Jazz Odyssey: the pitfalls of post-rock

Simon Reynolds, perhaps the only music journalist ever not to use ridiculous barrages of adjectives in his articles defined post-rock as using rock instrumentation for music not within the usual template of rock. So I would probably go on to say that I would class Mogwai (two albums maximum) and Sigur Rós as rock, just to clarify before I plumb further pedantic depths.

I was at a friend's house yesterday and we listened to Stereolab's Dots And Loops and I was asking him if he had heard any other Stereolab stuff and he said no but he'd like to. I then asked if he had heard any Tortoise and he said that he had TNT but didn't think that he'd want to own anything else.

That's pragmatism in action, I think, because as much as Tortoise do experiment, I don't think it's sufficient enough a departure to make it necessary to own any more than one Tortoise album but I'd say two maximum. The same with Godspeed You Black Emperor. You don't need to own any Trans Am or Labradford but they're one album only type people. Slint's Spiderland is overrated but I don't object too much.

As for the aforementioned Stereolab, Pete said five, but maybe this is too liberal.

By the way, you will find plenty of objectionable material, certainly enough to call me a hypocrite at my new MP3 blog Vacuum Packed Beats.