6. DesertshoreMigrations Of Glass
I came across them through Mark Kozelek – one half of Desertshore and the guitarist in Red House Painters. I released a couple of Jesu records on Mark’s label, Caldo Verde, so basically we’ve been friends for about eight years and he e-mailed me and said, "I’m releasing this record by Desertshore, I think you might like it" and I downloaded it and loved it. That was their first one. All the albums are gorgeous, this is just the latest one, though it’s not on his label. I think Mark has been that busy the last year since the album, Benji, blew up for him that he’s not had time to release records.
Desertshore could get lumped in with the whole post-rock thing but I feel that not only did Red House Painters innovate that style, and Desertshore is a continuation of that, but also it sort of transcends a lot of what I dislike about post-rock. What I’m trying to say is: I find a lot of post-rock just noodling and labouring a point. I find it really conservative, no real emotional substance, it just sounds like endless jam bands, do you know what I mean? I hate jam bands, I hate jamming, so for me it’s just like, "Oh lord", but Red House Painters are so melancholy and Desertshore retain that sadness. It’s not just fucking noodling. I’m sure many would listen to it and go: "Fucking total noodling bollocks" and who am I to argue? But to me it transcends your boring average post-rock shite out there. The amount of people that send me stuff and say, "Oh Justin, listen to this post-rock record, it’s so emotionally charged, it’s got these fantastic crescendos" and they’re just really conservative.
With Jesu, I got dumped in with post-metal, another genre that’s unfortunately going down the same road. As soon as that term was arrived at, I immediately tried to distance myself from it. Having been through years of pigeonholing, I know what it is to be pigeonholed and die a subsequent artistic death. Eight million bands traverse some genre and turn it into the most bored, staid, conservative thing ever. Jesu were really popular when that whole post-metal thing got thrown at the wall and our popularity declined extremely when people were on to the next thing. That whole post-metal thing bored the shit out of me as well.
