math rock
by sebastian sanchez
It sounded like the making of a Jackson Pollock piece. The notes flourished through the air like color being splattered on a canvas with grace and confidence. The mercurial sound allowed me to freely be in the moment. It is the perfect combination of chaos, grace, complexity and precision. Math rock is a style of music born in the ‘80s, involving sporadic playing and complicated time signatures. Kevin Murray, the drummer from Percentage and The Investors explains, “Math rock I would say is an extremely rhythmically complex music.”. Despite its huge underground success, math rock has yet to hit the mainstream and continues to fluctuate in terms of popularity. Since its infancy, math rock has moved up and down in popularity rankings. Due to its complexity it was difficult for a general audience to appreciate math rock for what it is. New forms of math rock started appearing in the Bay Area in the early 2000s . Now the genre is making a comeback with a new generation of math rock bands forming in the late 2000s. The bands currently making a name for themselves in the local scene are Bird Caravan, The Investor’s, Percentage Bridge, and Floral.
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Early math rock was progressive music that never progressed. Progressive music is a genre that’s defined by artists experimenting with new concepts and ideas. For example, in the early 90’s a band named Tool started to become popular. At the time the early 90s was known as the era of “Grunge Rock,”, bands like Nirvana, Alice in Chains, and Stone Temple Pilots that usually consisted of simple chord progressions and 4/4 time signatures. Tool at the time was making deep melodic music while using complex time signatures and song structures. This was the only time anything similar to math rock came close to becoming mainstream. When people heard math rock it was usually a heavy hard rock form of it, so only some fans within the hard rock genre were into the music. Initially it was seen as an oddity. Many individuals lacked insight and understanding of the music, causing people to underestimate its potential. This spawned a strong underground following for this unique take on music. Due to math rock’s eccentricity, the genre attracted a particular group of of people. In the mid 80s math rock was drawing attention since the music seemed to cultivate a similar style, resulting in the genre’s popularity diminishing gradually and surviving only because of its remaining devoted followers.
The unique thing about the original math rock fans and the more recent followers is that they both have the same motivation. Drummer of Floral And writer/Guitarist of the Investors says, “I think a lot of people are just attracted to something they haven’t hear before, you know”(Murray). At a certain point when there isn’t any variation in the music you listen to, it can become boring. It can also be seen like “Math rock songs are dense and complex, often with multiple guitars playing in different time signatures, and songs can (and most often do) take sharp, unexpected turns” (“Math Rock”) Math rock is an extremely broad genre that is incorporated into many other types of music. One of these were people who played Jazz. Jazz musicians are used to playing in odd pieces but it’s only within jazz. So musicians made a really complex and jazzy sounding form of math rock.
math rock broadly speaking i think is rock music with somthing noticeably unprcabledictable about the rhythms - mayer 4
After the math rock scene had settled for a bit, fans who were also musicians saw the potential of growth and started to apply the concept to different forms of music. Ty, the drummer of Floral, was personally inspired by those early hard rock and metal forms of math rock like Dillinger Escape plan and Meshuggah. He explains, “them and meshuggah was like the two bands that first introduced me to the idea of crazy time signatures in music and unpredictable rhythms” (Mayer). Eventually the bands of early fans would start to gain popularity and help the revival of math rock in a bigger way. One of these groups was a duel between Spencer Seim and Zach Hill, now the drummer for Death Grips, a band started in the early 2000s under the name Hella. Although their music may have not been the easiest to digest, it definitely struck a chord with some individuals. Hella soon started to gain popularity, inspiring more musicians to experiment with this genre, causing a new generation of math rock bands to emerge with varying musical styles. According to Bird Caravan bassist Shane Hunt-Dusse, “So everyone just did it just in their garages and in their basements, experimenting with weird amps, weird sounds, weird guitar tunings, anything that was unconventional.”
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Mainstream music has always been about being popular. The celebrities who make it are only interested in appealing to the masses, whereas math rock has always been about challenging the norm and yourself to create a form of music that is true to the artist. Ultimately, math rock is about breaking the boundaries of what most consider normal. Shane reflects, “When I started to meet these people that all liked math rock, they were all very nice, very artistic, very into pushing their boundaries constantly” (Hunt-Dusse). “I don’t think math rock is ever going to really reach a critical or mainstream acclaim because it’s just, it doesn’t have the groove that I think most people are looking for in music” (Murray). Math rock isn’t just played to be dance along to, it’s to be experienced. The artist who play math rock are not preoccupied for its popularity, but of course it is exciting when more people take interest. The nature of math rock is very sporadic. In other words, “ ...it’s not danceable by any means” (Murray). A unique thing about math rock is the drumming. In most forms of music the percussion is meant to just keep the groove going with flashes of solos and fills here and there. “The real rock stars in Math Rock bands are the drummers” (“Math Rock”).Cranked. The drumming is one of the things people first notice when they hear math rock for the first time. “In math rock, the drummer’s role is definitely elevated” (Murray). Math rock drummers are some of the most talented drummers to play. The style of math rock drumming is sporadic, fast, and complex. Being able to play odd time signatures is already difficult and and takes years to master, but to do it with eccentricity is what makes the drumming so interesting.
there are emotions i feel whene im hearing math rock that i cant get listening to other music - Hunt dusse What makes math rock so interesting is the amount of skill it takes to play, but it remains so underappreciated. It has been shunned from the mainstream for so long and yet the musicians are still creating music because they believe in the art. Groups of incredibly talented musicians are continuing in the genre. Math rock today has changed its look but not its style. With the genre becoming so popular in the underground, it has reached success around the world. Now foreign countries such as Poland and Japan are creating a math rock scene. Hollow ran has done tours in Japan, and now Floral will be doing so too. Math rock has always been a quirky style of music. An oddity in the music world. Now because of its revival and new sound, the music is becoming more widely liked. It may not be as heavy as the original bands but it is still definitely as weird. 8
work cited Hunt-Dusse, Shane Personal interview Hunt-Dusse Mayer, Ty Personal interview Murray, Kevin Personal interview Desombre, Auriane, Eddie Rodriguez, Dennis Hong, Dennis Fulton, Eric Yosomono, Douglas A. McDonnell, Evan V. Symon, and J.F. Sargent. “Math Rock.� Cracked.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2017
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This is Sebastian. He is a musiction from the bay area. He is currently working on a few musical groups specificly on his doom rock group Crow Eats Man. He enjoys going to local shows to suppost artist whether it is music or art.
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