Light As Air/Tight as Hell

Name: Tricot

Where They’re From: Kyoto, Japan

Genre: post-rock

When They Started: 2010

Most Similar: Electrelane, Explosions in the Sky

The Sound: Mathy jams with a blithe spirit

Maybe you loved Godspeed You! Black Emperor and all of Q and Not U’s post-hardcore twists and turns, but you thought post-rock kind of lost its relevance in the early oughties. Tricot from Japan might make you reconsider.

Rather than seeing how savagely they can play technical music, the Kyoto quartet looks for beauty and movement in their intricate rhythms and austere melodies. They have the subtleties of Electrelane and the tight angles of Turing Machine, but their style is more springy than the lumbering and chugging you might be used to. They’re not light, but they’re not heavy. They’re right on, and when frontwoman Ikkyu Nakajima takes an ethereal, melodic approach to vox, they’ll take your breath away. And, suddenly, it’s like you haven’t heard this one before. (Word has it they completely shred live too.)

Unfortunately, like so many great things from Japan, Tricot’s two self-released mini-albums are kind of hard to get in other parts of the world, but the single “Bakuretsu tricot-san” is available from Good Charamel records on its own and on the label’s I Love J-Rock II compilation. They say a whole EP is coming out in North America soon. We can only a hope a tour will follow.

Watch the new video for “夢見がちな少女、舞い上がる、空へ (Dreamy Girl Soaring to the Sky”) to catch this cold fire: