Storm Static Sleep: A Pathway Through Post Rock

by Jack Chuter

Yet unlike fans of hardcore and black metal, you wouldn’t necessarily recognise a post-rock listener if you saw one. Fandom wasn’t to be denoted by fashion. Post-rock listeners would be civilians hidden in plain sight, broadcasting their interest almost exclusively through online discussion groups and the occasional band t-shirt. Perhaps this was to do with the shifting identity of post-rock – coupled with the fact that the scene has materialised in a predominantly immaterial age – but the lack of associated accessories is probably linked to the fact that post-rock had developed a strict focus on the music, largely divorced from political or societal concerns. Post-rock listeners were often musicians themselves; online discussion forums became rife with talk about reverb and delay FX pedals, the self-promotion of solo projects, and passionate declarations of guitar and equipment preferences. It was to be the music of the introvert: listeners who preferred to retreat into their own headphones and listen to post-rock on walks and public transport.