Magnog was an American

space rock Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drummin ...

post-rock Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...

band, initially active in the mid-to-late 1990s, then returning to live performances in 2011.

Biography

The origins of Magnog are in band Space Helmet, which essentially split up into Magnog and

Hovercraft A hovercraft, also known as an air-cushion vehicle or ACV, is an amphibious Craft (vehicle), craft capable of travelling over land, water, mud, ice, and other surfaces. Hovercraft use blowers to produce a large volume of air below the hull ...

, . (Magnog's drummer and Hovercraft's guitarist are brothers.) Magnog's lineup consisted of Jeff Reilly (bass, guitar), Dana Shinn (drums), and Phil Drake (guitar), with all three also singing and playing keyboards. After sending three ninety-minute demo tapes of lengthy improvised jams, recorded between 1994 and 1997, to Kranky, the trio recorded an album for the label with Jessamine's Andy Brown as producer. The eponymous album was released in 1996, drawing comparisons with early 1970s Pink Floyd and 1970s German

Krautrock Krautrock (also called , German for ) is a broad genre of experimental rock Experimental rock, also called avant-rock, is a subgenre of rock music that pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique or which experiments ...

bands such as

Ash Ra Tempel Ash Ra Tempel was a West German krautrock group led by guitarist Manuel Göttsching that was active from 1970 to 1976. Their debut album ''Ash Ra Tempel'' was released in 1971. Following the band's demise, Göttsching released music under the name ...

and early

Tangerine Dream Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese having been the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup ...

. The following year, tracks from the demo tapes were selected for release as the double CD ''More Weather''. The band went on to play the

Vienna Jazz Festival Jazz Fest Wien or Vienna Jazz Festival is a jazz festival in Vienna, held annually at the end of June and beginning of July since 1991. An international festival, in 2007 it was attended by some 60,000 spectators. It is now considered one of the w ...

and performed with Pearl Jam and Neil Young for the Pearl Jam fan club in Seattle. After the band broke up, Reilly made further records as

Octal The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the radix, base-8 number system, and uses the Numerical digit, digits 0 to 7. This is to say that 10octal represents eight and 100octal represents sixty-four. However, English, like most languages, ...

, including an album for Space Age Recordings, the label Spacemen 3 are signed to. Magnog returned to live activity with shows in the Pacific Northwest in 2011. Phil Drake died on November 8, 2015.

Discography

Albums

*''Magnog'' - CD/2xLP (1996, Kranky) (double LP has 11 mins. of extra music) *''More Weather'' - 2xCD (1997, Kranky)

References

{{Authority control American post-rock groups American space rock musical groups