Life After Rock
Chicago’s Tortoise was held up as a proud exemplar of the post-rock ethos, but the band resists any sort of pigeonholing. Tortoise records for Thrill Jockey Records, which soon will release work by the young Chicago trio Rome and the experimental German trio Oval. Both these bands exude a certain glee about leaving rock in the dust, and they intentionally “misuse” recording technology to produce new sounds. The musical connection between them is tenuous at best, but as the dominant sound of alternative rock continues to calcify, Rome and Oval stand together, intentionally or not, in fierce response to rock’s stasis.
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Berlin’s Oval–the trio of Markus Popp, Sebastian Oschatz, and Frank Metzger–betray little connection to rock in either their radical methods or their music. One of their primary achievements is a vibrant critique of modern music’s mechanical means of production and the alienation they produce in the consumer. Popp has claimed he doesn’t even like music, but Oval delivers compelling textures of undeniable beauty.
