battles.

I think Syncopation is key to math rock, so the Police, as much as I abhor Sting, might be an early-ish pre-cursor to math-rock. Nobody can fuck with Stuart Copeland, that's for sure.

I've always thought of Math Rock as Modern aggressive music's answer to Prog, as well..

quote:

Originally posted by CleverName84:
I tend to disagree with the assessment that Math-Rock sort of came from punk. Though parts definitely owe a great debt to post-punk, i tend to believe that Math-Rock usually only shares a similar tempo to punk rock (that is, generally pretty fast). I think of math-rock as hyperactive prog, and would align many bands to the genre. Included would be Deerhoof and Battles alongside Drive Like Jehu (who you mentioned in the article) and that San Diego scene (I love me some Clikatat Ikatowi). However, i think your focus left out a lot of bands, ranging from Speedking (James Murphy's pre-LCD Soundsystem band) on through to Shellac and Polvo. Math-Rock tends to fall under several variations, but the one here seems to be tightly-wound post-punk.

Check out anything with Toney Joy after Born Against, name The Convocation Of... and Universal Order of Armageddon. Universal Order especially has that kind of spazzy math-punk feel.

I tend to think that you are actually referring to spaz-rock or technical post-hardcore if such a thing exists (like Botch or DEP). Math-rock, to my mind, consists of bands that sound like King Crimson on speed, or a tighter Captain Beefheart, like Don Cab or Shining or even Battles.

I think your problem is that you looked at my article as trying to define math rock as a whole. I made a big point of mentioning that math rock is multifarious and pluralistic. There are many different iterations of math rock that have different pockets and scenes around the country. The brand of math rock I was breaking down came a lot more from California's punk tradition that it did from elsewhere. That argument wouldn't hold for, say, the Louisville brand of math rock, which pushes up against post-rock and indie quite a bit and I'd say was derived coinciding with the development of the midwest indie / emo scene. So let's get this straight. Bands like Hella, Tera Melos, etc. are much more punk-derived than other brands of math rock. I think this is what makes them even more notabl; they are from a different musical tradition yet coexist and are lumped into the same genre as more indie-derived music. It's an interesting thing to look at. You guys are sort of killing the intrigue of that distinction by satisfying the need to discuss the math rock you know (Battles et al).

Also, nobody who listen to Dillinger Escape Plan or Botch call it mathcore or whatever the fuck people call it. It's just metal and metalcore. Quite genre transcending metal and metalcore, but only critics and wanna-be critics bother with the "math" tag on those bands. There are so many "-core" labels at this point that anybody who actually listens to "-core" avoids that tag at all costs.

quote:

Originally posted by DFelon204409:

Also, nobody who listen to Dillinger Escape Plan or Botch call it mathcore or whatever the fuck people call it. It's just metal and metalcore. Quite genre transcending metal and metalcore, but only critics and wanna-be critics bother with the "math" tag on those bands. There are so many "-core" labels at this point that anybody who actually listens to "-core" avoids that tag at all costs.

I was okay with your summation up until this point. Did you get drunk and angry at this exact point in time? Your first paragraph was well-argued and I actually thought you understood what I was actually getting at (rather than making this about you or your article). I read it critically, and understand that you didn't intend it to be the be-all-end-all of math-rock, but you're missing my point entirely. And the Post-Rock point of Louisville bands is a bit misguided i think, considering Slint, Rodan and the like are basically post-hardcore or post-punk but with interesting fretwork and octaves coupled with rhythmic time changes... Sloooooowed dooooown though.

But the implied swipe that i don't listen to DEP and Botch is absolutely absurd, man. And yeah, mathcore was something i just spouted out of my anus while typing, but i don't think it's some kind of genre term that applies to a vast array of bands. DEP plays math-rock in a hardcore spirit and breakneck speed, does that tickle your fancy a little better?

So are you a wanna-be critic or is that me?

I've actually seen quite a few knowledgeable -core kids refer to Botch and DEP as Mathcore..