I sometimes find the diversity of rock music quite surprising, especially considering its pretty much homogeneous initial years and the (relative) musical unsophistication of most of its practitioners. Rock originated as a sort of dance music, developing from blues and country music, and so it is interesting to observe some of its practitioners turn towards an abstract, "pure" music more characteristic of the classical and avant-garde traditions. It is of course true that jazz has tended in this direction since the Second World War, but jazz was always, even from its beginnings, more concerned with individual creative expression over, say, youthful rebellion, which has always been at least one subtext of rock.
Recently, however, I started listening to some music from the so-called Math Rock genre. While I had been aware of it previously, it was only upon reading an interview with second-generation Math Rock band Battles that I was really intrigued; specifically, I was intrigued by the fact that one of their members, Tyondai Braxton, is in fact the son of famed avant-garde saxophonist and composer Anthony Braxton. I've never been a huge fan of most of the elder Braxton's work - I saw him with his band last spring at the Iridium and the music was for the most part mundane, unsurprising, and undifferentiated, which is saying a lot for a composer of some of the world's most cryptically notated pieces - but I do, at the very least, appreciate his artistry, especially on 1968's For Alto. Anyway, I proceeded to download Battle's first LP, Mirrored, and while I was initially unimpressed with the music as a whole (the musicianship and production, needless to say, were first-rate), I have come to enjoy several tracks.
But I'm not entirely sure that the music is interesting in the same way as the band (or at least Pitchfork) would have it. In Jess Harvell's review of the album, the name dropping is furious, but this is to be expected. Here, however, there are references to two of minimalism's founders, Steve Reich and Terry Riley. The Reich reference (to Music for 18 Musicians) is not out of the ordinary, being probably the easiest minimalism reference for someone with a hipster's knowledge of music history, but taken in tandem with the Riley, we are clearly being pointed in a specific direction. And despite the later paragraphs of the review, which attribute the charm of the record to "the frenzied gibberish of Braxton's pitch-shifted and electronically processed vocals," I couldn't help but come away with the impression that we were dealing with some genuinely sophisticated music here. I don't mean to say that this music isn't sophisticated in a certain way: its use of contemporary audio technology is impressive, and all four of the core band members are certainly talented players. But ultimately mostly it all comes down to the same sort of thing done so well by prog rockers in the late 70s: compare Rush's "YYZ" with Battle's "Rainbows." You get the same sort of repetition of complicated riffs, followed by a transition to another, equally complicated riff, and perhaps a return to the original riff to close the tune. Formally, the whole thing plays out as a sequence of non sequiturs, and the music, which would be of the same formal density and coherence of the best minimalism (like Reich's aforementioned piece), is nothing more than a riff-driven quodlibet of sorts.
The problem lies more with the way rock has traditionally worked than with particular bands, which is why it's hard to find much fault with Battles for continuing in a way similar to that of their predecessors. Rock's basic structure is between alternating verses and choruses, with the occasional bridge or alternate chorus thrown in for variety's sake. There is very little space for the development of melodies within this rigid structure, much less for that of riffs or the form itself. So when rock complicates or mathematizes itself it mostly just expands on the bifurcations it already does so well. In fact, it's very difficult to imagine a system of rock motive development, or even rock musicians patient enough to develop motives rather than switch between them when it felt right. This sort of logic is pushed to its extreme in the work of bands like The Fiery Furnaces, whose most famous album, 2004's Blueberry Boat, is most famous for its inaccessibility. In their case, motives are taken almost a priori as throwaway, not because of any sort of intrinsic blandness, but rather, seemingly, because they seem to consider every idea as valuable only for a few seconds at most. What results, as attested to in the glowingly snobbish tone of Pitchfork's canonization of the album, is a sort of intellectually hollow obscurantism. Again, this isn't to say that I fail to appreciate the band's concept completely; indeed, there are many inspired moments on both this album and others. The first such moments that comes to mind are scattered throughout "Black-Hearted Boy" from the Furnaces' 2006 album Bitter Tea.
The strength of individual moments in structurally complex rock pieces, and especially their greater strength relative to that of the structures themselves, points in the direction of a barrier all formally dense rock music will sooner or later have to face; namely, the difficulty rock has in maintaining an original affect across changes in motive and formal development. Thus, the most successful pieces on Mirrored are those that proceed in a minimalistic fashion, like the lead single "Atlas." Rock has certainly produced a great number of musicians able to capture a specific affective state, and what is great about Battles is their ability to do the same with a high caliber of musicianship and a discerning understanding of timbre.
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