Mogwai - Mogwai Young Team
Looking to explore the vast soundscapes of instrumental rock and post-rock? Start here...
Long before media spats with Metallica, Mogwai put out a debut that turned the UK rock scene on its head, with delay-heavy tremolo picking and cyclic two-chord progressions the order of the day, culminating in 16-minute dynamic powerhouse Mogwai Fear Satan.
Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
The triple-guitar onslaught of this Texan four-piece marries crystalline arpeggios with gut-wrenching melodies.
Their third album is hard to top. Excerpts of its tracklisting - most notably, First Breath After Coma - have soundtracked their fair share of weepy moments in film and TV, too.
Battles - Mirrored
Featuring members of Don Caballero and Helmet, this alternative supergroup gave math-rock a shot of off-kilter adrenaline with their 2007 debut.
They garnered mainstream attention, too, with Atlas appearing in ads for Sony’s LittleBigPlanet.
Slint - Spiderland
Littered with sparse clean guitars and ripping distorted passages, this 1991 album is what many consider to be the first ‘proper’ post-rock release.
Guitarist David Pajo went on to join Tortoise in the mid-90s and short-lived Billy Corgan-led supergroup Zwan in 2003.
Sigur Rós - Ágætis byrjun
Where would BBC wildlife documentaries be without these Icelandic atmosphere merchants?
Jónsi Birgisson is renowned for his prominent use of a cello bow to form huge orchestral textures, best captured on the band’s unpronounceable 1999 album.
"Reggae is more freeform than the blues. But more important, reggae is for everyone": Bob Marley and the Wailers' Catch a Fire, track-by-track
“Part of a beautiful American tradition”: A music theory expert explains the country roots of Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ‘Em, and why it also owes a debt to the blues
"Reggae is more freeform than the blues. But more important, reggae is for everyone": Bob Marley and the Wailers' Catch a Fire, track-by-track
“Part of a beautiful American tradition”: A music theory expert explains the country roots of Beyoncé’s Texas Hold ‘Em, and why it also owes a debt to the blues
![Chris Hayes [left] wears a purple checked shirt and plays his 1957 Stratocaster in the studio; Michael J. Fox tears it up onstage as Marty McFly in the 1985 blockbuster Back To The Future.](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/nWZUSbFAwA6EqQdruLmXXh-840-80.jpg.webp)