my education

Fear is one of rock and roll’s greatest sources of power, and to overcome fear is perhaps the human spirit’s greatest triumph. My Education has long been the real deal, never shy to experiment or follow its heart. It takes courage to risk failure, but now with a fifth studio album it’s easy to hear a band that has thrived on taking risks and is now in full stride.

A Drink For All My Friends has all the features that My Education’s more recent album Sunrise contained. There are big jams, pensive orchestral moments, highly dynamic narrative from song to song – but the element that stands out is the “rawk” factor. Some of these songs are blazing big holes in the soft underbelly of the universe. The pinched squirm of the wah wah guitar is evocative of orgasm.

Once the tea cups are set in the opening post classical “A Drink…” the band enters into “…For All My Friends”. Like setting up camp before a medieval battle the drama is meticulously woven with each instrument added. With a plaintive guitar the tents are erected, a pair of violas calms the horses, the bass and toms load catapults, the vibraphone-esque accents keep the king’s breakfast warm. And once the wah’d lead guitar carves a parabolic path, the signal is given to attack in theatrical fashion. The breakdown at the end of this song will inspire listeners to turn it up even louder. It is cathartic stuff!

It would be easy to rattle off a gushing analysis of each track, but it is the diversity of approach from one track to the next that will either impress or perplex. A confident group of musicians, My Education’s handle on story telling, composition and pacing is supreme. The middle of the album slows into the post-mortem ”Black Box”, a moody experimental piece featuring audio samples from, you guessed it, an airline in trouble. The indistinguishable words are smothered in static and provide a ghostly element to a woozy but affecting piece. My Education also does a great Maserati impersonation! “Roboter-Höhlenbewohner” is a muscular ode to the late Maserati drummer Jerry Fuchs, and one could easily imagine him powering the engine on this one.

There just aren’t many post rock bands that distinguish themselves. If My Education are post rock I hope the next generation is listening because this is an exciting group that just keeps getting better while trying new things. In the world of Austin, TX instrumental bands, Explosions in the Sky became the emotional soundtrack to hold hands to while My Education jams in the dreamland of a Richard Linklater film (even cult movie icon Wiley Wiggins has done a video for them). The band’s position on the fringe would explain why it hasn’t received similar attention, but there is never a sense that My Education create music that does not move them. We all respect art with sincerity, and this music expresses sincerity with every note. Cheers. - A Closer Listen

http://www.npr.org/2013/03/01/173275533/the-mix-the-austin-100 - NPR

At the other end of the dynamic spectrum was My Education, an instrumental band that has made a sacrament of the measured crescendo. The group introduces stately melodies, often topped by violin, and then cycles through them, building variations by small increments from within — an additional cymbal crash here, a tremolo there, some slowly dawning feedback, some thickening keyboard chords — until the music looms as monumental, even overwhelming. Patience becomes a detonator. - New York Times

NYMD’s sister blog Lucid Culture called four-guitar Austin postrock instrumentalists My Education “The Dirty Three meets Friends of Dean Martinez meets Brooklyn Rider meets My Bloody Valentine,” which makes sense. Their music takes you away to a different and much better universe, where angst is confronted and then transcended, where pain rises and is then swept away on the wings of what sounds like a million guitars. Lush, ornate, hypnotic and psychedelic to the extreme, their new album A Drink for All My Friends blends Dirty Three pensiveness and FODM desert ambience with elegantly austere touches of Brooklyn Rider strings, then stirs it ferociously with a MBV dreampop swirl.

This album opens on an unexpectedly quiet note, guest Sarah Norris’ vibraphone mingling with James Alexandre’s viola for a hypnotic circularity that brings to mind Missy Mazzoli’s chamber rock band Victoire. Then the guitars enter one by one on the second track, For All My Friends, an army of roaring riffage that finally rises to a titanic wall of frantic tremolo-picking, reaching a Pink Floyd majesty as the bass bubbles over the top of the sonic cauldron and ends unexpectedly raw and jaggedly: what a ride this is!

The practically ten-minute, cinematic Mr. 1986 builds out of a pretty, acoustic chamber-pop theme into an elegaic anthem, both nebulous and forcefully direct, Henna Chou’s terse piano finally taking centertstage and then quickly receding against the guitar orchestra. Built around a distantly menacing, echoey heart monitor motif, Black Box richly blends twinkly Rhodes piano with all the guitars into a slow, crepuscular freeway theme speckled with weird samples of television or radio dialogue,

Robot-Hohlenbewoner rides a funky, more animated motorik groove: if U2 wrote good songs, they would sound like this. The ten-minute Happy Village takes its time to eventually clarify that this particular village isn’t so happy at all: it’s the Velvets as John Cale might have dreamed of orchestrating them circa 1967, plus mid-70s Floyd angst, hynotic Black Angels murk and an unexpected nod to new wave on the way out. The album ends with the arena-rock spoof Homunculus, like Big Lazy’s Starchild but more amusingly crass. My Education are huge in Europe, which is where they are right now, on tour: a band this good deserves just as avid a following on their own side of the pond. Count this among the most lushly enjoyable albums of the year in any style of music. - New York Music Daily

NYMD’s sister blog Lucid Culture called four-guitar Austin postrock instrumentalists My Education “The Dirty Three meets Friends of Dean Martinez meets Brooklyn Rider meets My Bloody Valentine,” which makes sense. Their music takes you away to a different and much better universe, where angst is confronted and then transcended, where pain rises and is then swept away on the wings of what sounds like a million guitars. Lush, ornate, hypnotic and psychedelic to the extreme, their new album A Drink for All My Friends blends Dirty Three pensiveness and FODM desert ambience with elegantly austere touches of Brooklyn Rider strings, then stirs it ferociously with a MBV dreampop swirl.

This album opens on an unexpectedly quiet note, guest Sarah Norris’ vibraphone mingling with James Alexandre’s viola for a hypnotic circularity that brings to mind Missy Mazzoli’s chamber rock band Victoire. Then the guitars enter one by one on the second track, For All My Friends, an army of roaring riffage that finally rises to a titanic wall of frantic tremolo-picking, reaching a Pink Floyd majesty as the bass bubbles over the top of the sonic cauldron and ends unexpectedly raw and jaggedly: what a ride this is!

The practically ten-minute, cinematic Mr. 1986 builds out of a pretty, acoustic chamber-pop theme into an elegaic anthem, both nebulous and forcefully direct, Henna Chou’s terse piano finally taking centertstage and then quickly receding against the guitar orchestra. Built around a distantly menacing, echoey heart monitor motif, Black Box richly blends twinkly Rhodes piano with all the guitars into a slow, crepuscular freeway theme speckled with weird samples of television or radio dialogue,

Robot-Hohlenbewoner rides a funky, more animated motorik groove: if U2 wrote good songs, they would sound like this. The ten-minute Happy Village takes its time to eventually clarify that this particular village isn’t so happy at all: it’s the Velvets as John Cale might have dreamed of orchestrating them circa 1967, plus mid-70s Floyd angst, hynotic Black Angels murk and an unexpected nod to new wave on the way out. The album ends with the arena-rock spoof Homunculus, like Big Lazy’s Starchild but more amusingly crass. My Education are huge in Europe, which is where they are right now, on tour: a band this good deserves just as avid a following on their own side of the pond. Count this among the most lushly enjoyable albums of the year in any style of music. - New York Music Daily

Death lives in the imagination. Even the most well-adjusted of us slip into daily correspondence with thoughts of the end, from the size and splendor of our funeral to that secret, idyllic spot our ashes should be scattered.

An Austin act seemingly tailored to a funeral procession, My Education formed locally more than a decade ago. Its instrumental crescendos come incorporated with strings and electronics to such a degree that the enterprise doesn't feel tethered to late-Nineties "post-rock."

"It's sad music for somber people," deadpans violist James Alexander, 45, at a December pig roast the weekend following a release party for the band's latest disc, A Drink for All My Friends. The sextet doesn't balk at his description, but the music has splintered in and out of that designation with every new album. On A Drink for All My Friends, My Education taps into its most triumphant, untethered set of compositions, even as the title and theme pay tribute to the departed.

My Education's education began in 1999, when guitarist Brian Purington, 36, migrated from San Angelo "with a group of people to start a band." Among those was singer Joe Covington.

"Eventually he quit, out of spite," explains Purington, alluding to a common theme in My Education's growth – membership turnover. "I have not spoken to him in the 10 years since he quit the band, but I know he's married with two kids living back in San Angelo now," he emails me later. "I decided to keep doing the band as an instrumental [project] because half the songs I had written were instrumental. At that point, Chris Hackstie [41, guitar] was already in the band, and James [Alexander] joined."

Behind this core trio, 2004 saw the release of debut 5 Popes, a substantial if similar-sounding group of tracks Purington calls "more shoegaze influenced." 2005's Italian demonstrated growth, but My Education's first left-field release arrived with the following year's Moody Dipper, which boasted a wider palette of mood and style. Aside from three original numbers – or a pair and one interpretation, "Spirit of Peace (A Variation on a Theme by Popul Vuh)" – the band sounds unencumbered, though remixes by Kinski and Deadverse ground My Education in a habitat even darker and more distorted than the one they created originally. The album deals in extremes, and the addition of percussionist and master vibraphone player Sarah Norris pushes the sound skyward. 2008 marked the release of Bad Vibrations, after which the band continued expanding.

In 2010, My Education matched that darker evocation in a score it composed for the 1927 silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, directed by F. W. Murnau, the man behind 1922's seminal vampire scare-all Nosferatu. That summer, a happy accident – or at least roadworthy reality – resulted in a collaboration with Salt Lake City's Theta Naught as Sound Mass. For a June show at Kilby Court, not only was attendance poor, the evening ran late.

"Instead of just doing our individual sets, we were like, 'Let's play one together,'" recalls My Education multi-instrumentalist Henna Chou, 32. "And it was fun because people switched off. Their harp player would trade off on the keyboard with me, and it was really interesting how it worked out that time. It motivated us to try it again later."

An improvisational collaboration under the name Sound Mass came out in 2011. The ease of recording that album was far from typical, admits My Education bassist Scott Telles, 50, who also heads veteran local psych lords ST 37.

"Our compositional process is very lengthy because usually people come in with only the most rudimentary of ideas," he says. "We all whip it, beat it, and torture it until it starts to sound like a My Education song. The songs that came out on this record we've been working on for two years, if not longer for some of them."

This process frustrates the faint of heart, and those who don't fit the band's mold eventually squeeze out of their membership.
My Education
My Education
Photo by John Anderson

"We're socialists," offers Purington with less irony than you might expect. "Ultimately, the band should be greater than the sum of its parts."

My Education has experienced much turnover in its time. There will be more. Our interview takes place at the home of a band friend who's throwing a party for departing drummer Vincent Durcan.

That brings us to A Drink for All My Friends, inscribed with the phrase: "Respect to everyone we've lost." While a theme of memoriam remains ever-present, that presence feels fluid, unforced.

"It wasn't until we put the songs together that we realized there was a theme there," reveals Telles.

"It's interesting that the theme is present on multiple levels," Chou continues. "The old keyboardist plays [on the album]; the album is mastered by the old drummer; and with everyone that's left – they come to shows, they get on the list, we hang out together. They still have their inf - Austin Chronicle

My Education has mastered cinematic expressionism. Whereas in 2010 the Austinites masterfully scored F.W. Murnau's 1927 silent classic Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, sixth LP A Drink for All My Friends flips the script, providing its own sense of suspenseful grandeur. "A Drink for ..." sets the scene, Sarah Norris' vibraphone falling like raindrops atop a bed of strings, before "... All My Friends" starts its slow ascent, an elegiac march of heavy post-rock giving way to Chris Hackstie's pedal steel aurora and full-blown orchestration. Think Dirty Three composing a screen adaptation of Pink Floyd's Animals. For 46 minutes, My Education doesn't so much crest as wade, moving with pulsing circularity, onward and upward, as in the bombastic German prog of "Roboter-Höhlenbewohner." It's sophisticated space rock, purposeful and carefully considered, as if written with the eventual laser show in mind. "Black Box" offers the remarkable exception, scrambling radio transmissions from pilots in an eerie descent into darkness. While not as conceptually complete as Sunrise, A Drink for All My Friends remains a significant feat, one certainly worth raising a glass to. - Austin Chronicle

My Education has mastered cinematic expressionism. Whereas in 2010 the Austinites masterfully scored F.W. Murnau's 1927 silent classic Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, sixth LP A Drink for All My Friends flips the script, providing its own sense of suspenseful grandeur. "A Drink for ..." sets the scene, Sarah Norris' vibraphone falling like raindrops atop a bed of strings, before "... All My Friends" starts its slow ascent, an elegiac march of heavy post-rock giving way to Chris Hackstie's pedal steel aurora and full-blown orchestration. Think Dirty Three composing a screen adaptation of Pink Floyd's Animals. For 46 minutes, My Education doesn't so much crest as wade, moving with pulsing circularity, onward and upward, as in the bombastic German prog of "Roboter-Höhlenbewohner." It's sophisticated space rock, purposeful and carefully considered, as if written with the eventual laser show in mind. "Black Box" offers the remarkable exception, scrambling radio transmissions from pilots in an eerie descent into darkness. While not as conceptually complete as Sunrise, A Drink for All My Friends remains a significant feat, one certainly worth raising a glass to. - Austin Chronicle

The music of My Education, a five-piece group from Austin, Texas, tends towards the classical side of the spectrum. If you’ve read any recent think-piece about how the lines between rock bands and classical ensembles are blurring, you could pretty easily swap their name into the list of case studies provided without sacrificing accuracy. Besides recording their own compositions, they’ve also released their take on Arvo Pärt’s taut “Spiegel im Spiegel” and collaborated with the hip-hop group dälek. The seven songs heard on Sunrise, their latest album, are taken from a soundtrack the band composed to F.W. Murnau’s silent film of the same name. Thankfully, these works function well on their own, removed from the context of flickering lights and moving pictures.


My Education’s music here varies from lush and intricate to a much more rock-oriented style. “City Woman Theme” in particular bridges this divide. It opens in an atmospheric mode, Sarah Norris’s vibraphone providing airy accompaniment, before the guitars kick in halfway through and shift the piece into a much more propulsive direction. As befits its title, “Peasant Dance” moves the most deftly, Chris Stelly’s drumming underlying a nimble string part that periodically gives way to broader, electric-guitar-led counterpoints. And “Heave Oars” is a solid example of textbook post-rock, wedding Rachel’s-like intricacies with dynamics that recall that subgenre’s more bombastic side.


The flaws that exist on Sunrise generally related to the group’s use of repetition. In some places, as on the title track, the accumulated ebbs and flows of one particular section eventually create a sense of something greater. “A Man Alone,” however, drifts hazily for six minutes, neither achieving the blissed-out state of the best drone nor upping the tension by opting for a noisier approach. It’s one of the rare places on Sunrise where the presence of Sunrise is felt – perhaps with its cinematic source on hand, moments like these would sound more assured. But even with the few missteps heard here, Sunrise remains a compelling album from an underrated group.



By Tobias Carroll

- Dusted Magazine

The music of My Education, a five-piece group from Austin, Texas, tends towards the classical side of the spectrum. If you’ve read any recent think-piece about how the lines between rock bands and classical ensembles are blurring, you could pretty easily swap their name into the list of case studies provided without sacrificing accuracy. Besides recording their own compositions, they’ve also released their take on Arvo Pärt’s taut “Spiegel im Spiegel” and collaborated with the hip-hop group dälek. The seven songs heard on Sunrise, their latest album, are taken from a soundtrack the band composed to F.W. Murnau’s silent film of the same name. Thankfully, these works function well on their own, removed from the context of flickering lights and moving pictures.


My Education’s music here varies from lush and intricate to a much more rock-oriented style. “City Woman Theme” in particular bridges this divide. It opens in an atmospheric mode, Sarah Norris’s vibraphone providing airy accompaniment, before the guitars kick in halfway through and shift the piece into a much more propulsive direction. As befits its title, “Peasant Dance” moves the most deftly, Chris Stelly’s drumming underlying a nimble string part that periodically gives way to broader, electric-guitar-led counterpoints. And “Heave Oars” is a solid example of textbook post-rock, wedding Rachel’s-like intricacies with dynamics that recall that subgenre’s more bombastic side.


The flaws that exist on Sunrise generally related to the group’s use of repetition. In some places, as on the title track, the accumulated ebbs and flows of one particular section eventually create a sense of something greater. “A Man Alone,” however, drifts hazily for six minutes, neither achieving the blissed-out state of the best drone nor upping the tension by opting for a noisier approach. It’s one of the rare places on Sunrise where the presence of Sunrise is felt – perhaps with its cinematic source on hand, moments like these would sound more assured. But even with the few missteps heard here, Sunrise remains a compelling album from an underrated group.



By Tobias Carroll

- Dusted Magazine

My Education
Italian
Thirty Ghosts

There must be something on the air, or in it, to explain the space rock blooming in central Texas. This Austin sextet expands on the arc-riff grandeur or local travelers Explosions in the Sky with John Cale-like viola and simple, rising melodies that take you way up and out. My Surprise find at SXSW this year, My Education are advanced ecstasy.
- David Fricke
- Rolling Stone

My Education
Italian
Thirty Ghosts

There must be something on the air, or in it, to explain the space rock blooming in central Texas. This Austin sextet expands on the arc-riff grandeur or local travelers Explosions in the Sky with John Cale-like viola and simple, rising melodies that take you way up and out. My Surprise find at SXSW this year, My Education are advanced ecstasy.
- David Fricke
- Rolling Stone

Traurig, einsam, verloren, vielleicht sogar verstört,
aber definitiv berührt – fühlt man sich von Anfang an
bei den Klängen von MY EDUCATION auf ihrem neuen
Instrumental Werk „Sunrise“.

Die acht Texaner schaffen auf ihrem fünften Album
eine monumentale Dichte, dass es einem nicht selten
die Härchen am Körper aufstellt oder gar kalt über
den Rücken läuft. Schon der Opener „Sunset“, der
zwar leicht an APOCALYPTICA erinnert, aber dann
doch ganz andere Wege einschlägt, ergreift und lässt
einen in eine andere Welt eindringen – nein, man fällt
regelrecht hinein in den Strudel der Traurigkeit dieser
parallelen Welt, die MY EDUCATION hier erschaffen.

Doch nicht alles mutet ganz so traurig und verletzlich
an wie der Opener, denn der darauffolgende Song
„City Woman“ ist eher düster, spannend und doch
mit etwas Hoffnung geschwängert. Schon jetzt ist
klar, dass MY EDUCATION nicht im Rock oder
Metalbereich ihre Helden sehen, sondern ebenso
monumentale Filme untermalen möchten und das
auch problemlos tun könnten.

Neben den üblichen Instrumenten setzen der
Dramatik und Dichte wegen die Texaner auch gerne
andere Klanginstrumente ein, wie z.B. ein Cello, das
Piano, die Violine oder verschiedenste Arten von
Percussion.
Dies trägt natürlich auch zur
Abwechslung bei, die bei MY EDUCATION sowieso
großgeschrieben wird. „A Man Alone“ stellt einen auf
die Probe. Der erdrückende Klang dieses Tracks muss
erst erforscht werden, um den Sinn dahinter zu
erahnen, während „Sunrise“ recht offenherzig mit
Cello und Piano das Album angenehm und leicht
zugänglich (was auf „Sunset“ selten der Fall ist)
beendet.

Wer keine Angst hat, neue Horizonte zu erforschen
oder sich mit dem Psychedelischen mit Hang zur
filmischen Musik anfreunden kann, der muss
unbedingt ein Ohr riskieren.
Faszinierend!

Author:
Rating: 6/7

Max
Wollersberger - Earshot

It would be too easy and frankly not fair to dismiss
My Education as just another post rock band.
Founded in 1999, Sunrise is already the Texans’ fifth
album, consisting of seven lengthy instrumentals
written as a musical score for F.W. Murnau’s silent
movie Sunrise: A Song Of Two Humans from
1927.

I haven’t had the chance to see the band perform
their soundtrack, but the eight musicians prove that
the music also works without the moving pictures.
Although there are certainly elements of post rock
used here, My Education go a lot further by
incorporating instruments like viola, cello, piano and
vibraphone, combining modern day sounds with the
warm analogue atmospheres of experimental German
kraut rock in the vein of Popol Vuh and Amon Düül II.

The strings-only opener Sunset may be a rather
quiet entrance into the album, but the following City
Woman adds guitar, bass and drums, coming up
with an entrancing post kraut sound that is unlike
that of any other instrumental band around right
now. My Education live up to their fullest potential on
Oars where they show themselves from their most
dynamic side.

In times where too few post rock bands are able to
set new accent, My Education are one of the rare acts
that dare to go their own way, and they succeed all
the way. Fans of cinematic scores will adore Sunrise,
but also more conventional music fans shouldn’t be
deterred because My Education never lose sight of
the song itself.

Author:

Pascal Thiel
Rating: 9/10 - Disagreement (lu)

June 16, 2008 - The Austin-based instrumental quintet My Education composes wordless songs through vast, gorgeously orchestrated soundscapes. From squealing electric guitar wails to screeching viola yelps, the band's music has all the vocals it needs, drawing its narrative tension from ambient dischord.

Each track on the group's new album, Bad Vibrations, offers a buildup and release that's equally commanding and cathartic. But with all the musical strife, much of the album proves tranquil and soothing in its atmospheric nature, as the band paints a beautiful musical picture with layers of brooding instrumentation.

The album's title track places a simple, rhythmically strummed and picked acoustic guitar against a rich orchestra of floating strings and ambient keyboard dips and swells. The composition creates a vivid aural landscape, lending the song an ethereal feel. This lush tapestry of sound proves mesmerizing for its eight-minute entirety.

My Education has gone through several personnel changes over the years, but the group was originally formed as a trio in 1999. Bad Vibrations is the group's fourth official album, but its first for the band's new label, Strange Attractors. The band has a number of shows on its schedule this summer, including a West Coast tour.

- NPR

Leave it to the sprawling landscapes of Texas to inspire an album that unfolds with the relaxed pace of a tall tale told at a campfire. With their fourth full-length, Bad Vibrations, Austin's My Education tell wordless stories without falling prey to the failures endemic to much instrumental post-rock. Their repetition is a slow build instead of a tedious drone, free of pretentious noodling, and the emotional palette is more nuanced than a simplistic "quiet equals lonely, loud equals angry." Instead, the album deals in mixed moods, giving its concepts time to reach fruition, with moments of tenderness and hope balancing out the occasional wrath.

Bad Vibrations opens with "This Old House," a plodding affair driven primarily by a combination of bass drum, viola, and strummed guitar. As with most of the album, this one doesn't climax so much as reach a logical conclusion, gently adding layers over the track's length (almost eight and a half minutes; only one song on the album comes in under five) before drifting back into silence. That confident patience allows songs to expand at their own unrushed pace. The viola adds some interest to the old quiet/loud/quiet dynamic—strings eventually give way to guitar squalls on "Arch" and "Britches Blanket," while "Aria" inverts the relationship with insistent viola dominating the fuzz. "Sluts and Maniacs" draws from both post-rock schools, starting with piano-led jazz-leaning groove (think Tortoise) before shifting to a guitarcentric wall of noise (think Explosions in the Sky) that, while it might not be the world's most epic, is one of few accompanied by vibraphone.

The album sunsets with the country-tinged title track, and the untitled hidden track merely brings the point homethe sounds of a crackling fire providing respite from the previous hour's pleasurable but emotionally taxing journey.
Honestly, the 8-minute long opener "This Old House" is a bit like being on safari with Hans Zimmer, with tubular bells and rumbling percussion as we imagine careening over the African savanna ... but no one's hating on Hans, it's a good track. "Briches Blanket" stands out shyly, as a tipsy lap steel and violin joyously dance through the mix, before the awesome and unexpected climax we'll let you discover for yourself. The moody "Mother May I" is a haunted jaunt, borne on the wafting violin that threads through the piece. There is no grander, more intense musical crescendo on the album than "Aria," though. The elderly-sounding piano that comes to the front of the stage on that song, maintains its presence on "Sluts and Maniacs," a track that eschews some of the more conventional trappings of post-rock in favor of strings of disturbingly effective - dare we say "proggy" - riffage, showcasing the combined strengths of the band in their taut execution. The title track, a reserved acoustic guitar receding into misty reverb and opalescent pads at the album's twilight, is a gorgeous reminder of why we're so lucky to have a band like this around these parts. Eat your heart out, Eno.

Tonight at Emo's they're having their Bad Vibrations release party with a crazy awesome lineup featuring DeadMan, Colin Swietek, and Benko. Yes, you read that correctly. If you're not already planning on catching this show you should be canceling your plans and tightly strapping on your big, fat Rock 'N' Roll hat. This is an occasion.
- The Stranger

There's no denying the fact that, regardless of how many times I hear it, the sound of a slowly building wall of guitars, rolling and cascading like waves, to an inevitable climax, will always put a smile to my face. From My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive to Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, this "wall of sound" thing has been done a thousand times, and it'll be done a thousand times more. Some do it better than others, some will come off like pale imitations while others can make it sound like the most exhilarating thing in the world. My Education falls squarely in the latter category.

True, My Education isn't doing anything that hasn't been heard before, at least not if you've listened to any of the aforementioned artists. And perhaps the best way to quickly describe My Education is to imagine Mogwai if they'd continued in the vein of earlier songs like "Ithica 27-9", "Summer", or even "Mogwai Fear Satan". But that isn't meant to imply that My Education's songs are formulaic or mere rip-offs, especially when they're anything but. In fact, I found myself completely floored at how they breathed new life and appreciation into musical elements that I've always loved.

My Education's greatest asset is their ability to balance their quiet and loud sides, pouring equal time and detail into both. Their quieter moments are intricately written, with gentle piano and string touches deftly interwoven with the interplay of their guitars. And when My Education decide to kick things in overdrive (and believe me, they do), it feels completely natural and organic. Furthermore, they don't toss off their quieter moments just for the sake of assaulting the listener with all manner of guitar abuse. Even in their loudest moments, you can still hear traces of their music's finer aspects smoothing and refining the sonic assault.

It's an approach that makes for a stellar EP, providing one of the more consistent and enjoyable listens I've had in a long time. I've listened to this CD countless times, and despite only having 5 tracks, it has yet to get old. I love the way that "Lesson 3"'s sparse piano notes make a perfect bedfellow for the chiming guitars, the way that even when the guitars reach their crescendo, the piano's crisp notes still ring out from the maelstrom. "Nightrider Meets The Waterfall" is the EP's rock n' roll track, it's opening minutes reminiscent of "99th Dream"-era Swervedriver. However, the final minutes take a deeper, more spacious turn with lazily drifting guitars circling over jazz-like drums and a deeper groove.

The EP's finest moment, however, is reserved for "Deep Cut". Gentle cascades of piano and guitar drones imply a sense of peace and contentment. Even as the song reaches its inevitable climax, it still retains those gentler sounds, just giving them a little more oomph. And the album closes with the 9-minute "Crime Story". At times, the caterwaul of guitar and violins stretches towards Godspeed territory, but ends with a graceful, piano-laced denouement (and thankfully, no apocalyptic or cryptic utterances). All in all, an incredible EP that promises even better things on the horizon. - Opus Zine

There's no denying the fact that, regardless of how many times I hear it, the sound of a slowly building wall of guitars, rolling and cascading like waves, to an inevitable climax, will always put a smile to my face. From My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive to Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, this "wall of sound" thing has been done a thousand times, and it'll be done a thousand times more. Some do it better than others, some will come off like pale imitations while others can make it sound like the most exhilarating thing in the world. My Education falls squarely in the latter category.

True, My Education isn't doing anything that hasn't been heard before, at least not if you've listened to any of the aforementioned artists. And perhaps the best way to quickly describe My Education is to imagine Mogwai if they'd continued in the vein of earlier songs like "Ithica 27-9", "Summer", or even "Mogwai Fear Satan". But that isn't meant to imply that My Education's songs are formulaic or mere rip-offs, especially when they're anything but. In fact, I found myself completely floored at how they breathed new life and appreciation into musical elements that I've always loved.

My Education's greatest asset is their ability to balance their quiet and loud sides, pouring equal time and detail into both. Their quieter moments are intricately written, with gentle piano and string touches deftly interwoven with the interplay of their guitars. And when My Education decide to kick things in overdrive (and believe me, they do), it feels completely natural and organic. Furthermore, they don't toss off their quieter moments just for the sake of assaulting the listener with all manner of guitar abuse. Even in their loudest moments, you can still hear traces of their music's finer aspects smoothing and refining the sonic assault.

It's an approach that makes for a stellar EP, providing one of the more consistent and enjoyable listens I've had in a long time. I've listened to this CD countless times, and despite only having 5 tracks, it has yet to get old. I love the way that "Lesson 3"'s sparse piano notes make a perfect bedfellow for the chiming guitars, the way that even when the guitars reach their crescendo, the piano's crisp notes still ring out from the maelstrom. "Nightrider Meets The Waterfall" is the EP's rock n' roll track, it's opening minutes reminiscent of "99th Dream"-era Swervedriver. However, the final minutes take a deeper, more spacious turn with lazily drifting guitars circling over jazz-like drums and a deeper groove.

The EP's finest moment, however, is reserved for "Deep Cut". Gentle cascades of piano and guitar drones imply a sense of peace and contentment. Even as the song reaches its inevitable climax, it still retains those gentler sounds, just giving them a little more oomph. And the album closes with the 9-minute "Crime Story". At times, the caterwaul of guitar and violins stretches towards Godspeed territory, but ends with a graceful, piano-laced denouement (and thankfully, no apocalyptic or cryptic utterances). All in all, an incredible EP that promises even better things on the horizon. - Opus Zine

Essentially a remix disc of songs from last year's stellar Italian, plus three new songs, Moody Dipper's heavy on the electro vibe, which adds a nice layer of grime to the local septet's typically pristine sound. There's something lurking here, though the new-age chimes of opener "Spirit of Peace," their variation on Seventies Krautrockers Popul Vuh, would have you think otherwise. Dalek's remix of "Green Arrow" bumps the mood into a beat-heavy choke hold real quick. Chicago trio Teith's take on the same song is vaulted skyward with explosions of mottled noise (thanks to the feathered touch of Pelican axeman Trevor DeBrauw). There's the Red Sparowes rendering of "Snake in the Grass," in which bassist Greg Burns molds a borderline horror score; sinister clashes of sound sneak up on Hitchcockian viola. Chris Martin of Kinski takes a similar approach on the sprawling "Puppy Love," sneaking in his trademark psych bombast. The closing title track provides a return to form, a mellifluous convergence of strings, keys, and ear-shattering guitar. It's an interesting and pleasantly surprising experiment in sound, because not every band can (or should even attempt to) pull off a remix album. Our suspicions were correct: My Education's got a dirty side too. - AUDRA SCHROEDER

Essentially a remix disc of songs from last year's stellar Italian, plus three new songs, Moody Dipper's heavy on the electro vibe, which adds a nice layer of grime to the local septet's typically pristine sound. There's something lurking here, though the new-age chimes of opener "Spirit of Peace," their variation on Seventies Krautrockers Popul Vuh, would have you think otherwise. Dalek's remix of "Green Arrow" bumps the mood into a beat-heavy choke hold real quick. Chicago trio Teith's take on the same song is vaulted skyward with explosions of mottled noise (thanks to the feathered touch of Pelican axeman Trevor DeBrauw). There's the Red Sparowes rendering of "Snake in the Grass," in which bassist Greg Burns molds a borderline horror score; sinister clashes of sound sneak up on Hitchcockian viola. Chris Martin of Kinski takes a similar approach on the sprawling "Puppy Love," sneaking in his trademark psych bombast. The closing title track provides a return to form, a mellifluous convergence of strings, keys, and ear-shattering guitar. It's an interesting and pleasantly surprising experiment in sound, because not every band can (or should even attempt to) pull off a remix album. Our suspicions were correct: My Education's got a dirty side too. - AUDRA SCHROEDER

http://thesilentballet.com/dnn/Home/tabid/36/ctl/Details/mid/384/ItemID/3294/Default.aspx

Score: 8.5/10


At this point, it’s official: My Education is the greatest post-rock band ever to come out of Austin, Texas. There, I said it. Some may already be preparing hatemail; kindly direct it to tom[at]thesilentballet.com. But take this seriously, now. Don’t come to me with talk of The Octopus Project, Balmorhea, or This Will Destroy You (technically from San Marcos, but close enough), because My Education blows them all out of the water. There is that one other band that put out a soundtrack to Friday Night Lights back in the day, but it hasn’t been any good since 2003, and, frankly, half of its discography just isn’t that great. But My Education has made a habit out of greatness; the debut Five Popes (originally 2001, properly released in 2004) and sophomore effort Italian (2005) were excellent, and 2008’s Bad Vibrations was even better, but Sunrise, the group’s fifth full-length release, is unmistakably the finest achievement (so far) in the band’s remarkable career.

There are a few distinct strains of post-rock. Most people would probably be quickest to identify the glitchy electronica-fusion of bands like 65daysofstatic, the cathartic crescendo-core of bands like Explosions in the Sky, and the long, drawn-out, classically-oriented apocolyptia of the blessedly-reformed Godspeed You! Black Emperor as the primary sub-types. But one strain that deserves much more attention than it commonly receives is the folksy Americana post-rock of groups like Japancakes and Six Parts Seven, which has given us some of the finest albums of the past decade—I’m thinking specifically of The Sleepy Strange and Casually Smashed into Pieces, but there are many more examples to be named. My Education falls mostly into this last category, although in keeping with the firm spirit of individualism in America(na), the group steadfastly maintains its own spin on the post-rock sound.

Sunrise finds the Austin quintet at its most cinematic, which is not too surprising given that the album is composed of pieces from a soundtrack which the group composed for F.W. Murnau's 1927 silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, a landmark of expressionist cinema. Wikipedia has a good plot summary, which I would encourage listeners to read though, but which I won’t bother to rehash here. It’s fairly easy, though, to imagine the scenes that these songs would accompany based on the song titles. “A Man Alone” is full of forlorn drones, swirling into an intense agony of despair; this song likely accompanies the scene near the end where the lead character mistakenly believes his wife to be drowned. “Heave Oars,” which is perhaps the album’s best song when considered separately from the cinematic context, begins with a slow, ponderous intro and eventually builds into a breathtaking tremolo-picked climax before suddenly and curiously breaking off. This emotional song must be the soundtrack to an important scene in the middle of the film where the lead character rows his wife out to the middle of a lake, intending to drown her. The tremolos likely refer to the moment when he stands up with murderous intent, preparing to throw his wife overboard, the speed of the guitar-picking reflecting his emotional state; but at the last moment he chances to gaze into his wife’s eyes and he realizes that he loves her and cannot commit this evil deed—this precipitates the sudden conclusion of the song. Other songs can similarly be anchored to other points in the film.

I should tip my hand at this point and disclose that I’ve never actually seen the film Sunrise. In fact, all that I know about it was gleaned from that Wikipedia page that I linked to above. But I do know a bit about the art of expressionist drama, and I know that its primary aesthetic goal is to create an artistic world which symbolically expresses the characters’ inner feeling; done properly, expressionist film should give the impression that the characters are figuratively painting themselves onto the set—and, no, this doesn’t mean that slasher films count as expressionist. Expressionist drama oftentimes makes use of stock characters with no names, in part as a representation of splintering personal identities in the years surrounding World War I, but also because the specific character is far less important than the more universal emotions that he or she displays and that are reflected in the set design. My point here is that My Education has written a remarkably expressive album, such that, with only a little knowledge of the film in question, I can immediately begin imagining nightmarish situations which correspond to the minimal plot details of which I’m aware on the one hand, and to the magnificent detailing of emotion on the other, which My Education depicts in every note. The soundtrack functions in a true expressionist manner, in that it helps to reveal to us the inner turmoil of the - www.thesilentballet.com

http://thesilentballet.com/dnn/Home/tabid/36/ctl/Details/mid/384/ItemID/3294/Default.aspx

Score: 8.5/10


At this point, it’s official: My Education is the greatest post-rock band ever to come out of Austin, Texas. There, I said it. Some may already be preparing hatemail; kindly direct it to tom[at]thesilentballet.com. But take this seriously, now. Don’t come to me with talk of The Octopus Project, Balmorhea, or This Will Destroy You (technically from San Marcos, but close enough), because My Education blows them all out of the water. There is that one other band that put out a soundtrack to Friday Night Lights back in the day, but it hasn’t been any good since 2003, and, frankly, half of its discography just isn’t that great. But My Education has made a habit out of greatness; the debut Five Popes (originally 2001, properly released in 2004) and sophomore effort Italian (2005) were excellent, and 2008’s Bad Vibrations was even better, but Sunrise, the group’s fifth full-length release, is unmistakably the finest achievement (so far) in the band’s remarkable career.

There are a few distinct strains of post-rock. Most people would probably be quickest to identify the glitchy electronica-fusion of bands like 65daysofstatic, the cathartic crescendo-core of bands like Explosions in the Sky, and the long, drawn-out, classically-oriented apocolyptia of the blessedly-reformed Godspeed You! Black Emperor as the primary sub-types. But one strain that deserves much more attention than it commonly receives is the folksy Americana post-rock of groups like Japancakes and Six Parts Seven, which has given us some of the finest albums of the past decade—I’m thinking specifically of The Sleepy Strange and Casually Smashed into Pieces, but there are many more examples to be named. My Education falls mostly into this last category, although in keeping with the firm spirit of individualism in America(na), the group steadfastly maintains its own spin on the post-rock sound.

Sunrise finds the Austin quintet at its most cinematic, which is not too surprising given that the album is composed of pieces from a soundtrack which the group composed for F.W. Murnau's 1927 silent film Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, a landmark of expressionist cinema. Wikipedia has a good plot summary, which I would encourage listeners to read though, but which I won’t bother to rehash here. It’s fairly easy, though, to imagine the scenes that these songs would accompany based on the song titles. “A Man Alone” is full of forlorn drones, swirling into an intense agony of despair; this song likely accompanies the scene near the end where the lead character mistakenly believes his wife to be drowned. “Heave Oars,” which is perhaps the album’s best song when considered separately from the cinematic context, begins with a slow, ponderous intro and eventually builds into a breathtaking tremolo-picked climax before suddenly and curiously breaking off. This emotional song must be the soundtrack to an important scene in the middle of the film where the lead character rows his wife out to the middle of a lake, intending to drown her. The tremolos likely refer to the moment when he stands up with murderous intent, preparing to throw his wife overboard, the speed of the guitar-picking reflecting his emotional state; but at the last moment he chances to gaze into his wife’s eyes and he realizes that he loves her and cannot commit this evil deed—this precipitates the sudden conclusion of the song. Other songs can similarly be anchored to other points in the film.

I should tip my hand at this point and disclose that I’ve never actually seen the film Sunrise. In fact, all that I know about it was gleaned from that Wikipedia page that I linked to above. But I do know a bit about the art of expressionist drama, and I know that its primary aesthetic goal is to create an artistic world which symbolically expresses the characters’ inner feeling; done properly, expressionist film should give the impression that the characters are figuratively painting themselves onto the set—and, no, this doesn’t mean that slasher films count as expressionist. Expressionist drama oftentimes makes use of stock characters with no names, in part as a representation of splintering personal identities in the years surrounding World War I, but also because the specific character is far less important than the more universal emotions that he or she displays and that are reflected in the set design. My point here is that My Education has written a remarkably expressive album, such that, with only a little knowledge of the film in question, I can immediately begin imagining nightmarish situations which correspond to the minimal plot details of which I’m aware on the one hand, and to the magnificent detailing of emotion on the other, which My Education depicts in every note. The soundtrack functions in a true expressionist manner, in that it helps to reveal to us the inner turmoil of the - www.thesilentballet.com

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=1022208

My Education
Sunrise (Strange Attractors Audio House)

Record Review
By Raoul Hernandez

ST 37 (Metropolis), Golden Arm Trio (Battleship Potemkin), Brown Whörnet (Nosferatu), and the Friends of Dean Martinez (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari): Austin's DIY film score contingent slays the silents. My Education (Sunrise) now enters that hall of fame. Compressing its live accompaniment to F.W. Murnau's 1927 Oscar triumph, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, the heavy instrumentalists ignite the film's riveting melodrama like its prize-winning cinematography. Seven tracks move through three times as many musical chapters, the quintet adding a guesting fourpiece of cello, violin, vibraphone, and French horn. Band member James Alexander's haunting viola gets its gravitas across with the efficacy of a Les Paul. "City Woman" wears a Floydian hook, the song's "Kashmir" accents emerging halfway through to a building crescendo that stops just short of full-blown guitar torching and even then your eyebrows are off. "Lust" admirably keeps its pants fastened a full five minutes, only to then shift, with a shimmering pause, into a naked tangle of strings expressing regrets at the eight-minute mark. "Oars" razes using laser 1970s guitars, while a symphonic hole cut into the fattening Gogol beat of the urgent "Peasant Dance" reveals one of the riffs of 2010. "Sunrise" resolves Murnau's human duet – like daylight after the deluge.

4 Stars

- www.austinchronicle.com

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=1022208

My Education
Sunrise (Strange Attractors Audio House)

Record Review
By Raoul Hernandez

ST 37 (Metropolis), Golden Arm Trio (Battleship Potemkin), Brown Whörnet (Nosferatu), and the Friends of Dean Martinez (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari): Austin's DIY film score contingent slays the silents. My Education (Sunrise) now enters that hall of fame. Compressing its live accompaniment to F.W. Murnau's 1927 Oscar triumph, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, the heavy instrumentalists ignite the film's riveting melodrama like its prize-winning cinematography. Seven tracks move through three times as many musical chapters, the quintet adding a guesting fourpiece of cello, violin, vibraphone, and French horn. Band member James Alexander's haunting viola gets its gravitas across with the efficacy of a Les Paul. "City Woman" wears a Floydian hook, the song's "Kashmir" accents emerging halfway through to a building crescendo that stops just short of full-blown guitar torching and even then your eyebrows are off. "Lust" admirably keeps its pants fastened a full five minutes, only to then shift, with a shimmering pause, into a naked tangle of strings expressing regrets at the eight-minute mark. "Oars" razes using laser 1970s guitars, while a symphonic hole cut into the fattening Gogol beat of the urgent "Peasant Dance" reveals one of the riffs of 2010. "Sunrise" resolves Murnau's human duet – like daylight after the deluge.

4 Stars

- www.austinchronicle.com