what's wrong with slowcore?

[shakahislop]

i think there's a few ways to explain what it is that i get out of it. and i'm not saying that i like everything that's called slowcore. it's basically low, red house painters and codeine for me. first and foremost it is pretty often in line with my mood. second there is something about that slow sound which is spacious and exposes a lot of the grain in the vocal and guitar sounds. with guitars in particular by this point the only interesting thing that there is there for me is the huge amount of stuff you can do tonally. it is very much deconstructed rock music. third there is something about it which is quite negative, quite 'anti'.

 

[forclosure]

i think its good

I feel like i'm the cause of this and honestly it's not bad but 1) i feel like it's one of those words that used to describe a whole bunch of different bands when really it only accuratly describes about 4-5 and 2) so much of the music is dead focused on this grey monotous lethargy you just wish they'd pick up the pace a little bit

 

[shakahislop]

then on top of that like a lot of the 90s indie thing it's basically a form that a lot of people who i think are quite similar to me used to express themselves. so of course there's some resonance there.

 

[forclosure]

its definitly a depression thing why i can see people get into this stuff but some of the songs just come across like the guitarist just got stuck midway during the song writing process and decided "that was it" and alot of the bands don't have great singers either lol

 

[shakahislop]

its definitly a depression thing why i can see people get into this stuff but some of the songs just come across like the guitarist just got stuck midway during the song writing process and decided "that was it" and alot of the bands don't have great singers either lol

its like a lot of things isn't it, the bit that is offputting to most people is the same thing that's great if you're into it. the slow and repetitive guitar lines that kind of hang in the air and refuse to do anything or build to any completion are class for me. actually the thing with post-rock is that they do all of that but then do that explode into orgasm thing.

 

[forclosure]

bands who back in 1993 barely even registered but now in hindsight certain man wanna prop up and say they were the most important band(s) of their era cause this is their thing and they want it to come across as "important"

 

[forclosure]

its like a lot of things isn't it, the bit that is offputting to most people is the same thing that's great if you're into it. the slow and repetitive guitar lines that kind of hang in the air and refuse to do anything or build to any completion are class for me. actually the thing with post-rock is that they do all of that but then do that explode into orgasm thing.

shaka i'm gonna be nice to you but my god man post-rock? you gotta let that shit go man it was a dead end it's done nobody bothers with that anymore

 

[shakahislop]

the other thing like that, which you'd never call slowcore, which comes out of the drone metal thing, is the more recent incarnation of Earth, which is another favourite

 

[shakahislop]

shaka i'm gonna be nice to you but my god man post-rock? you gotta let that shit go man it was a dead end it's done nobody bothers with that anymore

yeah but the first time i heard it it was great and i loved it

 

[forclosure]

Earth are good i'll give you that

 

[shakahislop]

totally different thing to slowcore though. i mean there are some similarities but that build to explosion thing, what i'm trying to say, is that that is the exact opposite of slowcore, the point of slowcore is that it never does that

 

[forclosure]

yeah but the first time i heard it it was great and i loved it

and how long ago was that? i thought there was some interesting stuff there but it's obvious to see why the only bands from that time people seem to bother with now are slint,talk talk and maybe tortoise? (i can talk about this stuff cause at one stage when i wasn't listening to any rap i was listening to this but it's been so long since i revisited alot of it)

 

[version]

I can picture this stuff as the ghost or bones of a band like Earth. If Earth's a great slab of living whale then Low are the dried bones on the beach.

 

[shakahislop]

and how long ago was that? i thought there was some interesting stuff there but it's obvious to see why the only bands from that time people seem to bother with now are slint,talk talk and maybe tortoise? (i can talk about this stuff cause at one stage when i wasn't listening to any rap i was listening to this but it's been so long since i revisited alot of it)

about 2003 i think, i was like 17, and it was great. the trick gets old but it's a good trick.

 

[forclosure]

the trick got old FAST especially when at a certain point all the up and comers wanted to sound like either mogwai or godspeed, that's what killed it

 

[version]

Apparently "post-rock" was coined by our very own blissblogger.

 

[woops]

the trick got old FAST especially when at a certain point all the up and comers wanted to sound like either mogwai or godspeed, that's what killed it

Both shit

 

[bassbeyondreason]

At its best it gets beyond "slowed down indie rock", this is as brutal as early Swans, but with noise replaced by silence:

 

[bassbeyondreason]

This is definitely in a Talk Talk/Bark Psychosis lineage, blank wall psychedelia:

 

[bassbeyondreason]

Bedhead were less minimal, had that baroque three-guitar interplay like an arctic King Sunny Ade: