It\u2019s where Coke came to life, and where thousands of soldiers prepare for war. It\u2019s home to a major cinema corporation and an insurance company best known for a talking duck.<\/p>\n
And, of course, Columbus, Georgia, is a hotbed of post-rock music.<\/p>\n
Huh?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know what it is, maybe it\u2019s that border with Alabama,\u201d said Columbus-native Matt Nelson, guitarist and cofounder of the post-rock quartet A. Armada. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s those kids in Phenix City buying Mogwai records (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n
Enthralled by The Appleseed Cast and Godspeed You! Black Emperor (\u201cI saw them, it was amazing,\u201d Nelson said, \u201cthat is what music is to me\u201d), Nelson joined forces with guitarist Josh McCauley in 2002 to form A. Armada. Shunning lyrics for instrumental experimentation, the duo toured the town sharing their musical revelation.<\/p>\n
It found followers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had this show opening up for (A. Armada) when they were first starting out,\u201d said Jeremy Harbin, also from Columbus. \u201cThey were doing what we were doing but so much better. I remember being pissed off a little bit because they were so much better. We didn\u2019t know each other but we were both in Columbus listening to the same bands. The rest is history.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, not quite. One move to Athens, (\u201cWe couldn\u2019t stay in Columbus,\u201d said Nelson, \u201cit\u2019s sad, but you have to get out of a place like that to get your music speak to people\u201d), one drummer and one bassist later, the history of A. Armada is only now being written in earnest. With the addition of Harbin on drums and Bryant Williamson (who with Nelson is a member of Athens\u2019 stalwarts Cinemechanica) on bass, A. Armada has forged a promising path, highlighted by the reLease of its initial EP (Anam Cara) and a European tour.<\/p>\n
The tour, which took the four through the Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, France (\u201cand Luxembourg you can\u2019t forget Luxembourg, the best place on Earth\u201d said Nelson), proved a revelation. Supporting From Monument to Masses, an experimental band from San Francisco, they played sizable rooms with throngs of appreciative fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe shows every night surprised us,\u201d Harbin said. \u201cWe\u2019d go to a show and say \u2018this is gonna be the night where no one comes out\u2019 and people would show up every night.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019d talk to people and they\u2019d say this is a big show for us, we\u2019re really excited\u2019 \u201d Williamson said.<\/p>\n
Post-rock can be a hard sell, but for A. Armada it opens endless corridors. The European reception reaffirmed their position as musicians searching for new territory.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the problem is people don\u2019t like the definition,\u201d Harbin said. \u201cSaying you\u2019re post-rock is almost as bad as saying you\u2019re emo. People go \u2018Post-rock? I\u2019ve heard Explosions in the Sky,\u2019 and people try to do that band and not do it as well. It\u2019s like they\u2019ve given up on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMusically you can experiment and go in so many different places without keeping vocals in mind,\u201d Williamson said. \u201cIn order to make vocals work you have to stray more into pop structure. If you take it out of the equation, it’s easier to experiment with dynamics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anam Cara is a testament to this dynamism. The songs, with titles such as \u201cThe Moon Shifts The Sea The Sea Shapes The Shore The Shore Shakes The Sand The Sand Sinks The Ship\u201d (try writing lyrics to that) feature layered guitars slow to start, rising with ringing crescendos, punctuated by Harbin’s manic work behind the kit.<\/p>\n
\u201cTypically a riff is brought in and we work from there,\u201d Nelson said of the band\u2019s song writing. \u201cWe\u2019ll get to a stopping point and go home and think about it. When we get back to the space and feed off each other, ideas come together to make the final result.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, this first EP is a stepping stone,\u201d Williamson said. \u201cIt\u2019s the first recording of us together, so we\u2019re incredibly pumped.\u201d<\/p>\n
Work has begun on a full-length album, and the band is playing South By Southwest in March. While plans for a U.S. tour are in discus-sion, there is one city the band has eyes on in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing Columbus,\u201d said Nelson. \u201cWe\u2019re rocking the hometown.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the post-rock legacy lives on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s where Coke came to life, and where thousands of soldiers prepare for war. It\u2019s home to a major cinema corporation and an insurance company best known for a talking duck. And, of course, Columbus, Georgia, is a hotbed of post-rock music. Huh? \u201cI don’t know what it is, maybe it\u2019s that border with Alabama,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[299,300],"class_list":["post-1212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-a-armada","tag-post-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1213,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1212\/revisions\/1213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}