New Record: Russian Circles, Station (May 6th, 2008)

Clearly I have lots of free time on my hands today - just a little break I’m taking to reward myself for all the successful molding of the young impressionable minds that took place during the last 15 weeks - check out this new record by Russian Circles, an instrumental trio (occasionally a duo), called Station:

Pitchfork Review: Genre names are often as lazy and reductive as those who use them. Post-rock, in particular, is now so abused and misused that it somehow covers Tortoise, Stereolab, Mogwai, and Mono. In the 90s, the term originally described rock’s subversion through its own tools. Thus, guitars didn’t have to rock or define riffs. Vocals, if present, weren’t the focus. Songs didn’t rely on verses and choruses. Over time, this open system became a closed one. Now post-rock is very much defined: instrumental rock with long songs. If it’s heavier, then the equally unhelpful “post-metal” applies. Destruction of rock’s template has only created another one; now hordes of sound- and look-alikes have ditched vocals and grown beards.

Nonelouder: Have you ever had a certain feeling about an album, it comes out of nowhere and attacks all of your senses and emotions and makes you get that small chill on your spine that allows you to remember the joy of discovering new music. With the Internet, blogs, chatrooms and all of that music is usually served up to you, you rarely find it by accident. I was lucky enough to have that happened to me a few days ago when I received the album “Station” from the band Russian Circles, an outfit I’d never heard of. When I cracked open the CD I was instantly impressed. No ridiculous logo or artwork, a simple photo of what looks like 40s army soldiers dressed up for a company photo. The layout was sparse, no photo of the band, it was as if they had forgone the fancy album artwork so you would instantly drawn to the CD itself.

Here’s a live video of the second track - Harper Lewis:

Here’s two-part video video of the title track (it’s long and trippy - must love rock and/or roll to enjoy!):