Austin Post-Rock

You're asking about a city, not a sound — two different lineages that happen to share a zip code. One runs through drone and processed guitar toward chamber music; the other runs through loud-quiet instrumental rock built for a room full of people holding their breath.

Austin is where those two met, borrowed players, and sent the results out on labels in Chicago, Brooklyn and down the street.

The drone side starts first. Brian McBride and Adam Wiltzie formed Stars of the Lid on December 25, 1992 in Austin, having met at the University of Texas and worked out of makeshift home studios with guitars and pedals.

Their debut, 1995's Music for Nitrous Oxide, aligned them with Kranky, the Chicago post-rock label. In the mid-Nineties King Coffey's Trance Syndicate imprint was the local hub for the quieter end of Texas guitar music.

Explosions in the Sky formed in 1999 and signed to Temporary Residence; their 2004 Friday Night Lights score put the city's instrumental template into American film and TV wholesale.

The next wave followed fast: This Will Destroy You formed in San Marcos in 2004, roughly half an hour down the interstate, and Balmorhea started in Austin in 2006, landing on the local Western Vinyl.

Who: McBride and Wiltzie; Munaf Rayani, Mark Smith, Michael James and Chris Hrasky in Explosions; Andrew Kenny's American Analog Set; Rob Lowe and Michael Muller in Balmorhea. Rooms: Emo's, the Mohawk, church halls, later Fun Fun Fun Fest.

What: no vocals, or vocals used as texture — beatless swells and feedback standing in for rhythm on one side, delay-soaked twin guitars and a drummer who waits on the other. How a record gets in: it has to be built on duration.

Balmorhea's piano, acoustic guitar and strings count; electronics and strings bolted onto a guitar band count. Four minutes of verse-chorus does not.