If you listen to a lot of music on the internet, I’m willing to gamble that the following question has crossed your mind too. Why are there so many post-rock bands? Answer: because making post-rock looks like an easy task.

Having dispensed with traditional song structure; you can just plug in and improvise, or so it seems. The less you think about what you’re doing, the more the beauty of the sounds flow through onto tape, right?

This is a fallacy, and is also why there are so many drab, tedious post-rock bands all peddling the same glum, unfocused, unwanted …

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Music/Life Synchronicity Moment #24986 took place this morning, and this time it featured an early 90′s ambient classic and, er, a road sign.

It was one of those electronic roadsigns, intended to flash up “Sorry for the inconvenience”, and yet, ironically, was inconveniently performing its best impression of a ZX Spectrum loading screen.

The important thing was that the flickering, when not giving epileptic drivers a few anxious moments, seemed to harmonise beautifully with Little Fluffy Clouds by The Orb, a song, remember, that found meaning in clouds. I suppose it’s not too big a leap to then …

How big a role does luck have in the formation of bands? Imagine you’re a guitarist who wants to make liltingly uncommon, unstructured non-regimented music. What are the chances of finding the the three or so band members who think like you, and aren’t determined to clank out the same old Killers/Kooks/Los Campesinos-lite that most fledgling bands prefer?

I’m no statistician, but you’d have to leave a lot of idiosyncratic adverts in a lot of guitar shops before you found the like-minded souls you needed.

This trawl for understanding band members may well have played a part in …

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Why is it that at the exact point that you think that things are calming down, in reality – the reality that you can’t see or feel or taste until it’s poking you in the ribs and sneering – it’s the exact opposite and suddenly you have a bazillion new things on your plate? Thanks, life. Thanks also to Today’s New Band, who, usefully, provided an equally sudden calm today.

Dave Osbourn is Today’s New Band. Dave Osbourn might not even be a band, using friends and acquaintances to pad out his sound. Either way, Dave Osbourn doesn’t have …

I started a Spanish class yesterday. I already knew a bit of Spanish, or so I thought. This is what I learnt:

1. That the word for ‘handcuffs’ in Spanish is the same as the word for ‘wife’
2. The word to describe a cute child is the same as ‘monkey’
3. That I knew how to ask whether a hotel has a room for two people, for three nights, (preferably with a bathroom), but was stumped when I had to explain what my age and name is.

This minor idiotic trait of my brain – to forget the basics and cling onto …

Electronic music often sounds soulless. Even though bands like Orbital managed to infuse something nearing humanity or nature into their music, the methods for producing electronic music ensure that its very nature is that of robotic precision. This isn’t to say humanity or soulfulness is necessary in music, just that, as music is an output for expression, it’s often tough to convey the feeling that fingers, thumbs and emotion have been involved in its creation.

Today’s New Band, rs-232, is ice-cold and precise. There doesn’t seem to be room for emotion or feeling in the music, but that’s a …

We fool ourselves into thinking that weekends are there for relaxation, but like most people, I just end up trying to fit way too much in two days. And so here we are again, straight back into another week, here at A New Band A Day. Mondays are usually characterised by that awful turbulence of re-entry back into reality, and this week, as always, is no different. Something soothing and trouble-free would sit quite nicely on top of my frame of mind right now, squashing down those troubling “Why aren’t weekends five days long and a working week two?”…

You’ve had a busy weekend haven’t you? I know you have. All weekends are busy. You head home after a week at work, intent of some R&R, and then remember that you have to do all the jobs you’ve spent a week ignoring. Then Monday comes around again and exhaustion saps the life out of your body before the grind has even started. Such is life.

So if that’s left you in the mood to reach for the bleach and Ribena for easy mixin’, you’ll love* today’s new band, Bleak Black Branches, who, by the sound of their chosen …