you know when you find something that resonates with your core being, so much so that time stops and you feel transported to another plane of reality? a place that you want to explore and adventure in?

well for me that place is a spinning coin with sigur ros as heads and godspeed you black emperor as tails.

the kind of musing that hums my cosmic frequency, makes me want to learn the violin, the drums, the cello, thrash my guitar to foam and lose myself in a spirtual windwhirl of effervescent ecstacy.

but the road to these bands is wriggling worm which starts for me with Ride’s album – Nowhere. I bought this on vinyl years ago on the recommendation of a friend, and absolutely hated it. however, as I’d spent that money, I thought I’d give it a decent listen. Somewhere around replay 17, it hit me. shook me. got me. I probably gave up on the blues that day, then and there. in the bin eric clapton, muddy waters, b b king, robert johnson, this stuff’s got a whole new tale to tell..

of whirling maelstroms of guitars and drowning droning vocals, bypassing your brain and placing you at the centre of the cyclone of the group unconscious. here the madness begins and leads to My Bloody Valentine, Einzturzende Neubauten, [The Pixies are in here somewhere]the Smith’s How Soon is Now and eventually post-rock, whatever that is…

I put Mogwai’s Ex-Cowboy on loop and had a bath, saw Ride live and thought that I would have made my consciousness come if I’d been tripping, listened by the fire of inner-knowing to Staralfur from Sigur Ros, which trumped This Mortal Coil’s Song to the Siren as most beautiful song I know, whilst Godspeed’s Sleep – we don’t sleep on the beach, anymore – conjured visions of Kurosawa’s armoured horses black and white at midnight across the fire-swept moors. but then there’s the fuzzy quiet loud of Explosions in the Sky, the sword-singing angst of Neutral Milk Hotel, the sharply shimmering beauty of Low, and dirty power-pop of British Sea Power. a battlefield of sound, a quirkily magic alternate world where subtle details matter, nothing has yet been explored, vast swathes of mountains, forests, dreamtimes, asgards and ashrams to super-consciousness…

that’s the kind of space I think of when I think of post-rock, but there’s also the land of blipsy bloopsy, the jazzamilism of Tortoise, faery-bells of Mum, pared-back melodic nonchalence of The Notwist and of course there’s still room in my heart for Radiohead, Doves, The Dirty Three, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and strangely unclassifiable Future Pilot AKA..

I seem to remember one of those french post-modernists saying that we do not read the book, that in fact, the book reads us. that’s how I feel about this music. it reminds me of a home I’m estranged from, that I haven’t found again yet, but can visit anytime, like the aborigines, one foot in reality and one in the dreamtime.

and I know there’s more to discover, more to find, more to make, which fills me with a special kind of joy, what I call avant-pop has led me to journeys in an undiscovered country.