Revisiting the Labradford
a post-rock postscript
I recently read You're With Stupid, a memoir and snapshot of the incredibly vibrant music scene in 90s Chicago, written by Bruce Adams, one of the co-founders of kranky records --- a label that's consistently put out some of my favourite music since its beginnings. The book covers a lot of ground surrounding the label itself, including the cooperative and varied scenes that seemed to almost daily introduce a new artist or group ready to break new ground in their genre of choice. I really connected with the book, which will be discussed more thoroughly in an upcoming post (spoilers), as its timeline coincides with my earliest days working in a record store and getting exposed to exactly these artists – Tortoise, Gastr Del Sol, Palace Brothers, Stars of the Lid, and so many more. But over the last few weeks the section of my kranky records collection I've revisited the most are the six Labradford albums.
My first exposure to them was the purchase of their eponymous titled third album released in 1996. I honestly can't recall why I sought it out... perhaps a particularly enticing press blurb in that week's F>A>B> distro sheets.... but I do remember putting on the first track titled “Phantom Channel Crossing,” hearing the metallic dragging sounds that preceded a nearly subsonic bass pulse, and catching a whiff of something burning. This turned out to be the woofers that were getting violently pulled in and pushed back out of their mooring by the track's low end. I was impressed. The rest of the album feels like a kind of secret from the future that's being whispered into your headphones. A little menacing, a little melancholy, and endlessly intriguing... I was hooked and went back fro the first two and kept buying the others as they came out.
The band started as a duo and soon filled out to a trio based out of Richmond, Virginia. Mark Nelson mainly handled guitars and vocals, when there were vocals; Robert Donne was on bass; Carter brown on keyboards --- and all three filled in space with an array of keyboards and effects both musical and non. Their earliest output carried hints of the kind of ambient rock that sat right between the poles of song and sweep from Brian Eno's 70s / early 80s output. They concentrated as much on the textures and musical mise en scene as the compositions themselves. As I was learning more about them they also were becoming key players in what critics eventually agreed upon calling post-rock.
Post-rock apparently was first coined in 1994 by Simon Reynolds in his review of the Bark Psychosis album Hex for The Wire magazine. The definition qualified bands that were "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes....” The term quickly got applied to everyone from Tortoise to Mogwai, despite very little overlap in style or intent... but it at least served at the time as a catch-all for groups that were pushing on the boundaries of genre in general. This was certainly true of Labradford who, album to album, chose a slightly new approach and mood, exploring fragments of chamber classical, ambient dub, spaghetti western guitar, but fitting it together in a way that preserved their key character.
Their album that is never far from my stereo is their 1999 effort E Luxo So. For my money it is the perfect synthesis of all their strengths. It has the patience and precision of minimalism along with the electronic gilding usually associated with dub techno all run through with a variety of mournful guitar, simple and declarative piano, and chamber strings. It's a good listen first thing in the morning or late into the night, not to mention one of my regular go-to highway driving albums. Nearly 25 years later I've never gotten tired of it.
Labradford only lasted another couple of years and released one more album, Fixed::Context, in 2001. Of the three members Mark Nelson has been the most active since, with over a dozen releases under the banner of Pan.American. Since 2014 there've been a couple of albums released by Anjou which reunites he and Robert Donne. There's been no mention of a full band reunion, but one can hope?
Upon the release of his 2019 Pan.American album titled A Son I had the pleasure of doing a brief interview with Nelson which is posted over here at the Surgery Radio podcast page, as well as dedicating the full episode to a retrospective of works from all of his projects. Please have a listen.