Jaga Jazzist - Animal Chin (Smalltown Supersound, 2002)

Breakneck, melodic Post Rock-Jazz madness.

A flurry of melody and breakneck rhythm, this track by Norwegian Post Rock big band Jaga Jazzist is a deliciously tricky beast. The melodic side is driven by a Cardigans-esque flute but the shifting layers of rhythms are a flood of energy and shifting directions.

It's like being thrown around in the world's first 4D helter skelter water slide. Nice.

Download Jaga Jazzist 'Animal Chin' (Post Rock mp3) (Divshare)

David Sylvian - Home (Virgin, 1986)

Loop-y instrumental moodscaping.

The 'Gone To Earth' album - a double album, no less - saw David Sylvian really cut loose with the instrumental moodscaping. Most of the second record leaves songs and lyrics behind to play with space, ambience and what sounds like the work of a loop pedal. Not sure if they had those in 1986.

Tracks like the lugubrious, gorgeous 'Home' are drenched in reverb and atmosphere and allow you to get lost in them.

Download David Sylvian 'Home' (ambient, post-rock, mp3) (Divshare)

Bark Psychosis - Pendulum Man (Circa, 1994)

Post-Rock guitar-weaving masterclass.

The term Post-Rock was, I believe, coined to describe the sound of Bark Psychosis, though it's probably Tortoise who were the harbingers of instrumental, jazziness played on traditional rock instrumentation.

Bark Psychosis' 'Hex' album is a masterclass in mood and poise and closing track 'Pendulum Man' is an expansive, airy piece that opens with interlocking guitar and bass. It develops with layers of light, treated guitar, by turns bleak and uplifting.

Whilst a distinctly different sound to Talk Talk's 'Spirit Of Eden' it does have a lightness and airiness reminiscent of that album. It also reminds me of David Sylvian's 'Gone To Earth' - another late night classic.

Download Bark Psychosis 'Pendulum Man' (post-rock mp3) (Divshare)

Do Make Say Think - Classic Noodlanding (Live, 2002)

Beautiful, rolling postrock grooving.

Utterly beguiling instrumental, jazz trumpet-tinged post rock from Do Make Say Think from the heady, post-Godspeed You! Black Emporer days on Constellation Records.

A tidy drum pattern kicks things off, leaving lots of space for guitar patterns and trumpet to weave in and out. A low slung bass underpins the groove and the track gracefully unwinds, ensnaring you with gentle twists and turns.

Download Do Make Say Think 'Classic Noodlanding (Live 2002)' (Post Rock mp3, Constellation) (Divshare)

Neil Cowley Trio - Let's Go Away For A While (Beach Boys cover) (Mojo, 2012)

Yet another gem from the 'Pet Sounds Revisited' freebie.

It's obviously hard to ruin source material as amazing as 'Pet Sounds' but the Neil Cowley Trio turn this delicious instrumental into a gently post-rocking jazz masterpiece.

Waves of bright piano roll along over a twisty post-rock rhythm section, using the song's structure from some added tension-and-release dynamics.

Tasty.

Download Neil Cowley Trio - Let's Go Away For A While (Beach Boys cover, mp3 download, Mojo) (Divshare)

Air - Alone In Kyoto (Source, 2004)

Gorgeous Satie-esque minimalism.

'Moon Safari' is fun and fresh but, for my money, 'Talkie Walkie' is Air's premier album.

A subtle, haunting record, for the most part it whispers gently in your ear and wends its way to the closing track 'Alone In Kyoto'.

'Alone In Kyoto' is a strung-out but beautiful instrumental built around a simple tone pattern and augmented with accordian, guitar and washes of sound. The chorus builds a tension over stately piano and chirrups.

The track also featured on the 'Lost In Translation' soundtrack and conjures up that film's sense of dislocation and wistfulness perfectly.

Download Air 'Alone In Kyoto' (Lost In Translation, Eric Satie, mp3) (Divshare)

Rothko - Roads Become Rivers (Rivers Become Oceans - Four Tet Mix) (Lo Recordings, 1999)

Delicious, ebbing post rock with gently skittering washes.

Rothko's gently meandering warm bass patterns are given a re-rub with Four Tet's trademark melodic skittering.

Undulating bass weaves together the track with piano and tones pulsing across the sound before a lazily euphoric percussive breakdown takes the track off in a different direction - Tortoise playing a samba band in an underground bar in Rio.

Eight minutes of insidious wonder.

Download Rothko - Roads Become Rivers (Rivers Become Oceans - Four Tet Mix) (Post Rock, Electronica, mp3) (Divshare)

Simple Minds - Film Theme (Virgin, 1979)

Early Simple Minds mood piece.

It has, of course, become something of a truism to big-up Simple Minds' early work and say how good they were before went to America and started doing the stadium rock thing.

However, when they were knocking out moody, austere little homages to David Bowie's 'Low' like this instrumental, it's hard to disagree.

Download Simple Minds - Film Theme (Post Punk, mp3) (Box.net)

The Durutti Column - Arpeggiator (Factory, 1987)

Filmic, epic beauty from 1987 Durutti Column album.

I think it was actually the sleeve - which is truly beautiful - and the label that persuaded me to buy this album. My awe of Factory told me that I should probably like The Durutti Column but it was a long time before I tried some.

'Arpeggiator' was the first thing I heard - the opening track of the album - a Windham Hill ambience drifting across the urgent, staccato drum machine and, of course, guitar arpeggios.

Poised and correct for the most part, cello cutting an austere shape across the track, it builds until a distorted, disruptive bass-y guitar comes in, tripping off skysoaring guitar.

Beautiful like a desolate moor in the snow.

Download The Durutti Column 'Arpeggiator' (Factory, alternative, Durutti Column mp3) (Rapidshare)

The Hope Blister - Happiness Strings (4AD mp3) (2005)

This Mortal Coil Mark II's  Gorecki-like rendering of David Sylvian classic.

The Hope Blister was the name that Ivo Watts-Russell gave what was effectively the fourth This Mortal Coil album '...Smile's Okay'.

A further collection of gorgeously sombre covers and originals, it featured covers of songs by Brian Eno, Slowdive, John Cale, Cranes and more. It was mined for a further album of odds and ends ('Underarms') and then a final scraping ('Underarms & Sideways') which collected string parts, fragments and such.

This string arrangement for the cover of David Sylvian's 'Let The Happiness In' is a frosty piece of modern classical, redolent of Gorecki and therefore somewhat akin to the Constellation/Godspeed You! Black Emporer sound.

Austere and restrained, it hangs in the air like a fog of longing and contemplation.

Download The Hope Blister 'Happiness Strings' (alternative, modern classical, 4AD mp3) (Mediafire)

White Hills 'Paradise' (Thrill Jockey, 2011)

Gnarly, locked-groove Krautrock/Space Rock party tune.

Don't know much about White Hills but I'll give most things on Thrill Jockey a spin, given the delights of post-rock and electronic instrumental music they have released over the years.

I'm glad I did as 'Paradise' is a relentless, trippy Krautrock groove with plumes of dirty synth twisting some nice shapes.

It is also very long, clocking in somewhere over 12 minutes. The band are also highly political, though you wouldn't know it from the instrumental music alone, and colloborate with Krautrock-sage Julian Cope on one of the Rough Trade bonus tracks.

Listen to White Hills 'Paradise' (Krautrock, Space Rock) (via ThrillJockey.com)

Hanged Up 'Klang Klang' (Constellation, 2005)

Rhythmic genius that mimics the tyranny of the machine on viola and drums. Industrial but not in a Throbbing Gristle kind of way.

I remember stumbling across Hanged Up on a bill that also featured Constellation's Polmo Polpo. Their furious storm of drums and effects-heavy viola was utterly compelling leading me to their intense and brooding albums.


'Klang Klang' is exactly that. An alternative soundtrack to the bit in 'Modern Times' where Charlie Chaplin falls into the guts of the tyrannical machine. Try it for yourself.

Download Hanged Up 'Klang Klang' (post rock mp3 download) (via cstrecords.com)

Sweet Exorcist 'Testone' (Warp, 1990)

Early bleep magic from Sheffield's crucible of a machine-driven magic.

This record is made out of almost nothing, it's incredible. A bleepline, some echo, a very simple drum machine, a bassline, a snippet of vocal sample and a bit of synth for the breakdown. That's all there is to it but, my god, it conjures up so much more than the sum of its parts.

It's a groove. It's a feeling. It sums up a whole movement and the euphoria of succumbing to the tryannny of the bleep and echospace in between the notes.

Put together by former Cabaret Voltaire man Richard H. Kirk and Richard Barrett (aka Parrot, later to form the All Seeing I) in 1989, it was one of the first releases on Warp in 1990. Its lineage can be traced right back through Humanoid's 'Stakker Humanoid' to Mr. Fingers to Strings Of Life to New Order to Giorgio Moroder to Kraftwerk. Its impact was to directly inspire ten years of dancefloor mayhem - Tricky Disco, LFO and beyond.

A true work of art.

Download Sweet Exorcist 'Testone' (WAP3, bleep, electronica, acid house mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Polmo Polpo 'Kiss Me Again And Again (TRNWRD Edit)' (Intr.Version, 2005)

Seemingly never-ending alternative disco magic version of the Arthur Russell track.

Polmo Polpo were previously known - to me, anyway - as airy, post-rockers on the Constellation label. This heads-down, locked-groove homage to Arthur Russell is something of a mind-blower. It brings Can's Krautrock disco (mp3) sensibility to the proceedings.

'Kiss Me Again And Again' is akin to the subdued, exploratory disco of Chic's production work - see Shiela B. Devotion's 'Spacer' (mp3) or Loose Joints' 'Is It All Over My Face'. A disco inside your head.

Like all great long records, it shifts subtly, mutating imperceptibly but changing the emphasis. It features locked-in guitars, precise drums, tight bass and percussion with cello and drones moving in and out of focus over the course of the track. It is magical.

I've edited out the closing seven minutes for you here so as not to discourage you from buying the full, unadulterated twenty-one-and-a-half minute version which is still available to buy from Intr.Version or to download from Alien8.

Download Polmo Polpo 'Kiss Me Again And Again (TRNWRD Edit)' (alternative disco mp3 download) (Mediafire)

New Order 'The Happy One' (Factory, 1989)

Cheeky instrumental out-take from the 'True Faith' era. Used as a link between tracks on the Substance VHS.

I'm having something of a New Order renaissance at the moment (Renaissance - maybe that'll be the name of their next compilation...)

'The Happy One' was used a link between the videos on the VHS version of 'Substance'. If memory serves, there was a video snippet reminiscent of the 'True Faith' single cover and then it was used over the credits at the end.

It's barely a song, more of a sketch with no vocal and coming in just shy of three minutes. However, it's quite irresistible and Hooky gets all soppy with a chirpy bass melody (hence, 'The Happy One') over one of Stephen and Gillian's 'Making Out' type incidentals.

Top.

Download New Order 'The Happy One' (indie alternative mp3 download) (Box.net)

Advisory Circle Mixtape (November 2011)

Expansive mix from the man behind The Advisory Circle's haunted electronica. 

Taking in library sounds, classic Techno, Radiophonic experiments and more besides, this is an intriguing mix that takes in Carl Craig (in his 69 guise), Jim O'Rourke, library guy Keith Mansfield, the timeshifted dubstep bleep of Holy Other and a host of other things I've never heard of.

'Everything is Neu' by Hatchback is a particular favourite, a rumbling synthetic hymn to the motorik beat. It builds beautifully to a euphoric splendour.

The mix opens with a track from the latest release in Ghost Box's Study Series. Entitled 'Autumnal Activities', it's Number 7 in the series of desirable 7"s and sees Pye Corner Audio in collaboration with The Advisory Circle. It's a sombre, gentle piece of public information film soundtracking, riven by the sounds of wind and the sound of a haunted oboe.

Available from the Ghost Box shop of course.

The Advisory Circle present 'Autumn Cycles' by Cafekaput on Mixcloud

The Drift 'Hello From Everywhere' (from Blue Hour) (Temporary Residence, 2011)

Rolling, post rock instrumental business from the new album, Blue Hour.

Recently included on The Wire's Wire Tapper 27 compilation, another new track from the post rock dons The Drift. The departure of two of the band since the last album sees a shift in emphasis away from gauzy jazz jams, towards a more rootsy sound.

Lovely post rock instrumental business though - echoes of the more plangent sections of Explosions In The Sky and the rolling jazz bassiness of Tortoise and Polar Bear.

Check-out The Drift on Temporary Residence and buy some of their albums!

Download The Drift 'Hello From Everywhere' (post rock mp3) (Mediafire)

Polar Bear 'It Snows Again (Live at The Spitz)' (2007)

Elegant, stately jazz procession from Seb Rochford's Polar Bear.

Polar Bear meld together post-rock, found sounds, electronics and brainfuckery into their sometimes loquacious, sometimes frantic, sometimes poised and beautiful jazz. They play in the same deep water as Triosk, Tortoise, Morphine, The Drift and, on this tune, even rubbing shoulders with the great Stan Tracey's 'Starless And Bible Black'.

'It Snows Agains' was recorded live at the The Spitz in 2007 - the venue has sadly since been replaced by property-developer flats. It meanders gently at a stately pace, accumulating feedback and noise along the way, distrupting the otherwise elegant surface.

Download Polar Bear 'It Snows Again (Live at The Spitz)' (jazz mp3) (Mediafire)

Triosk 'Two; Twelve' (The Leaf Label, 2004)

Intense and organic hybrid of post-rock, jazz and glitchy looping.

Triosk were an Australian jazz trio who blended post-rock grooves and electronic loops and glitches into their mellifluous, flowing pieces. They incorporated the sound of Tortoise's lock-groove wonder with controlled intensity, dynamics and improvisatory nous of The Necks. They evolved into Pivot (later shortened to Pvt) who have released a couple of albums on Warp.

'Two; Twelve' is a teasing, languid jam that grows in intensity across some expansive, jazzy drumming. There some Tortoise-y vibes and some rich, dark brown double bass action. Little touches of glitch and squiggle rough up the smooth edges, making the sound akin to Miles Davis' fusion band somehow jamming with Autechre at the Isle of Wight in 1970. Under sedation.

Magical. Triosk's two albums on The Leaf Label are highly recommended.

Download Triosk 'Two; Twelve' (jazz, post rock, electronica mp3) (Mediafire)

Explosions In The Sky 'First Breath After Coma' (Live, 2004)

Breathless, euphoric instrumental post rock business from Explosions In The Sky.

A piercing, repetitive single-note reveille introduces Explosions In The Sky's signature tune. It builds from there, matching melodic loveliness with blasting sonic power, conjuring up images of the fireworks of their name.

Download Explosions In The Sky 'First Breath After Coma (Live, 2004)' (instrumental, post rock, live, mp3) (Mediafire)

Download the whole Explosions In The Sky live set from Nottingham Rescue Rooms, 02/09/2004 over on Archive:Live+Rare