Storm Static Sleep: A Pathway Through Post Rock

by Jack Chuter

In an interview with Guitar World in 2011, guitarist Munaf Rayani discussed the role of each member within Explosions in the Sky. “If Chris [Hrasky, drums] were to break us down, I bet he would say something like, Michael [James] is probably the most proficient among us, so he can run finger-picking guitar lines that will kind of set a path; Mark [Smith] will add feedbacks and delay sounds and screeches and scrawls that will fill out this canopy of trees; and then I might play a melody that kind of jumps out in an anthemic kind of way. Not to say that that’s all each of us plays, but it seems to go that way. Mark’s going to colour it up, Michael is going to carry the line and I’m going to try to hang over it. Chris is the heartbeat, he’s the lifeline. As we all do this together, we arrive at these completed pieces at eight or nine minutes long, and we really don’t know how we got there. But we got there.”