Progressive, alternative, psychedelic and even math —these are a multitude of adjectives used to describe rock music. Dig into it and these ‘genres’ are mostly media inventions for easy reference. However, in the Internet age, these words are frequent tools in the vocabulary of forum-surfing netizens and at times overloaded with expectations. Now, people wait for albums that fit within the sonic boundaries of a defined genre rather than creative and innovative music just because of the umbrella term that is put on a band’s music.
So, when we converse with Torsten Kinsella — one of the founding members of the Irish instrumental rock trio God Is An Astronaut — on Skype post their India debut at NH7 Weekender Pune, ‘genre’ is the first things we tackle. “The problem I have with genres is, it puts style above content. When people start looking at music stylistically, it becomes an unhealthy approach and everything becomes comparisons rather than listening to what the artiste is trying to say,” says Torsten, elaborating, “We have a fascination for sci-fi concepts, like time and space travel. God Is An Astronaut represents something mysterious and timeless.”
Electric realm
The foundation of the act — known for an instrumental-centric approach with arousing melodies, sometimes including lyrics which are, however, hidden behind a mist of heavily-layered atmospheric elements — was laid by twin brothers Torsten and Niels Kinsella circa 1996. “We had a lot of electronic equipment like sequencers and samplers and made music influenced by trip-hop acts like Massive Attack. Slowly, we started making melodies that were uniquely about what we wanted to express,” states the guitarist, when asked about the little band instrumentation found in their debut album The End of the Beginning (2002).
Torsten shares that he first heard about the post-rock movement when an audience member mentioned Explosions in the Sky (an American band) after a show in 2003, and thought that he was referring to the visuals they employed in their performances. “One major difference between us and the prominent post-rock bands of the early 2000s are the structures. We keep our songs short, with an average of four minutes, while other bands went on for seven minutes or so.” Since the early 2000s, the trio has released nine albums; each playing around with their connection to both electronic and rock styles and exhibiting a different experimental strain including guitar tones.