It has amazing intensity: in a way it’s a punk record. At the same time, in terms of its language, it is very wide-ranging: you’ve this guitar and drum-centred sound and also this found objects environmental sound…. and then classical instrumentation propelled by quite minimal violin patterns. When I first heard it I loved the connection between the structural ideas from classical minimal music and the instrumentation, which was punk and post-rocky. A fantastic hybrid language. And then there’s the politics – the way it talks about society. Again very compelling.
"Post-rock" is a bit of a fuzzy term, isn’t it? However, there is something inspiring about instrumental music which doesn’t start on a piece of paper – which is what you get with Mogwai and maybe early Sigur Rós. My world, in contrast, is filled with dots on paper.
A Silver Mt. Zion also have a very anti-corporate stance. When I was at FatCat there was another offshoot of Godspeed You! Black Emperor called Set Fire to Flames. They wanted to work with FactCat and FatCat wanted to sign them. Hilariously, though, they refused to sign to FatCat, which they considered to be a gigantic corporation. Which was so funny as it was three people in a rented room living off baked beans. So FatCat had to form this other little company, 130701, to satisfy the political demands of Set Fire to Flames…which I thought was absolutely brilliant.
