Instrumentals

So instead of studying for my Monday midterm, I'm posting on the good ole blog. It turns out I'm really bad at writing about music in a timely manner, and I've therefore decided to have Ben Gordon run MP3 Intensity this summer. I did write six pretentiously hipster reviews for seeding round, and for what's it's worth, I'm pretty damn proud of my ability to sound like I know more about music than I actually do.

Anyway, here are a bunch of songs with no words. These more or less fall under the genre of post-rock. Honorable mention to Mogwai, El Ten Eleven, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.


Explosions In The Sky is easily my favorite band from this genre, although their most recent album didn't thrill me. I found out about these guys the way I suspect most people found out about them: Friday Night Lights, a great movie made better by a unique and exceptional soundtrack. The theme from that flick, "Your Hand In Mine," is definitely an incredible song, but it's become pretty well-known and I suspect most of you already have it. And while "Your Hand" made for some great background music when "parking" with my gf in high school, I actually think, "The Only Moment We Were Alone" is their best song, mainly because it's so damn dynamic (how's that for alliteration?) and just fucking blows you away in the last minute. Instrumental tracks often employ on what I like to call the quiet-build-climax-repeat pattern, relying on a series of crescendos and decrescendos to make lyricless and usually lengthy tracks worth paying attention to. EITS does this so well here.

Explosions In The Sky - "The Only Moment We Were Alone"


Yndi Halda is a relatively unheard of post-rock band as far as I know. But damn, their shit's good. They have a very similar style to Explosions In The Sky and again do a great job with the quiet-build-climax-repeat thing. In fact, their 12-19 minute pieces are basically divided into multiple movements with recurring themes. Very cool. But to get to the point, they have one album consisting of a mere four tracks (each 12+ minutes). If you like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Explosions or anything like that, I'd highly recommend pirating Enjoy Eternal Bliss off of waffles.fm or what.cd (ps, let me know if any of you guys want/need an invite). I'm very impressed by the last 2 minutes of this song, but you need the first 14 to really appreciate it.

Yndi Halda - "Dash And Blast"


Here's one that Dorner actually blitzed me way back in the fall upon my request for some quiet "piano songs" to study to. Although this song makes for horrible study music, it does have piano, which I'm always a sucker for. Jesse Victor, this one's for you.

65daysofstatic - "Radio Protector"


I only own one album by Do Make Say Think and have really only listened to this one song. But it's money. Pretty chill vibe in the beginning with the melodic sound effects, the entrance of a cool string instrument (could it really just be a guitar?) and what I'm pretty sure is a French horn (I fucking love French horns!). Halfway through it jumps into something a little more upbeat, electronically-fused with shit tons of sounds. One word description: groovy.

Do Make Say Think - "Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!"