Rabeca – “Aquarium” from their new album Junk
I don’t have the greatest feel on what the term “post-rock” means. What I do know is that that is frequently what the group Tortoise gets called. For me, Tortoise exemplifies an embrace of jazz textures and sensibilities by rock musicians without a strident announcement of “THIS IS JAZZ MUSIC, SIT DOWN CAUSE COMING UP NEXT IT’S JAZZ WITH A CAPITAL J”. Why am I telling you about Tortoise? We are talking about Rabeca after all. Well, to me Rabeca falls in line with the Tortoise style. I hear Steven Reich style melodies floating over frenetic rhythm tracks with arrangements that seem to have been decided by a coin flip in the best possible way. There is an exuberance and excitement about sound and instruments all across this new project from Rabeca that can be sorely lacking in a lot of modern music. And I always follow the rule of listening to a band when the drummer is named Satchel, so I really had no choice.
