A recent-listening, post rock update: Mogwai’s new album arrived, an I’ve been playing it non-stop. You must buy this album.

Here are a couple of videos:

I rode Willowdale today. It was tricky. but a lot of fun. Particularly some open areas where the crust was strong enough for me to ride right on top, There’s a foot or more of frozen corn snow in the woods, so there’s no way to ride it if the temperature gets above freezing. Rain is comming, so it will be a while before I can ride again.

The capacitors arrived, and I soldered them in then reassembled the TV. When I powered it up and it came right on, no clicks or multiple attempts. After a shot celebration I noticed the picture looked pretty crappy. So I took it apart again and reseated a few signal connectors. On reassembly it powered up and looked back to normal.

I used “High Temp” 16V capacitors as replacements, and they’re bigger but fit just fine.

This morning I’m working by the fake fire at Starbucks. It’s 10 degrees outside, and my last fillup of heating oil was $3.90/gallon, which adds up to some incentive to sit by the fire here instead of cranking the heat at home.

Well, I’ve confirmed my TV has the dreaded bad capacitor problem. Actually, I’m relieved, as this should be a cheap fix. We’ll see. It looks like there’s 5 1000uf 10V caps that are gone.

I’ve been listening to instrumental rock for the most part as of late. I’d bought every Explosions in the Sky album I could find, and have generally played them to death. I then used Pandora internet radio, basing a station on Explosions in the Sky. Through this, I’ve heard a lot of Mogwai, a band that got my attention back in 2006 or so, and I’ve since picked up several more of their albums. Also via Pandora, I’ve heard Russian Circles, and now I own two of their albums. I’ve almost circled back to Trans Am, a band that I’ve always liked.

I’m not sure what to call this genre. It’s often called “post rock”, which seems to imply it’s beyond rock, or after rock. Names aside, there are some attributes I like in it. First, it’s based in rock, in the sense that guitar and drum set are the foundations. I’m also looking for some harmonic complexity, and expressiveness in terms of contrasts – loud/soft, major/minor, space/texture, dissonance/harmony. It’s not so much I have a problem with vocals, it’s more that I don’t like the constains that standard lyrics impose on things.

I’m not sure how Pandora actually makes it’s play list, but it tends to map in sad or busy piano playing, and a fair amount of quasi-orchestral bits. I don’t mind, and even enjoy the strings at times, but the piano has got to go. So for what it’s worth, I thought I’d pick one song from each of these three bands, plus my favourite album of theirs that I own.

Explosions in the Sky – The Only Moment We Were Alone
From the album The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place. It starts pretty soft, but they rock out at the end. I guess that’s what I like about it.

Mogwai – Killing all the Flies

Kind of a rough live version, but you get the idea. This is from Happy Songs for Happy People, which is my favourite, though they just came out with a new album, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will. I like this a lot so far, but I’ve yet to get completely though it. Mogwai tends to have quite a range, and plenty of interesting sounds.

Russian Circles – Micah

Russian circles is more rock that the other two, particularly the drumming. Micah is from Enter, and I’m not sure I like it more, or less than Station, the other album I own. They can trip up a bit on metal cliche’, and some of their compositions seem to wander to nowhere in particular. But they have their moments, and I especially like some of them in Micah. I’d like to see them replace the guitarists’ looping with another instrumentalist.

Matti and I went to Shawnee Peak Saturday. It started pretty cold, but warmed up a bit as the day went on. We had a great time. Shawnee Peak is a nice, small-ish mountain with lots of intermediate trails. No lift lines, reasonable ticket prices. it was my first time out this season, and I felt really great. Had a bit of trouble with backside turns chattering on me, but half way through the day figured out I just needed to get lower, in classic knuckle-dragger form. I do need to pick up another later to make up for the lack of body fat that used to keep me warm.

We took a walk on Crane’s Beach yesterday. It was about 20 degrees with a 20 mph wind; it was even colder than it looks. Good thing we brought the thermos. (Once again, via the HTC Droid Incredible, click for a bit higher resolution versions).