The Squirrel Bait genealogy continued to dominate Kentucky's and Chicago's post-rock scene during the 1990s.

Gastr Del Sol (12), an evolution of Bastro's last line-up, i.e. the trio of David Grubbs on guitar, Bundy Ken Brown on bass and John McEntire on drums, gave new meaning to the word "subtlety" with The Serpentine Similar (1993), which inherited from Slint the grammatical mistakes but replaced the hardcore energy of Slint with an anemic nonchalant flimsiness. Despite the mood swings, the music bordered on free-form "slo-core" and John Fahey's transcendental suites. Jim O'Rourke joined the ranks for the chamber lied Eight Corners (1994) and the chamber concerto of The Harp Factory On Lake Street (1995), both monopolized by his ambient dissonances and derailed by anarchic jamming. Gastr Del Sol became basically a duo of Grubbs and O'Rourke for the alienated scores of Upgrade And Afterlife (1996) and Camofleur (1998), that virtually reinvented the format of the "ballad" for the post-rock generation (dissonant chamber music loosely anchored to an off-key melody). Gastr Del Sol's research program was basically continued by the solo albums of David Grubbs (11), beginning with the solo sonatas of Banana Cabbage, Potato Lettuce, Onion Orange (1997). The Thicket (1998), recorded by a supergroup featuring John McEntire on drums, Josh Abrams on bass, Jow Bishop on trumpet, and Tony Conrad on violin, was an exercise of angst-filled settings for a new style of story-telling, of mixing timbric exploration and folk melody. Its compositions betrayed and fused Grubbs' influences: Red Crayola, Pere Ubu, John Fahey and John Cage. After the avant-jazz jams of Apertura (1999) and Avocado Orange (2000), Grubbs returned to the idea of his masterpiece with The Spectrum Between (2000), although in a simpler and lighter tone.

Rodan (10) set a standard for music that was neither atmospheric nor abstract, but a bit of both, with the lengthy conceptual compositions/improvisations of Rusty (1994). The interplay among Jason Noble's and Jeff Mueller's guitars, Tara Jean O'Neil's bass and Kevin Coultas' drums (plus Christian Frederickson's viola and Eve Miller's cello) contained elements of rock, jazz and classical music, but the "songs" didn't quite fall into either category. Mueller went on to form June Of 44, and Noble went on to form Rachel's, thus starting a new genealogy of Kentucky's post-rock.

Half of Rodan, i.e. Tara Jane O'Neil (now on vocals and guitar) and Kevin Coultas, formed Sonora Pine with keyboardist and guitarist Sean Meadows, violinist Samara Lubelski and pianist Rachel Grimes. Their debut album, Sonora Pine (1996), basically applied Rodan's aesthetics to the format of the lullaby.

For Carnation (1), the new project of Slint's guitarist Brian McMahan, followed Gastr Del Sol's route to subtle dynamics and wasteland-evoking soundscapes on two EPs, Fight Songs (1995) and the superb Marshmallows (1996). They refined the art of low-key, sparse but nonetheless complex compositions to the point that For Carnation (2000) betrayed virtually no emotions, just illusions of emotions.

June Of 44 (11), a sort of supergroup comprising Rodan's guitarist Jeff Mueller, Sonora Pine's guitarist Sean Meadows, Codeine's drummer and keyboardist Doug Scharin, and bassist and trumpet player Fred Erskine, summarized the aesthetics and ethos of post-rock. Engine Takes To The Water (1995) signaled the evolution of "slo-core" towards a coldly neurotic form, which achieved a hypnotic and catatonic tone, besides a classic austerity, on the mini-album Tropics And Meridians (1996). Sustained by abrasive and inconclusive guitar doodling, mutant rhythm and off-key counterpoint of violin and trumpet, Four Great Points (1998) metabolized dub, raga, jazz, pop in a theater of calculated gestures.

Post-rock was clearly more "instrumental" than "vocal", and Rachel's (2) merely formalized this fact with an all-instrumental format and a chamber ensemble built around Rodan's guitarist Jason Noble, pianist Rachel Grimes and viola player Christian Frederickson. Handwriting (1995) augmented the rock trio with strings and keyboards, but, rather than aiming for an orchestral sound, it downplayed the multitude of "voices" in favor of an artful exploration of timbres, while the narrative languished somewhere between the Clubfoot Orchestra's dark soundtracks (minus the expressionistic overtones) and the Penguin Cafe' Orchestra's minimalist dances (minus the nostalgic and exotic factors). By the time of The Sea And The Bells (1996), this somber hybrid had evolved into hermetic and severe avantgarde music.

Slint's guitarist Dave Pajo (11) contributed to dispel the notion that instrumental music had to be atmospheric with Aerial M (1997), which delivered languid sub-sub-ambient slo-core in which elements of lounge jazz, Ennio Morricone's soundtracks and Rachel's semi-classical scores were carefully defused. His minimalist and transcendental technique, equally inspired by Pat Metheny (jazz), Robert Fripp (rock) and John Fahey (folk), reached an existential zenith on Papa M's Live From A Shark Cage (1999), a phantasmagoria of cubist de-composition, the instrumental equivalent of Tim Buckley's music.

Rodan's guitarists Jeff Mueller and Jason Noble reunited when they formed Shipping News (1) with drummer Kyle Crabtree, and recorded the oblique, undulating jams of Save Everything (1997). They refined their approach with the slow-forming filigrees of Very Soon And In Pleasant Company (2000), impersonating not so much brainy improvisers as consummate storytellers spinning enigmatic tales, full of twists and surprises. Rodan's wreckage of classical harmony left behind flotsam of dub-like ecstasy and hard-rock fits.

Chicago's post-rock 1994-97

Post-rock was codified in Chicago with a German accent (as in "Can, Faust, Neu") by Tortoise and their countless descendants and affiliates.

Jim O'Rourke (4), Illusion Of Safety's guitarist, introduced into rock music an abstract concept of music that drew from the likes of John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Anthony Braxton and Derek Bailey. The improvisations for "prepared" guitar of Remove the Need (1989), the ambient/industrial noise of The Ground Below Above Our Heads (1991), the electronically-manipulated chamber music of Tamper (1991), the musique concrete of the monumental Disengage (1992) and of Scend (1992), the chaotic free-noise of Terminal Pharmacy (1995) revealed one of the most eclectic, visionary and radical minds of the decade. His first venture into a more accessible style was Brise-Glace, a collaboration with other Chicago luminaries (Dazzling Killmen's bassist Darin Gray and Cheer Accident's drummer Thymme Jones), which yielded the ambient blend of jazz, rock and dub of When In Vanitas (1994) and then mutated into a new project, Yona-Kit (1995). O'Rourke's experimental fury subsided with the tributes to Tony Conrad's droning music of Happy Days (1997) and to John Fahey's "primitive guitar music" of Bad Timing (1997). And then, suddenly, he reinvented himself in the tradition of orchestral pop and easy listening with Eureka (1999).

Tortoise (21) basically reinvented progressive-rock for the new millenium when they anchored their musical drifting to dub and jazz pillars. The geometry of their sound started with the very foundations of the line-up, which was basically the union of two formidable rhythm sections, Poster Children's drummer John Herndon and Eleventh Dream Day's bassist Doug McCombs plus Gastr Del Sol's rhythm section (drummer John McEntire and bassist Bundy Ken Brown), augmented with Tar Babies' percussionist Dan Bitney. They were not only inspired by the historical rhythm sections of funk and dub, but they set out to obscure that legacy with a more far-reaching approach. On Tortoise (1994) each musician covered a lot of ground and alternated at different instruments, but basically this was a band founded on rhythm. With Slint's guitarist Dave Pajo replacing Brown on bass, Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996) streamlined the mind-boggling polyphony of their jams and achieved a sort of post-classical harmony, a new kind of balance and interaction between melodies and rhythms. Djed, in particular, could swing between sources as distant as Neu and Steve Reich while retaining a fundamental unity, flow and sense of purpose. The jazz component and academic overtones began to prevail. The sextet (McEntire, Herndon, Bitney, McCombs, Pajo and black guitarist Jeff Parker) that recorded TNT (1998) had in mind the Modern Jazz Quartet and Miles Davis' historical quintet, not King Crimson or Slint, but the result was nonetheless a magisterial application of Djed's aesthetics.

Rex (1), the new project by Codeine's and June Of 44's drummer Doug Scharin with singer/guitarist Curtis Harvey, Red Red Meat's bassist Phil Spirito and cellist Kirsten McCord, penned the lengthy, downbeat, convoluted jams coalescing in cloudy ballads of Rex (1995). The "intricate" became "majestic" on C (1996), Rex's most accomplished work. Him (1) were born as Rex's dub side-project with the dreamy extended pieces of Egg (1995) and Interpretive Belief System (1997), but then switched to jazz-rock for Sworn Eyes (1999), with Rob Mazurek's cornet playing the ghost of Miles Davis, and to ethno-funk music for Our Point Of Departure (2000).

Sea And Cake (1) almost wed post-rock and easy-listening. The drunk, sleepy delivery of Shrimp Boat's vocalist Sam Prekop was matched on Sea And Cake (1994) by a gentle, low-key, Steely Dan-ian soundscape of jazz and soul phrases laid down by guitarist Archer Prewitt and Tortoise's multi-instrumentalist John McEntire. The idea led to the sumptuous keyboards arrangements of Nassau (1995) and eventually the electronica of The Fawn (1997).

The Denison-Kimball Trio (2), or DK3, formed by Jesus Lizard's guitarist Duane Denison and Laughing Hyenas/Mule/Firewater's drummer James Kimball, played nocturnal jazz with a profusion of atonal and abrasive tones on Walls In The City (1994), sounding like Lounge Lizards on drugs, and achieved a sophisticated synthesis of jazz, blues, rock and avantgarde on Soul Machine (1995), following the addition of jazz saxophonist Ken Vandermark, and Neutrons (1997).

Duotron (1), played a psychotic form of abstract pieces that ran the gamut from progressive-rock to noise to absurdist vaudeville to no wave and free-jazz, particularly on We Modern We Now (1995).

The instrumental group Town And Country (1) articulated an aesthetics of baroque trance that wed Harold Budd's hypnotic bliss and Bill Evans' romantic jazz. The lengthy pieces of Town And Country (1998) and It All Has To Do With It (2000), straddling the line between jazz improvisation and classical composition, led to the mature post-fusion synthesis of C'mon (2002), performed by Jim Dorling on harmonium and bass clarinet, Ben Vida on guitar and cornet, Liz Payne on guitar, Josh Abrams on bass and celeste.

Frontier ran the gamut from shoegazing to King Crimson to Can to Tortoise on Heather (1997).

Dianogah, a trio of two basses and drums, betrayed the influence of Slint on the mostly-instrumental As Seen From Above (1997).

The golden age of post-rock 1993-1996

Hybrid vibrations, that mixed a post-punk ethos with the austere stance of progressive-rock and the sounds of dub and jazz, emanated also from New York.

Soul Coughing (12) concocted an effervescent blend of funk, hip-hop, jazz and rock propelled by Sebastian Steinberg's bass and Yavul Dabay's drums, and obfuscated by sampling-engineer Mark Degli Antoni's murky soundscapes on Ruby Vroom (1994). A further disorienting contrast was the setting of Mike Doughty's scat-like free-form poetry against a backdrop of cartoonish novelties a` la Frank Zappa, glued together by an ominous urban pulse. Following the eclectic and witty intellectual circus of Irresistible Bliss (1996), the varied and sophisticated El Oso (1998) was another stylistic tour de force but with an almost theatrical attitude, that continuously reinvented itself.

Ui (1), a trio of two basses (Sasha Frere-Jones, Wilbo Wright) and drums (Clem Waldmann), offered perhaps the most adventurous fusion of dub, jazz and rock on Sidelong (1995) with compositions that harked back to the Contortions and Material and further back to Can.

In Rhode Island, Six Finger Satellite (11) played industrial rock'n'roll that was both demented and visceral. The chaos and the noise of The Pigeon Is The Most Popular Bird (1993) were hardly in line with the aesthetics of post-rock. Skewed, jolting rhythms and off-kilter or plainly out-of-tune melodies were injected lethal gas by John McLean's and Peter Phillips' abrasive guitars, and ripped apart by the emphatic, possessed vocals of Jeremiah Ryan, who engineered the best synthesis of Freud, Sartre and Bukowski on record; while instrumental interludes referenced everybody from John Cage to Throbbing Gristle to Chrome to the Velvet Underground. Severe Exposure (1995) was even more brutal and frantic, but still managed to cohere into a vision of post-nuclear wastelands.

The most obvious link between post-rock of the 1990s and progressive-rock and German avant-rock of the 1970s was a band from Maryland, Trans Am (1), a trio led by guitarist/keyboardist Philip Manley. The keyboards-driven instrumental rock of The Surveillance (1998) were unique in that they exhuded the rhythmic exuberance of dance music. The group moved towards a less distinctive but more accessible prog-pop sound that culminated with Red Line (2000), under a broad range of influences, from Devo's futuristic rock'n'roll to Frank Zappa's noise-jazz bacchanals.

Jackie-O Motherfucker (2), the project of New York-based multi-instrumentalist Tom Greenwood, relied heavily on free-jazz improvisation for Alchemy (1995), Cross Pollinate (1996) and especially Flat Fixed (1998), although his most intriguing works were probably the ones that moved away from those roots. Fig 5 (1999) piled up elements of acid-rock, folk, blues, noise-rock and soul; and the jazz elements all but disappeared on the double-disc Magick Fire Music (2000), an epic journey from noise collage to ambient melancholia

The recordings of the No-Neck Blues Band (3), a loose New York-based collective of improvisers, were mainly devoted to long chaotic instrumental jams that drew inspiration from the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Captain Beefheart, Amon Duul II and Pink Floyd. Letters From The Earth (1998) and Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones But Names Will Never Hurt Me (2001) ran the gamut from an anthropological recapitulation of primal shamanic music to free-jazz improvisation. At their best, the jams were minimalist fanfares of sorts, combining a number of repetitive patterns into a tribal acid trip of loose guitar/mandolin threnodies, polymorph multi-instrumental beats, loose aggregates of free-jazz horns and languid trance-like droning instruments. Qvaris (2005) dressed that dadaistic vice into a more austere format, bordering on electroacoustic chamber music and musique concrete.

Other significant contributions to the canon of post-rock came from: Seattle's Engine Kid, with Bear Catching Fish (1993); Seattle's Pigeonhed (1), a collaboration between Satchel's vocalist Shawn Smith and Pell Mell's keyboardist Steve Fisk, that yielded the industrial/electronic dub-soul crossover of Pigeonhed (1993); Minnesota's Brick Layer Cake, the project of veteran drummer Todd Trainer, with Tragedy-Tragedy (1994); Pennsylvania's Thee Speaking Canaries, the trio of Don Caballero's drummer Damon "Che" Fitzgerald (now on guitar and vocals), with Songs For The Terrestrially Challenged (1995); etc.

Boston's Karate were emblematic of post-rock's ambition to concoct loose and jazzy song structures, notably on In Place of Real Insight (1997).

In San Francisco, the iconoclastic tradition of the Residents and Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 was continued by albums such as: Fibulator's Drank From The Asphalt (1993), Double U's Absurd Fjord (1996), Ubzub (1)'s Alien Manna For Sleeping Monkeys (1996). Deerhoof (2) was an avant-pop concept that balanced cacophony and melody, abstraction and organization, and evolved from the blissful Captain Beefheart-esque anarchy of The Man The King The Girl (1997) to the prog-garage ingenuity of Reveille (2002). Absurdist rock was also played in Oregon by the New Bad Things (1), for example on Freewheel (1992).

Miss Murgatroid (2), the brainchild of San Francisco-based accordionist Alicia Rose, blended psychedelia, raga and minimalism on Methyl Ethyl Key Tones (1993) and especially Myoclyonic Melodies (1996), a glorious fest of eerie drones, Hendrix-ian glissandos, bombardment-like walls of noise, radio signals, gothic Bach-ian toccatas, noir atmospheres and surreal concertos for dissonant accordion and all sorts of instrumental noises.

Analog ambience 1993-96

Labradford (12), the Virginia-based duo of keyboardist Carter Brown and guitarist Mark Nelson, were influential for at least two reasons: they rediscovered the appeal of analog keyboards; and they coined an ambient/chamber form of rock music that shunned percussion and relied on drones. The mostly instrumental albums Prazision (1993) and A Stable Reference (1995), which added a bass to the equation, subverted the song format by conceiving each "song" as a slow-motion nebula of loops, drones and guitar events (hypnotic strumming, psychedelic reverbs), while barely whispered melodies glided in different directions. This "textural" form of jamming (jamming that enhanced the timbres and the contrasts, like an impressionistic watercolor) was basically a non-psychedelic (i.e., stark and austere) form of shoegazing. Labradford opted for a machine-driven sound with Labradford (1996), which began to add samplers and drum-machines to their arsenal of instruments, and to employ found sounds and dissonances. However, the overall ambience became warmer because the vocals had evolved into a real "voice", not just background hissing. Thanks to technology, the "emptiness" of previous albums had been "filled", but the 'containee" was no less frightening than the container: a barren and spectral landscape, enveloped in a ghostly calm, that emerged out of a nightmarish fog. After the formulaic Mi Media Naranja (1998) and E Luxo So (1999), that indulged in the "panoramic" element of their music, Labradford returned to the aseptic mood of Brian Eno's original ambient program, albeit one in which details matter, with the four lenghty tracks of Fixed::Context (2001), each piece overflowing with "dark matter", with invisible sounds that were nonetheless the substance, whereas the whole was merely a vehicle, a backdrop, a context.

Fundamentally, Seattle's Jessamine (1) reprised the electronic rock format of the Silver Apples and the United States Of America, and upgraded it to My Bloody Valentine's shoegazing. Jessamine (1994) introduced the droning music of keyboardist Andy Brown and guitarist Rex Ritter, but The Long Arm Of Coincidence (1996) added a number of subtleties to the model that set it apart from other droning ensembles: a predisposition to Can-like structures, a twisted rhythmic emphasis, jazzy synth ectoplasms and occasional echoes of Soft Machine's prog-rock.

Brown continued the experiment in Fontanelle (1), a collaboration with guitarist Rex Ritter, whose Fontanelle (2000) offered instrumental jams that were evocative, trance-oriented recapitulations of Soft Machine, John Cage and Miles Davis.

Florida's Windsor For The Derby (1) sculpted the dreamy, wadded bliss of Calm Hades Float (1996) with guitar, Farfisa and drums.

Instrumental post-rock 1993-99

Post-rock's focus on instrumental interplay indirectly fostered a resurgence of instrumental rock. Oddly creative combos had been around independently of post-rock. For example, born in Boston from the ashes of Human Sexual Response, the Concussion Ensemble (1) offered a mixture of minimalistic repetition, free improvisation and hard-rock on Stampede (1993).

Instrumental post-rock found its prophets and visionaries in Pennsylvania's Don Caballero (12), the first band, with Virginia's Breadwinner, which never recorded an album, to consciously and thoroughly explore the innovations of Bitch Magnet and Slint. One could find countless references inside For Respect (1993), from Neil Young's neurotic progressions to MC5's monster riffs, from Arto Lindsay's atonal screeches to Chrome's manic distortions, from King Crimson's progressive-rock to Black Flag's progressive-hardcore. The barbaric duels of guitarists Mike Banfield and Ian Williams, and the colossal "blunders" of the rhythm section (Damon "Che" Fitzgerald on drums and Pat Morris on bass) created a deviant, menacing wall of noise. Technically, 2 (1995) was even better, as it introduced a quartet of sophisticated, skilled players, and not just an enigmatic whole. Four lengthy tracks summarized 40 years of intellectual rock music, from Soft Machine to Metallica, and unloaded a cornucopia of odd time signatures and intense/elaborate textures. What Burns Never Returns (1998) was an alchemic work that retained little of the original verve.

Don Caballero's guitarist Ian Williams pursued his experiments in Storm & Stress (2), featuring bassist Eric Topolsky and drummer Kevin Shea. Storm & Stress (1997) and Under Thunder And Fluorescent Light (2000) were ambitious attempts at playing music while intentionally forgetting the song that they were playing. The technique resonated with theories borrowed from John Cage, Ornette Coleman and Einsturzende Neubaten. A chronic lack of a gravitational center permeated all of their jams. At times, harmony was so loose that it appeared to be random.

Chicago's Trenchmouth (1), led by vocalist Damon Locks and guitarist Chris DeZutter, mixed heavy-metal solos, and elements of ska, funk, reggae and jazz on the philosophical concept albums Inside The Future (1993) and Vs The Light of The Sun (1994), to the point that their final The Broadcasting System (1996) was virtually a tribute to the dub civilization.

Instrumental rock music became more and more ambitious during the rest of the decade.

Chicago's 5ive Style (2), formed by guitarist Billy Dolan, Tortoise's drummer John Herndon, bassist LeRoy Bach and Lonesome Organist's keyboardist Jeremy Jacobsen, concocted first the angular funk and rhythm'n'blues of 5ive Style (1995), which sounded like the Meters playing for Schoenberg, and then the nostalgic Caribbean nonsense of Miniature Portraits (1999), replete with demonic picking and kitschy vibraphone.

Salaryman (1), the all-instrumental subsidiary of the Poster Children, toyed with a kaleidoscope of genre deconstructions on Salaryman (1997).

San Francisco's A Minor Forest indulged in the lengthy instrumental improvisations of Flemish Altruism (1996).

North Carolina's Tractor Hips glued together remnants of Soft Machine's jazz-rock, Can/Faust's kraut-rock and John Zorn's avant-jazz on Tractor Hips (1996).

The Fucking Champs (1), hailing from San Francisco, leveraged the double-guitar attack of Josh Smith and Tim Green (ex-Nation Of Ulysses) on III (1997), released under the moniker C4AM95, one of the few works to bridge heavy-metal and post-rock since the pioneering work of Bitch Magnet.

Paul Newman were Don Caballero's disciples in Texas with albums such as Frames Per Second (1997).

Phylr (1), the new project of Cop Shoot Cop's keyboardist Jim Coleman, indulged in Foetus-like gothic and industrial overtones on Contra La Puerta (1998).

Laddio Bolocko (1), featuring Drew StIvany on guitar, Ben Armstrong on bass, Marcus DeGrazia on saxophone and ex Dazzling Killmen's drummer Blake Fleming, mixed the neurotic introspection of post-rock and the psychotic attack of hardcore on Strange Warmings (1997), whose jams also referenced free-jazz and acid-rock. As structures exploded and imploded, the listener was taken on a rollercoaster of stylistic mirages. The soundscape got blurred on the EPs In Real Time (1998) and As If By Remote (1999), that abandoned the frenzy of the debut album to concentrate on textural explorations.

Minnesota's space-rockers Salamander (1) indulged in abstract soundpainting on Red Ampersand (1998) and turned the title-track of Red Mantra (1999) into an avantgarde concerto.

Minnesota's prog-rockers Gorge Trio (1) applied Don Caballero's art of counterpoint to Dead Chicken Foear No Knife (1998) and For Loss Of (1999).

Dazzling Killmen's bassist Darin Gray and Cheer Accident's drummer Thymme Jones who had been the rhythm section for O'Rourke's projects Brise-Glace and Yona-Kit, formed You Fantastic with guitarist Tim Garrigan, whose Homesickness (1999) contained brief experiments at the border between hardcore and free-jazz.

San Diego's Tristeza (1) seemed to wed new-age music and instrumental post-rock with the slow, gentle pieces of Spine And Sensory (1999).

Turing Machine's A New Machine For Living (2000), the new project by Pitchblende's Justin Chearno, wed four generations of jamming (1960s' acid-rock, 1970s' kraut-rock, 1980s' noise-rock and 1990s' post-rock).

Ebbing and flowing 1995-99

As instrumental post-rock lost its hardcore component and shunned the trance-oriented approach of ambient music, it developed into a new form of music, both dynamic and atmospheric.

Rake's guitarist/keyboardist Bill Kellum and Pitchblende's guitarist Justin Chearno formed a keyboards-guitar-drums trio, Doldrums (12), that concocted an atmospheric blend of Main's ambient shoegazing, Tangerine Dream's cosmic music, Grateful Dead's Dark Star and Pink Floyd's A Saucerful Of Secrets. Secret Life Of Machines (1995) and Acupuncture (1997) contained multi-part suites that, under the apparent staticity, mutated continuously, each an amorphous plasma of sounds that went from exuberant to ecstatic, from chanting to droning, from tribal drumming to abstract doodling. Feng Shui (1998) was a more artificial work, the product of studio editing, but that technique was refined on Desk Trickery (1999), a moltitude of carefully-crafted sonic events seeping through the shapeless jelly.

Scenic (2), the new project by Savage Republic's founding member Bruce Licher (now living in Arizona), interpreted desert music in an almost cosmic setting. If Incident At Cima (1995) was still impressionistic and sketchy, Acquatica (1996) and The Acid Gospel Experience (2002) were ambitious frescoes of the musician's environment and, indirectly, of the musician's psyche.

Australian trio Dirty Three (23), comprising Warren Ellis on violin, Mick Turner on guitar and Jim White on drums, chiseled lenthy evocative jams that aimed for a folk-jazz-raga-rock fusion, a sort of culmination of four decades of crossover. Sad And Dangerous (1994) and Dirty Three (1995) evoked John Fahey, Albert Ayler, the Third Ear Band, the Turtle Island String Quartet; but, ultimately, were quite unique thanks to Ellis' violin, that could imitate John Cale's viola and Jimi Hendrix's guitar as well as an Indian sitar or a jazz trumpet. More importantly, the narrative masterpieces of Horse Stories (1996) delivered emotions without exploiting the conventions of emotion in music. The trio's music transcended stylistic boundaries and technical vocabularies, but somehow managed to be intuitive and user-friendly. Abandoning the punkish undulations of the early works, the austere chamber music of Ocean Songs (1998) upped the ante. It was delicate, lyrical and pictorial, without the harsh edges of the early works. The emotional content was much higher because the album was a tribute to nature and also a somber meditation on the human condition, the violin rising to universal voice of the century's existential angst. The six extended compositions of Whatever You Love You Are (2000) hastened the convergence with classical music, as the jazz and folk influences faded away.

Godspeed You Black Emperor (3), a large ensemble from Montreal, revolutionized (mostly) instrumental rock with the three slow-building compositions of f#a# Infinity (1998): they were not melodic fantasies (too little melodic emphasis), they were not jams (too calculated), and they were not symphonies (too low-key and sparse), but they were something in between. Emotions were hard to find inside the shapeless jelly, dark textures and sudden mood swings. The four extended tracks of Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (2000) were more lively, but no less enigmatic, alternating baroque adagios for chamber strings, majestic psychedelic crescendos, martial frenzy, noise collages and, for the first time, tender melodies. Yanqui UXO (2002) was a collection of glacial, colorless holograms with no dramatic content, massive black holes that emitted dense, buzzing radiations.

Three members of Godspeed You Black Emperor (guitarist Efrim Menuck, violinist Sophie Trudeau and bassist Thierry Amar) contributed to the two lengthy multi-part suites of Silver Mt Zion (1)'s He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts Of Light Sometimes Grace The Corner Of Our Rooms (2000), which presented a more humane face of Godspeed's music, bending the techniques of the baroque adagios and allegros to fit the spleen (if not the aesthetic) of post-rock. Two Godspeed members (drummer Aidan Girt and violinist Sophie Trudeau) also contributed to Set Fire To Flames' Sings Reign Rebuilder (2001), a much more noise-experimental work.

Seattle's Hovercraft (2), the project of keyboardist/guitarist/samplist Ryan Campbell, created the musical equivalent of action painting performed by an epileptic acrobat on phantasmagoric albums such as Akathisia (1997) and Experiment Below (1998). Their atonal mini-symphonies recalled alternatively Sonic Youth, Red Crayola and King Crimson, but also wove a supernatural suspense and inspired apocalyptic fear.

Their cousins Magnog (1) incorporated the aesthetics of post-rock into the plot-less synth-tinged instrumental tracks of Magnog (1996), that offered a tuneless and mantra-oriented form of space-rock.

San Francisco's Tarentel (2) sculpted From Bone To Satellite (1999), a magnificent plateau of desolate, dilated, arpeggiated, minor-key, synth and guitar-driven scores a` la Godspeed You Black Emperor. A more humane feeling surfaced from the stark, carefree solemnity of The Order of Things (2001). The four-volume series of Ghetto Beats On The Surface Of The Sun (2006) zeroed on skeletal rhythms piercing through a jelly of glitchy ambience. Their "ghetto" was a psycho-musical ghetto, a mythological "place" of the mind that manifested itself in a plethora of disorienting soundscapes.

Montage

The Vampire Rodents (121), a project of Toronto guitarist/vocalist Anton Rathausen (real name Daniel Vahnke) and keyboardist Victor Wulf, were possibly the greatest composers of collage-music of the decade. War Music (1990) merely set the existential tone of their opus by juxtaposing recitals of horror stories against industrial music performed by Neanderthal men on stone instruments. Premonition (1992), featuring Andrea Akastia on violin and cello, transposed that program to another dimension, making music out of a frantic collage of sources. On one hand, the combo created a music in which sound effects, not instruments, became the element of composition. On the other hand, they retained the feeling of jazz and avantgarde chamber music. Their savage art of montage reached a demented peak with Lullaby Land (1993). Rhythm permeated this work at least on two levels: a disco/funk/house beat that propelled the track; and the pace at which snippets were glued together to form "songs". At both levels the verve was palpable. The songs were gags, and each gag was an assembly of cells. It was entertaining, and it was terrifying. The whole recalled the grotesque and unpredictable merry-go-rounds of Frank Zappa's early works and the Residents' early suites. Vampire Rodents' "lullaby land" was set in a Freudian nightmare and that nightmare played at double speed in a very chaotic theater. Clockseed (1995) added more instruments of the orchestra and more drum-machines, and offered a more linear, rational and focused take on the same idea. It was another symphony of chaos and multitude, that, indirectly, harked back to composers of urban cacophony such as Charles Ives and Edgar Varese (and composers of cartoon soundtracks such as Carl Stalling). It was still a cannibal and schizophrenic art, that continuously devoured itself and that continuously changed personality. Gravity's Rim (1996), instead, returned to the format of the pop song, thus closing an ideal loop. Layers of samples merely provided the "arrangement" for the melodies carried by the vocals. Vampire Rodents' art shared with Dadaism and Futurism the aesthetic principle that avantgarde and clownish novelty should be one and the same.

In New York, M'lumbo (1) bridged dissonant avantgarde, free-jazz and dance music with the free-form collages of Spinning Tourists in a City of Ghosts (1999), that applied the collage technique to the most diverse sources.

Bugskull (12), the brainchild of Oregon's guitarist and vocalist (and former folksinger) Sean Byrne, coined a style of arrangement that was the post-rock equivalent of Brian Wilson's orchestral productions: a catalog of musical mistakes instead of an abundance of instrumental counterpoint. The "songs" of Phantasies And Senseitions (1994) were jams of found sounds, electronic sounds, distortions, out-of-tune passages, abstract noise, and, last but not least, senseless lullabies. Snakland (1996) focused on the core (the tune) rather than on the shell (the cacophony), but the program remained one of wrapping tunes into layers and layers of cacophony. Distracted Snowflake Volume One (1997) marked the formal triumph of his techniques of lo-fi avantgarde. Each piece was carefully sculpted with a myriad of sounds, resulting in "songs" that were both overwhelming and exhilarating.

Boston's Land Of The Loops (1), the project of Boston keyboardist Alan Sutherland, produced the cartoonish collages of samples, dance beats and ethereal vocals of Bundle Of Joy (1996).

Bran Van 3000 (1), the project of Montreal-based multi-instrumentalist Jamie DiSalvio, assembled Glee (1998), a surreal, dissonant, hyper-realistic collage of hip-hop, conversations, scratches, jazz improvisation, choirs, loops, orchestral instruments, that magically retained the traditional song format.

In Holland, Solex (12), the project of Dutch used-record specialist Elizabeth Esselink, updated the soul-jazz diva to the age of samplers and drum machines. The songs on Pick Up (1999) and especially Low Kick And Hard Bop (2001) were fragments of music glued together and propelled by disjointed beats. The difference between her compositions and the audio cut-up of the avantgarde was that her compositions were actually "songs", and even "melodic" ones. Her silky voice blended naturally with the frigid textures of her collages. Few composers could turn a cold, artificial art of puzzle recomposition into a warm, personal art of personality decomposition, as she proved on another painstaking, almost surgical, cut and paste tour de force, Laughing Stock Of Indie Rock (2004).

German post-rock 1994-98

Post-rock owed a huge debt to German rock of the 1970s. Thus, it was not surprising that Germany rapidly became one of the centers for post-rock.

Mouse On Mars (3), the Duesseldorf-based duo of Andi Toma and Jan Werner, applied the post-rock aesthetics to post-techno music. The pseudo-psychedelic trance of Vulvaland (1994) was unusual mainly because of its tragic, gloomy mood, but Iaora Tahiti (1995) layered elements of dub, jungle, hip-hop inside a shell of warped ambient/cosmic cliches, thus creating a new kind of futurism, one that was not Kraftwerk's paranoia of machines but a very bodily (and current) neurosis. Autoditacker (1997) consolidated that style in a baroque synthesis of light polyrhythms and bizarre electronics, while Instrumentals (1998) was perhaps the most austere enunciation of their deconstruction technique. The "thickness" of sound effects on Idiology (2001) gave rise to an hallucinated symphony of instrumental colors, while assembling a catalog of impossible beats.

Ronald Lippock's To Rococo Rot (1) basically unified the aesthetics of trip-hop and post-rock on Veiculo (1997), achieving on The Amateur View (1999) a gentle, subliminal blend of hypnosis and vitality. Lippock's side-project Tarwater (1) infused the robotic rhythms and alien noises of 11/6 12/10 (1996) with romantic melodrama.

Laub (1), the duo of vocalist Antye Greie-Fuchs and keyboardist Juergen "Jotka" Kuehn, explored alien soundscapes on Kopflastig (1997) and especially Unter anderen Bedingungen als Liebe (1999).

Markus Archer's Notwist (1), featuring Martin "Console" Gretschmann on samples, were fluent in the idioms of hardcore, noise-rock and post-rock, which they applied simultaneously to the pastiches of 12 (1997). By the time that they crafted the carefully orchestrated and absurdist ballads of Neon Golden (2001), instead, they were pioneering the digital folk-rock of the new decade.

Their cousins Village of Savoonga (1) straddled the line between expressionist drama, psychedelic doom and stream of consciousness on Philipp Schatz (1996). And their other cousins Tied & Tickled Trio (1) revived cool jazz for the digital generation on Tied & Tickled Trio (1998) and EA1 EA2 (1999), while horns-driven Observing Systems (2003) and the keyboards-driven Aelita (2007) balanced the elegant flow of a jazz improvisation and the cold geometry of a classical composition.

The "songs" built by Notwist's sampling engineer Console (born Martin Gretschmann) on albums such as Pan Or Ama (1997) and Rocket In The Pocket (1999). were tributes to studio technique, concentrates of electronic and computer trickery, complex hodgepodges of synthesizer melodies, spastic beats, samples, dissonances, reverbs, computerized voices.

Other notable contributions to German post-rock came from: Kreidler (1), featuring keyboardists Andreas Reihse and Detlef "DJ Sport" Weinrich, with Weekend (1996); Trance Groove, with Paramount (1996); the multinational quartet Karamasov, with On Arrival (1998); Lali Puna, the project of Munich-based vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Valerie Trebeljahr, with Tricoder (1999); etc.

These German projects made up a formidable generation of experimental musicians, worthy of their predecessors Can, Neu and Faust.

Japanese post-noise 1990-95

Space Streakings (11) were the greatest disciples of the great tradition of Zeni Geva and Boredoms. Hatsu-Koi (1993) concocted an ebullient amalgam of jazz, noise, electronica, hip-hop and hardcore that sounded like a musichall sketch performed on doomsday. And the end of the world came with 7-Toku (1994), the soundtrack of absolute chaos, of Babelic confusion, of decades frantically played back in the last few seconds of civilization. Its cacophonic fantasies were the last rational beings in an ecosystem of grotesque mutations.

Ground Zero, the brainchild of guitarist and turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, transposed Zeni Geva's noise-core to the age of sampling. Null And Void (1993) was typical of their improvised symphonies for noise and samples, while Revolutionary Pekinese Opera (1995) was virtually a post-modernist essay, a piece of music constructed out of samples of an opera and of snippets of tv commercials and soundtracks.

A few bands specialized in fast-paced noise-core that mixed the speed of hardcore and the cacophony of industrial music. Representative albums of this brutal, possessed, loud and frenzied style included: Scratch Or Stitch (1995) by Melt-Banana (1), God Is God (1995) by Ultra Bide (1), and Missile Me (1996) by Guitar Wolf.

British post-rock

At the same time that the post-rock aesthetic was spreading in the USA, England boasted a significantly different school of intellectual rock.

Napalm Death's drummer Mick Harris recreated the original line-up of that band (namely, guitarist Justin Broadrick and vocalist Nick Bullen) for his new project, Scorn (11) but the music they played on Vae Solis (1992), was from another planet: Harris operated sampling machines and sequencers, and sculpted arrangements that incorporated industrial music and dub in a brutal and lugubrious framework, reminiscent of Public Image Ltd and Killing Joke. The bleak, hallucinated, horror soundscapes of this album enabled the stately psychodramas of Colossus (1994). The territory was still scoured by heavy beats and ghastly distortions, but there were real souls wandering in the miasmatic mist. It was a music of agonizing, paranoid rhythmic patterns, and rhythm rapidly became the focus of Scorn: Evanescence (1994) incorporated the syncopated beat of hip-hop, and Scorn retreated to a spectral ambient format with the instrumental Gyral (1995), once Bullen had left Harris alone at the helm. As the music of Scorn became more trivial, the music of its alter-ego, Lull, became more complex. The electronic poems of Dreamt About Dreaming (1992) evolved into the ambient mololiths of Cold Summer (1995) and Continue (1996), influenced by two crucial collaborations: the four lengthy Murder Ballads (1994), sung by Martyn Bates, at the border between gothic and ambient music; and the two ambient suites of Somnific Flux (1995), a joint venture with Bill Laswell. The sheer scope of Harris' work was stunning. Free-jazz, ambient music and grindcore found an improbable meeting point in Painkiller, the trio formed by Harris with Bill Laswell and John Zorn, best represented by Buried Secrets (1993).

Disco Inferno (1), after becaming the creature of producer Charlie McIntosh and vocalist/guitarist Ian Crause, delivered one of the most challenging albums of the era, DI Go Pop (1994).

Pram (12) twisted the old craft of progressive-rock to the point that it became a container for all sorts of odd structures. Rosie Cuckston's childish vocals inhabited a Wonderland painted by the surreal colors of Max Simpson's samples and keyboards, plus the occasional trumpet or saxophone, and was constantly challenged by the grotesque charge of a power-twio ignited by Matthew Eaton's guitar. Elements of jazz, dub and electronica permeated The Stars Are So Big The Earth Is So Small (1993), thus it was not surprising that Helium (1994) sounded like Daevid Allen's Gong playing trip-hop. Its creative chaos had few rivals in those years. Despite the amount and density of sonic events, the loose structures of Sargasso Sea (1995) sounded like pure abstractions, mirages, phantasms, and eventually led (on a more earthly plane) to the exquisite muzak of North Pole Radio Station (1998) and Museum Of Imaginary Animals (2000).

Moonshake (2), the creature of singer-songwriters Dave Callahan and Margaret Fiedler, reduced the song format to a plasma of rhythmic and melodic fragments on the atmospheric experiments of Eva Luna (1992). A bold synthesis of psychedelia, trip-hop and jazz, their sound basically upgraded Public Image Ltd's sound to the age of sampling. As The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow (1994) provided sturdier scaffolding for the melodies, the mood settled halfway between Pere Ubu-like hysteria and Contortions-like neuroris. The more robust Dirty & Divine (1996), without Fiedler, further polished the edges and displayed similarities with Talking Heads' rhythmic juggernauts and hypnotic fanfares.

Laika (11), the new project of Moonshake's co-founder Margaret Fiedler, continued the exploration of Moonshake's stylistic crevices while focusing on electronic keyboards, sampling machines, flute and polyrhythms. Silver Apples Of The Moon (1994) delivered circular jazz-funk bacchanals reminiscent of Rip Rig & Panic and ethno-ambient frescoes reminiscent of Jon Hassell. Sounds Of The Satellites (1997) refined the production technique and achieved a super-fusion that stretched from Miles Davis' jazz-rock to Morton Subotnick's musique concrete.

Scotland's Long Fin Killie updated Pentangle's folk-rock to the age of trip-hop and post-rock on Houdini (1995).

Piano Magic, the project of guitarist Glen Johnson, offered the fragile electronic tapestry of Popular Mechanics (1997), performed on cheap keyboards and reminiscent of Young Marble Giants and Brian Eno.

Scotland's Mogwai (1) anchored the blissful, impressionistic ambience of Young Team (1997) to atmospheric guitar sounds, ranging from celestial drones to hellish walls of distortions. Removing the impetus of that work, Come On Die Young (1999) revisited the desolate soundscapes of "slo-core", music that wandered, drifted, diluted itself into myriad variations of its own theme. The slowly-unfolding ballads of The Rock Action (2001) and the carefully orchestrated, organic, rational sonatas of Happy Songs For Happy People (2003) were practical applications of that theory.

Scottish guitarist Richard Youngs specialized in "lo-fi" improvisations inspired by Terry Riley's minimalism and John Fahey's instrumental folk music, notably the three lengthy spectral improvisations of Advent (1988) and the three lengthy "ballads" of Sapphie (1998). Significant detours included Summer Wanderer (2005), a moving a-cappella album, and Multi-Tracked Shakuhachi (2006). Since the late 1980s he had also been collaborating with avantgarde composer Simon Wickham-Smith, creating lengthy free-form noise collages/jams such as Ceaucescu (1992), The Proof Of The Point, off Kretinmuzak (1994), Diabetes for more than 20 instruments, off Asthma And Diabetes (1994), More Urban Music for the Middle Of Nowhere, off Enedkeg (1996), Angels From CT with sampler, rhythm machine and synthesizer, off Veil (1997).

Other notable albums of the second half of the decade included: Precious Falling (1997) by Quickspace, the new project of Faith Healers' guitarist Tom Cullinan; the trilogy of concept albums begun with Caledonian Gothic (1997) by Fiend, the brainchild of Mogwai's drummer Brendon O'Hare; Slow Motion World (1998) by Snowpony, the supergroup of Stereolab's keyboardist Katharine Gifford, My Bloody Valentine's bassist Deborah Googe and Rollerskate Skinny's drummer Max Corradi; Hammock Style (1998) by Ganger; Little Scratches (1998) by Rob Ellis' Spleen; Fried For Blue Material (1998) by Davey Henderson's Nectarine #9, inspired by the Pop Group and Captain Beefheart; Volume One (2000) by Richard Warren's Echoboy; etc.

Post-rock primitivism 1995-97

Chicago's U.S. Maple (2), formed by Shorty's guitarist Mark Shippy and vocalist Al Johnson, were among the "primitivists" of post-rock. The post-modernist blues of Long Hair In Three Stages (1995) used a confused vocabulary of spastic jamming, acid singing and crooked geometry, inspired by Red Crayola and Captain Beefheart. US Maple's surgical strike on tradition achieved an immaculate purity on Talker (1999) and Acre Thrills (2001). Both impeccable in their execution of the science of musical flaws and faults, they represented a genuine confession of love for what the band hated.

Seattle's Old Time Relijun (2) were possibly the greatest disciples of Captain Beefheart in the 1990s, devoted to organizing musical structures out of sheer chaos. The psychotic jazz-rock of Songbook Vol 1 (1997) evoked a meeting of the Contortions and Albert Ayler, but the more experimental Utereus And Fire (1999), with Phil Elverum of the Microphones on drums, was reminiscent of Jon Spencer's deformed blues except that the focus was on DeDionyso's vocal histrionics, while atonal guitars and childish drums created a divine mayhem. The leader's saxophone solos and a demented rhythm section graced Witchcraft Rebellion (2001).

Chicago's Joan Of Arc (2), featuring multi-instrumentalist and singer Tim Kinsella and keyboardist Jeremy Boyle, inhabited a niche of sub-folk music with the likes of Nick Drake and Smog, but they focused on the disturbing process of a neurotic soul in the making. A Portable Model (1997) shunned the edgier, harshest overtones of post-rock and reached out to Will Oldham's anti-folk. That format was perfected with the rambling and sparse ballads of How Memory Works (1998), a cybernaut's journey through the extreme periphery of German avant-rock and electronic music. After a calm and subdued Live in Chicago (1999), Kinsella's ensemble crafted a frail music of scant and tentative emotions with the unstable and unfocused structures of The Gap (2000).

Colossamite (1) was the Gorge Trio augmented with the unholy growl of Dazzling Killmen's vocalist Nick Sakes. All Lingo's Clamor (1997) and Economy Of Motion (1998) unleashed brief but terrifying firestorms of dissonant guitars, chaotic drumming and beastly screams.

Oregon's Rollerball (1), that featured Mae Starr (vocals, keyboards, accordion), Amanda Wiles (sax) and Shane DeLeon (trumpet), indulged in Pop Group-inspired, spastic, psychedelic, progressive and free rock that peaked with Trait Of The Butter Yeti (2001).

Post-post-rock 1996-99

Boxhead Ensemble (4) was an impromptu project of the Chicago rock avantgarde that involved members of Tortoise, Jim O'Rourke and Ken Vandermark, assembled by composer Michael Krassner to score the soundtrack for a film, Dutch Harbor (1997), a set of austere, erudite, low-key and gloomy improvisations; high-caliber noir and chamber jazz. Another stellar cast (Krassner, bassist Ryan Hembrey, violinist Jessica Billey, drummer Glenn Kotche, Souled American's guitarist Scott Tuma, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm) improvised the smoky, sleepy chamber music of Two Brothers (2001), the seven transcendent Quartets (2003) and the eight zen-like Nocturnes (2006). The Lofty Pillars (10) recycled a few members of the Boxhead Ensemble, again under Krassner's direction. Like the Penguin Cafe' Orchestra, Amsterdam (2001) was caught in a time warp, plotting a fusion of old-fashioned genres (Leonard Cohen-ian dirges, Dylan-ian odes, gospel/country hymn a` la Band) and modern aesthetic values, while delivering clockwork performances worthy of classical music.

Lowercase (1), San Francisco's guitar-drums duo of Imaad Wasif and Brian Girgus, staged unstable, suicidal psychodramas via the slow, lengthy dirges of All Destructive Urges (1996) and especially Kill The Lights (1997), which basically reenacted over and over again a descent into a personal hell.

Chris Leo conducted the textural experiments of Van Pelt's Sultans Of Sentiments (Gern Blandsten, 1997) and Lapse's Heaven Ain't Happenin' (2000).

The slow, thick and majestic compositions of Ulan Bator (2), a French ensemble led by guitarist Amaury Cambuzat, linked post-rock with French progressive-rock, especially on Vegetale (1997) and Ego Echo (2000).

Zeek Sheck (Chicago-based Roseanna Perkins Meyers) composed a Residents-like pentalogy on an imaginary race starting with I Love You (1998), a chaotic assemblage of violin, flute, clarinet, harmonica, tuba, guitar, bass and electronics, including Cheer Accident's keyboardist Thymme Jones and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm.

I Am Spoonbender, the trio of Pansy Division's drummer Dustin Donaldson, Cub's guitarist Robyn Iwata and keyboardist Brian Jackson, mined the border between Brian Eno's retro-pop and Can's austere avant-rock on Sender/ Receiver (1998).

Indiana's Tombstone Valentine (1), fronted by vocalist Richelle Toombs, renewed the art of space-rock with Hidden World (1998), an album which blended the surreal element of Pink Floyd's Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, the percussive element of 1970s' German avant-rock, and the exotic element of the Third Ear Band.

Out of Worship was a collaboration between San Francisco-based guitarist/bassist Joe Goldring and Codeine/Rex/Him's drummer Doug Scharin, whose Sterilized (1999) achieved a sophisticated and colorful fusion of jazz, raga, psychedelia and dub (thanks to Ill Media's turntables, Tony Maimone's bass, Julie Liu's violin and Adheesh Sathaye's tablas).

New York's Oneida (1) carved an odd niche for themselves with the convoluted psychedelic and post-rock freak-outs of A Place Called El Shaddai's (1998), a mixture of Blue Cheer, Sonic Youth, and Can that blossomed on the sophisticated and harrowing Each One Teach One (2002).

Washington's El Guapo (1) added manic doses of electronics to its stew of Soft Machine, Contortions, Pop Group, Fall on Super System (2002).

Jazz was a major factor in alienating the Chicago school from the traditional foundations of rock music. More and more units looked to jazz for inspiration: Isotope 217, the project of Tortoise's black guitarist Jeff Parker; Euphone, the brainchild of drummer Ryan Rapsys, whose The Calendar of Unlucky Days (1999) was devoted to improvised, instrumental jams mixing electronics, acoustic instruments and syncopated beats; Bill Ding, veterans of the jazz scene who performed chamber music for electronics, vibraphone, cello, trumpet, violin on Trust In God But Tie Up Your Camel (1997); Brokeback, a collaboration between Tortoise's bassist Douglas McCombs and Chicago Underground Quartet's bassist Noel Kupersmith, which delivered the quiet, ethereal, sparse watercolors of Field Recordings From The Cook Country Water Table (1999) and Morse Code In The Modern Age (2001).

The towering figure of this generation was cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, who played in and led a number of orchestras and ensembles, notably Pillow, a quartet with the Flying Luttenbachers' reed player Michael Colligan, and two members of Town And Country, bassist Liz Payne and guitarist Ben Vida, best documented on their second album Field On Water (2000), and Terminal 4 (2001), that offered rock music for a pseudo-jazz quartet of cello, guitar (Ben Vida), bass (Josh Abrams) and trombone (Jeb Bishop).

Mood 1998-99

Calexico (12), which was Giant Sand's rhythm section of bassist Joey Burns and drummer John Convertino, coined one of the most distinctive and traditional styles of the era. The languid, introspective and touching mood of The Black Light (1998) relied on humble but eccentric orchestration and a hallucinated, oneiric take on mariachi music and Ennio Morricone's soundtracks. Austere but friendly, they sounded like the equivalent of the Penguin Cafe` Orchestra for the Arizona desert. With Hot Rail (2000), Calexico opted for a more intimate form of expression, for a stylish, somber, bleak ballad that is often drenched in psychedelic reverbs and accented by jazz instruments. Feast of Wire (2003) was, instead, an album of film-noir gloom.

Black Heart Procession (11), a collaboration between Three Mile Pilot's singer Pall Jenkins and keyboardist Tobias Nathaniel, switched to melancholy, funereal music, sparsely arranged with analog keyboards, guitars, xylophone and trumpet. The skeletal lullabies of 1 (1997) led to the dark and creepy 2 (1999), which basically coined a new form of existential ballad, one that leveraged and transcended the abused stereotypes of Nick Drake, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave. 3 (2000) wrapped the naked agony of that album into sophisticated arrangements, that, enhanced with Matt Resovich's violin, led to the post-psychedelic trance-y ballads of The Spell (2006).

Maquiladora (3), a trio from San Diego (vocalist Phil Beaumont, drummer Eric Nielsen, guitarist Bruce McKenzie), filled Lost Works of Eunice Phelps (1998) with lunatic ballads baked by the hot sun of the desert that ran the gamut from the drugged folly of the Holy Modal Rounders to the calm poetry of Leonard Cohen, from Syd Barrett's mad folk to the eerie stupor of Cowboy Junkies. White Sands (2000) refined the idea by adding several keyboards and string instruments to their arsenal, a move that somehow highlighted the similarities with Calexico's hallucinated country-rock. Far from being only an intellectual exercise, Maquiladora packed an impressive amount of poetry in the brief vignettes of Ritual Of The Hearts (2002).

Italy 1990-99

Italy's rock scene boomed in the 1990s. Surprisingly, Italy, the homeland of melodic music, turned out to be one of the major international centers for post-rock. In general, the sonic model was a mixture of Big Black, Sonic Youth and Fugazi, while the themes coined a sort of neo-existentialism, very much concerned with the psychodramas of ordinary kids. It all sounded like a brain scan at the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Starfuckers (1) merged rock and electronic sounds on the ambitious aesthetic manifesto of Sinistri (1994) and especially on Infrantumi (1997), a blend of free-jazz, cubism, dissonant avantgarde, musique concrete and Faust-like structures.

Massimo Volume's subtle second album, Lungo I Bordi (1995), was an oneiric and noir journey into a Fugazi-esque hell.

Marlene Kuntz's existential noise-rock on Il Vile (1996) sounded like a synthesis of European and American moods.

Three Second Kiss devoted For Pain Relief (1996) to free-form noise-rock.

Afterhours' stylistic tour de force of Hai Paura del Buio? (1997) achieved an eclectic fusion of hardcore, grunge, folk and pop.

With their third album Different Section Wires (1998), Uzeda (1) cemented a dark noise-rock style that was both brutal and lyrical, fierce and mercyful, physical and psychological, centered on dynamic tribal-jazzy rhythms.

The post-rock renaissance of the 1990s somehow emancipated the rest of the nation, fostering innovation in many different genres.

The prog-rock school was abandoned and replaced by new sound paradigms such as Epsilon Indi's ambient exotic monolith A Distant Return (1992), or Timoria's melodic concept Viaggio Senza Vento (1993), their fourth album. Elio E Le Storie Tese, a six-member unit, became Italy's most relevant disciples of Frank Zappa with Elio Samaga Hukapan Karyana Turu (1989).

A sign that Italian prog-rock was about to stage a major come-back was Eris Pluvia's baroque Rings Of Earthly Light (1991), particularly its five-movement title-track. Deus Ex Machina indulged in a vehement, torrential fusion of classic, jazz and rock, that slowly became more cerebral as they progressed from the rock opera Gladium Caeli (1991) to the jazzy fantasias of Cinque (Cuneiform, 2002). Finisterre's Finisterre (1994) saluted the revival of Italy's prog-rock school with an unusual balance of classical piano and rock guitar. Bluvertigo delivered the progressive cauldron of Metallo non metallo (1997).

Technogod fostered an industrial-rap-rock fusion with Hemo Glow Ball (1992), while Assalti Frontali, the leading hip-hop posse of Italy, unleashed the confrontational manifestos Terra di Nessuno (1992) and the hardcore-tinged Conflitto (1996).

Almamegretta coined a new form of world-music on Sanacore (1995), an ambitious encyclopedic revision of traditional codes that bridged the ancient folk tradition of Napoli (Naples), electronic dance music, dub production techniques and Middle-Eastern scales.

Ordo Equitum Solis (a duo of guitar and vocals) crafted sets of solemn, melancholy folk ballads redolent of medieval music such as Solstitii Temporis Sensus (1990).

On the folk side of things, Italy boasted Mau Mau's world-music orgy Sauta Rabel (1992), Modena City Ramblers's punk-folk romp Riportando Tutto A Casa (1994), and Ustmamo`'s dream-poppy Ust (1996).

Among pop musicians, Tiromancino were probably the least derivative (La Descrizione di un Attimo, 2000; Amore Impossibile, 2004). Baustelle's Sussidiario Illustrato Della Giovinezza (2000) and Perturbazione's In Circolo (2002) were among the albums that reinvented Italian pop music.

At the turn of the century, Italy's post-rock scene had become one of the most vibrant in the world.

Ossatura indulged in a mixture of abstract electronic soundscaping, free-jazz improvisation, concrete collage and progressive-rock on Dentro (ReR, 1998).

The Dining Rooms (Stefano Ghittoni and Cesare Malfatti) ventured into trip-hop with a cinematic twist on Subterranean Modern Volume Uno (1999).

Yuppie Flu's Days Before The Day (2003) offered charming folk vignettes arranged with analog electronic keyboards.

Maisie (Alberto Scotti and Cinzia La Fauci) penned the dissonant and cartoonish divertissement The Incredible Strange Choir Of Paracuwaii (1999) under the aegis of Captain Beefheart and Dada.

Quintorigo's postmodern chamber workout Rospo (1999) was Italy's best attempt at classic-jazz-rock fusion since the heydays of progressive-rock.

Minimal duo My Cat Is An Alien delivered a post-rock version of Tim Buckley's sublime dejection on the totally improvised three-part jam Landscapes Of An Electric City (1999).

A Short Apnea (former Afterhours' guitarist Xabier Iriondo, guitarist Paolo Cantu` and vocalist Fabio Magistrali) blurred the borders between post-rock, free-jazz and electronic avantgarde in the three jams of their second album, Illu Ogod Ellat Rhagedia (2000).

Bron Y Aur played a devastating kind of improvised post-rock Bron Y Aur (Beware, 2000).

Giardini di Miro` (1) assembled an intriguing combination of hypnotic instrumental textures, deconstructed melodies, dilated psychedelic improvisation, and melodramatic soft-loud glacial/vibrant dynamics on Rise and Fall of Academic Drifting (2001).

Notable was also Yo Yo Mundi's instrumental post-rock puzzle Sciopero (2001).

Zu (1) revived the school of jazzcore from the perspective of the post-rock generation with the brutal, free-form instrumental music of Igneo (2002).

Jennifer Gentle (1), perhaps the premier psychedelic band of Italy, penned the surreal folk-pop of Funny Creatures Lane (2002) for rock quartet, strings, accordion and sitar.

To The Ansaphone's To The Ansaphone (Heartfelt, 2003) harked back to the angst-filled no wave of the late 1970s (Pop Group, Contortions, DNA).

Larsen were among the most creative groups to try and bridge the aesthetics of post-rock and glitch electronica with the austere, brooding, hypnotic atmospheres of Rever (2002) and Play (2005).

Outside post-rock and, in general, avant-rock, Italian bands delivered substantial contributions to garage-rock, such as Julie's Haircut's Fever In The Funk House (1999), dance-pop, such as Subsonica's Microchip Emozionale (1999), pop-revisionism, such as Baustelle's Sussidiario Illustrato della Giovinezza (2000), etc.

The sloppy, demented, eclectic garage-folk of Bugo (Cristian Bugatti) bridged Beck and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion on La Prima Gratta (1999) and especially the double-disc tour de force Golia & Melchiorre (2004).

Italian heavy-metal had never been particularly interesting, but at the turn of the century a number of works heralded a mature era: Rhapsody's Symphony Of Enchanted Lands (1998), summarizing the quintessential of operatic symphonic metal, Ephel Duath's Phormula (2000), a magisterial fusion of jazz and metal, Void Of Silence's Toward The Dusk (2001), Forgotten Tomb's Songs To Leave (2002), etc. Ufomammut's ultra-heavy space-rock expressed itself via both the visceral Godlike Snake (2000) and the progressive Snailking (2004).

the Italian dynasty of singer-songwriters ("cantautori") was continued at the turn of the century by Ivano Fossati, with Discanto (1990), Carmen Consoli with Confusa e Felice (1997), Cristina Dona`'s Nido (1999), and Vinicio Capossela's Canzoni a Manovella (2000).