The quiet and the loud

On January 26th, Migos released Culture 2 (2018), a rumbling banger that debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s top 200 chart internationally. It’s the trio’s second album to top the national list, the first being Culture (2017). A couple weeks after that, Sigur Ros released a soundtrack for an Icelandic art installation at Reykjavik’s Winter Lights Festival, the first project of this type the post-rock band has done; I haven’t been able to stop listening it. Something made in a small corner of the world, known only to locals and maybe 1,000 individuals, and here I was listening to it with full intent, loving it. The close timing of the releases from the two separate artists seemed poetic: two completely different genres which just happened to collide in the same vicinity of ear-space just because of one listener named Jonah Thedorff. And, like any avid listener who switches between two artists continually, maybe I can’t help but begin to compare them and notice the sonic differences and similarities of the genres as a whole. Maybe I realize two genres stand for two completely different approaches in music. Maybe I realize the drastic interplay between sound, musical principal, and a newfound respect for both that makes me want to talk about it and write a column.

Post-rock is a musical genre that arose in the 1980s, known for relying heavily on instrumentals to create sonic soundscapes. It focuses on the sound progression and musical textures rather than traditional narratives in music, such as lyrics or stories. Think classical music but with more electronic instrumentals and techniques that’s paired with heavy musical mixing. My Bloody Valentine helped establish the sound of Post-Rock, or as others call it, shoegaze, through their album, Loveless (1991). MBV’s sophomore album helped establish their sound forever. Their melty, dissonant guitar leads paired with ghostly vocals in the 1980s solidified the band as pioneers for the genre. Since then, bands like Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions in the Sky, and Mogwai have picked up the legacy of the genre and expanded it into the post-rock of today: characterized by a heavy hitting focus on instrumental and sonic rhythm.

That notion brings me to trap-rap, A.K.A. trap music. Trap’s sound origins are in the electronic and dubstep genre, a style of music that emphasizes driving beats and dark melodies. It grew in popularity in the early 1990s. During this time, rappers and producers began to play with the distorted and chopped-up style. Its intense and hard-hitting sound paired with a hard-hitting bass made it ideal for rappers like Gucci Mane and T.I. to join, some of the pioneers of the genre’s popularity. Fast-forward to present day and you have one of the most popular genres of the current moment.

The striking quality about trap-rap is its emphasis on the pulsing rhythm and the constant use of hi-hats. Yes, the lyrics are present, but they’re no longer the highlight or the main course of the song. It’s this focus on the rhythm and effect of the sound in trap that bears resemblance to post-rock. Take XXXTentacion’s “#I’mSippinTeaInYoHood,” a song that produces such a distorted, fuzzy beat, it borders on the line of metal rap through the amplified distortion of the 808 kick drum. You listen to “Little Smoke” from This Will Destroy You’s Tunnel Blanket (2011) and you will hear the same level of distortion and unregulated syncopation. Just absolute sound wash. That quality can be said for many of the songs from both genres. Future’s general sound aesthetic consists of mumbled rap over a heavy distorted beat with tittering hi-hats and stripped down instrumentals with the focus on the impact of the beat and rhythm rather than the words spoken over it, a technique that many post-rock bands recreate in their routine sound. Sigur Ros in particular uses vocal equipment to distort their voices and made-up language when singing. The technique from both artists focuses on the sonic effect of the music rather than the lyrical.

Future performing Nobody Safe Tour

What does all this mean? It means trap-rap and post-rock may have more in common than you realize in terms of sonic development and focus. Both genres emphasize the sound in place of just lyrics, distortion and noise over narrative.

But when the sound is done being stripped to its core basics, the differences between the two come into picture. Past the fundamental basics of sound quality or pattern, they couldn’t be more different in effect and principal – the live experience of a post-rock concert is vastly different than a trap one. Go to a post-rock concert and you’ll see a sea of bobbing heads to the steady rhythm of the music, tightly packed venues of silent onlookers, and swaying bodies that look like leaves of grass in the wind. It could be described as cathartic or introverted – quite the opposite to a trap rap concert. I’ve never been to a trap concert, but the videos I have seen online show literal madness. Crowds losing their shit, rappers jumping from balconies, the whole experience is joyous mayhem. They differ vastly in fundamental nature and the genres promote different feelings for the audience to experience. It’s pure hype versus sedation.

I like to think of the two like water. Picture trap-rap as a jet stream pelting the skin of the listener. It’s hard hitting, powerful, and chaotic. You’ll leave feeling some goosebumps and sweat of the thrill. It’s power through the externalized experience, a collective of sharp lyrics interwoven with bass and complex rhythms to create a bulking powerhouse that grabs the listener and throws them into the sound like a crowd-surfing body. Anyone is apart of the hype the moment they’re exposed to it. It’s instantaneous and powerful. That’s the lure of it in today’s culture: that immediacy for the listeners.

If trap-rap is immediate in effect, then post-rock is gradual. It could be embodied as a swift current that flows into the listener like a transmuted substance oblivious to the barriers of flesh. The swirling substance makes you internalize the experience, ponder the destination it takes you with the sonic sound as a vessel to get there. The music builds and moves like something stretching. It substitutes the lyrics and bass of trap-rap for rhythms and textures. It’s all music blended into one rhythm, one pulse, and you’re diluted into it whenever you listen. The listener creates the template and the message being delivered through the lack of dialogue. A post-rock song could mean the loss of a loved one, the empowerment of self, or the thrill of drugs. Hell, it could be everything at once, or nothing at at all.

Regardless where you stand between the two genres, they share sonic similarities that might make an avid listener of either raise their ear slightly more if they just listen hard enough. That ability to cross genres and find commonality in sonic theory make the two genres powerful in force. Maybe the ending notions of post-rock and trap-rap could be the overarching sentiment between the two genres: the abstract and building versus the palpable and immediate for the listeners. Whatever you’re looking for, the genres won’t disappoint.