Silian Rail
And I You, To Pieces
500 Records
By Jose Fritz
Some critics will tell you the genre started with various 80s bands. That’s bullshit. Stereolab was aping French pop. That’s post Freedom-fries, not post-rock. Post-rock began when post- punk bands realized they were pre-something else. That’s post rock. Here, for the first time ever I am reminded of a band named The Victoria Principle. In 1998, I was crossing Union Square and I stopped to look at a tray of used CDs at a kiosk that’s not there anymore. I bought this little EP with four dragonfly wings drawn on the cover. Nobody had said post-rock yet. Nobody was even thinking of saying it, but it’s first feathery sprigs of roots began there.
Abandon the chorus, repeat the verse, fuck the stanza! Post-rock was both deconstructionist and classicist; a song is still defined by repeating themes but no longer reliant on repeated rhythms and traditional structures... It’s a kind of diabolical anthrophagy. In music we eat our own. We consume that which came before us in an effort to replace it.
There’s a mal de mers about it, but it is how this beastly cultural business of change gets done. You write the music deriving every note from the thousand years that precede you and I plagiarize a century of writers in the midst of praising the recorded effort. Bravo.
This instrumental powerhouse is a duo. Yes only a duo. But they’re a duo in the same way that Lauren K. Newman is a just a solo artist. Eric Kuhn isn’t just a drummer he’s a keyboardist, and rhythm guitarist though not all simultaneously. Robin Landy isn’t just a blisteringly versatile guitarist; she’s also a virtuoso of the stomp box. There is a subset of guitarists that can talk thru their instruments; not words per se, and not for lack of trying. She has a complete understanding of the emotional value of each note and each texture. She’s telling a story and if any of us speak her language you’ll understand it.
Think Mogwai, think Red Sparowes, think Dysrhythmia. While you’re at it try to think of what kind of people name their band Silian Rail. Silian rail is font; well, not a real font. It’s the hypothetical font on the business card of serial killer Patrick Bateman in the book American Psycho.
This series of events reminds me of a bootleg tape I heard of a gig at the Knitting Factory. Some Brooklynite hipster shouts “Are you ready to rock?” The crowd roars in affirmative response. He responds in turn “Then rock we shall!” Silian Rail shouts it: “Rock we shall!” in the same maladroit affirmative as the album title And I You, to Pieces. Rock indeed.
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