southpacific

One of so-called post-rock's more addictive and compelling instrumentalists, southpacific was on the indie music map for only a few years, releasing two albums of broad, sweeping noise set to beats bordering on the minimalist. They weren't exactly everyone's cup of tea, either: Some critics complained that they were too derivative of deconstructionists like Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, while others argued that they were just plain boring. But there's no such thing as bad publicity, someone once said, and the fact that opinion on southpacific was so polarized hints at the particular skills they displayed throughout the late '90s. The group's nucleus, Joachim Toelke, Graeme Fleming, and Phil Stewart-Bowes, met as friends in the spring of 1996 after Toelke moved to Ottawa after recently returning with empty pockets from the United Kingdom. Fleming spent most of his early musical career in his basement, melding the sounds of Bailter Space, My Bloody Valentine, and Swervedriver into a style that southpacific would later call its foundation. Fleming already had a few recordings (as many others did) under the name of Saturnine. Meanwhile, Stewart-Bowes and Toelke were deep into the British flavors of Seefeel and Bowery Electric. The diverse musical interests of its various members gave southpacific a cross-genre feel that immediately registered with a public quickly tiring of bubblegum pop bombast. Ironically enough, southpacific started playing shows in 1998 with a female singer in tow, but unloaded her when they found out she couldn't sing in key. The band pushed on, hoping to land at a label like Creation, which was deep into classic rock by the time southpacific garnered attention as the newest math rockers (à la Tortoise) or space rockers (à la Slowdive) on the...