Musical Discovery (genre) - Math rock

I'm aware it's been a long time since my last post and I'll eventually get to giving my conclusions of the summer 2014 anime season.  It might not be until I clear up the fall 2014 anime season though.  In the meantime, I'm gonna put up some music related posts to come back a bit more to how I started off this blog.

The topic of the day is math rock.  Math rock is a derivative of post rock and progressive rock that focuses on interesting and different uses of time signatures.  While most music currently (both rock and otherwise) follow a relatively strict 4/4 beat, meaning the beat is in 4 beat cycles, math rock employs shifts in time from 3 beats to 2 beats.  It is also common for math rock to use more exotic time signatures like 7/8 or 11/8 as well as abrupt or frequent time signature switching.

The thing about using 7 or 11 beats to a cycle is that it makes it difficult to count.  3 beats or 2 beats are short enough that it is obvious when listening to a 3 or 2 beat passage.  7 or 11 beat passages on the other hand blend in, being just one beat shy of a 4 beat cycle (8 or 12).  This leads to some interesting interactions where beat can be obscured greatly while appearing to have a relatively static sounding 4 beat.

The two bands in particular I've been listening to in the math rock vein are 'toe' and 'how to count one to ten'.  Both bands are based out of Japan and are mainly instrumental bands. The thing that strikes me about both bands is how well they are able to layer sound.  Honestly, I am quite poor when it comes to hearing and listening to beats.  However, their ability to layer different rhythms and lines fascinates me.  If you want lyrics and a catchy line, don't listen to either of them.  However if you want well formed and interesting musical ideas and good clean guitar sound, they're both fantastic.  At the current moment I'm tipping towards 'how to count one to ten' because I find the music more refreshing, but that's my opinion and if any of this sounds appealing I recommend you check both bands out.  Until next time.

--CsMiREK