Since the mid-90s Texas’ Explosions In The Sky have been changing the face of alternative guitar music, making eclectic symphonies accessible in a profoundly moving way. The band have come to not only occupy but also define a niche in progressive instrumental music, releasing seven albums since 2000, all while labouring over motion picture pieces and a handful of full-length movie soundtracks.
With the release of their latest album, The Wilderness, Explosions In The Sky continue to evolve and challenge the genre they helped create.
Rayani describes The Wilderness as “an attempt at trying to write something that wasn’t predictable.” “We wanted to expand these musical landscapes of ours and see what we could come up with if we went left instead of going right, if we looked backwards instead of looking forward, if we kind of spun ourselves around and got a little dizzy.” It truly does attain the abstraction and impact it aspires to – songs like “Logic of a Dream” build continuously in a manner that contrasts their entire past discography, intensely and almost slightly counterintuitively at times. On the other hand, tracks like “Losing the Light”, though obscure, instrumentalize emotional rise and falls in a subtle manner that is familiar to any long-standing fan of the band.
The Wilderness is still loyal to Explosions’ traditional sound, as Rayani agrees. “For me it feels absolutely like us; it carries these melodies and these tunes that we’ve worked half a lifetime becoming skilful at.” And yet, it is an album of evolution. Rather than climbing into our heads and driving us where we otherwise might have headed, the instrumentals of the new record shock and comfort simultaneously. Hoping to “explore some unknowns” without losing the voice that distinguishes them as a 17-year-old post-rock collective, Explosions have gracefully rejuvenated their art and are both proud and grateful to have come out on the other side more inspired than ever.
This isn’t to say the band’s lengthy history has been free of writer’s block and artistic ruts. The key, it seems, is perseverance of will to make meaningful things, and faith that it will happen. “We often wander into it a bit blind, a bit into the darkness… and as we wander through melody and beat and conversation with one another this vision starts to become a little bit more focused and then it leads us and we follow it to the end of a record.” The beauty of the process, to Rayani, seems to lie in this uncertainty that it entails. “Absolutely we hit those walls, because making music is not easy. It is very, very, very, difficult. And that’s kind of a good thing, because it really helps separate the ones who can from the ones who can’t.”
Explosions In The Sky will perform at Montreal’s Metropolis on Sunday 18th September. Support comes from Julianna Barwick. TICKETS are priced just $29 in advance.
