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Post-Rock Gigs in Bristol

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Bristol's Post-rock Scene

What ever happened to post-rock?

Britannica defines post rock as a form of experimental rock that incorporates aspects of jazz and electronica, so what happened to the genre that was so popular in the 90s and 00s. Bands like Mogwai and Tortoise have gone quiet and local Bristol post-rock acts too. The problem with post-rock is that it’s so loosely defined, that it hasn’t really gone away or at all. Rather than decline, the term has just gone out of fashion. Post-rock lives on in the fusion-ready music of local Bristol acts like Ishmael ensemble. With many kids that would’ve been rockstars in the 90s, now making electronica - maybe we should call this post-post-rock now?

What we said in 2015
Right now Bristol’s post-rock and alternative rock scene is at it’s healthiest for years. In addition to some excellent local venues and consistently strong live bookings, we also have promoters like Simple Things purveying some of the boldest festival programming in the UK. Recent Simple Things events have paired post-rock headliners like Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor with cutting edge electronic music and innovative techno producers. In terms of consistent Bristol venues for alternative rock - The Exchange, The Stag And Hounds and The Fleece (who’s past bookings include Thee Silver Mt Zion and Deerhoof) lead the way. The Thekla also makes solid bookings (past guests include 65daysofstatic, And So I Watch You From Afar) and annual ArcTanGent Festival is not to be missed.

Buy tickets for post-rock events in Bristol

Our recent post-rock recommendations

A delicious left-turn from those crazy IGH kids as they launch a new label for their rotating improv scene collabs and freewheeling live cuts! Grab their first release then dive into: postmodern percussion poetry from wayward bardist Sean Noonan (‘the punk-jazz Alan Lomax’), Horsefair’s potent post-rock convulsions and IGH’s ever-mutating house band packing a special bumper line-up. Celebration of first release + future regular !

9 hour, 19 band marathon of scathing guitar rot seeping upstairs/downstairs/from all corners of the bloody Exchange! Featuring Gnasch’s low-end sludge woe, Kushthulhu’s swamp-infested doom, Vicarage’s blackened hxc bludgery and Bubblegum Hypnosis’ batshit garage-fuzz stoner prog (to name but a few). Unmissable shopping spree FFO: Eyehategod, Locust, Brutal Truth, Sleep, Celtic Frost, Negative Approach. Explore a wild array of sounds rooted in the DIY ethos of hardcore

Local one-man hammer machine Lawi Anywar draws art rock gold from a heady melting pot of psych, funk, prog and shoegaze, spoiling you with new album delights alongside mega support from ethereal grunge angel Eli Dayo + uncanny post-folkers Foot Foot. Unmissable hypnotic heft FFO: Meshell Ndegeocello, Yves Tumour, Slint, TV On The Radio, Brontide. Lawi Anywar descends on Strange Brew with Eli Dayo and Foot Foot in tow for his first home town headline show in 3 years.

A Stokes Croft triple-hitter of underground fire: Holy Popes channel post-garage punk into animalistic distortion and visceral noise; Vile Imbeciles gurgle experimental high-guitar hell with rhythmic jank; and Repo Man collapse rock into shards of sax, ping-ponging bass lines and plunking riffs. Relentless FFO: The Fall, The Stooges, The Birthday Party. Visceral noise rock & feral death jazz forged from the ashes of the Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster & beyond

What our editors say

“KATATONIA released their triumphant Napalm Records debut, Sky Void of Stars, in 2023 to the enthrallment of critics and fans alike. The album showcases their brilliant, genre-defying fusion of melodic death metal and atmospheric post rock. Following its release, the band jumped on a massive headline tour across Europe and the UK alongside Sólstafir and SOM.”
From: Katatonia

“We're thrilled to invite back Jennifer Walton to her second Enter the Noid slot having played our first ever show at the ICA back in June 2023. In the time between, she's gone from strength to strength; contributing electronic elements on Caroline's second album, forming an unstoppable supergroup called Microplastics with aya & 96 Back and releasing her debut album, 'Daughters' on Local Action last month to an exceptionally warm critical response. Her singular output blends post rock & slowcore structures with hyperpop-indebted vocal manipulations moments of crescending orchestral euphoria.”
From: Jennifer Walton, Shoplifting1080p, Lowkey-E + DJs

“Self-taught pianist and composer Daniel Inzani has been a pivotal figure on the Bristol alternative music scene for more than a decade. He leads a neoclassical chamber quartet Spindle Ensemble, co-curates Hidden Notes Festival in Stroud, and he’s worked with a baffling array of outfits, playing Ethiopian funk, Indonesian gamelan, rocksteady, 1950s-style exotica and post rock, as well as working closely with fellow maverick musicians Alabaster dePlume and Cosmo Sheldrake.”
From: Daniel Inzani + Nina Harries

“In just a thunderous 16 minutes, it fashions blistered no wave collages out of skronking guitars, noirish jazz piano, and fragile, spidery sprechstimme monologues – genuinely volatile, uncomfortable music that combines the cinematic high drama of post rock with jazz detritus and the gristly, sinewy guitar noise of Albini, Ranaldo or Branca at their butchering best.”
From: EX AGENT RELEASE PARTY || MONIKA BADLY X DAN JOHNSON || D/RK-HUMR X TLK

““The fifth album - created entirely in his native Sardinia - Pathei Mathos confirms the post rock project S A R R A M as a rich and highly emotional masterpiece. There is a lot to discover and experience here."”
From: SARRAM / SHE THE THRONE / MONIKA BADLY / KIM ORGANCHRIST