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.
“It didn’t even represent what we were doing. Even the guitar solo has no business being in that song”: Gwen Stefani on the No Doubt song that “changed everything” after it became their biggest hit
"There was water dripping onto the gear and we got interrupted by a cave diver": How Mandy, Indiana recorded their debut album in caves, crypts and shopping malls
“It didn’t even represent what we were doing. Even the guitar solo has no business being in that song”: Gwen Stefani on the No Doubt song that “changed everything” after it became their biggest hit
"There was water dripping onto the gear and we got interrupted by a cave diver": How Mandy, Indiana recorded their debut album in caves, crypts and shopping malls
