The White Birch is a 1994 album by the New York band Codeine. Widely acclaimed on its release, the album is considered to be one of the defining records of the slowcore movement and was a clear influence on Low, among other bands. On their earlier albums Frigid Stars and Barely Real, the band had already pioneered a distinctive sound, characterised by remarkably slow tempos and a stripped-down aesthetic - with songs rarely venturing beyond the combination of a sharp, robust rhythm section underlying crisply ringing guitars - but it was only on The White Birch that Codeine cemented their reputation amongst the foremost indie-rock groups of the early 1990s. Along with Slint's 1991 album Spiderland, the album also paved the way for the post-rock movement, developing an aesthetic that shifted sharply between clean and heavily distorted guitars in a way that few bands had previously explored - a style that would prove to be a hug

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z # TAGS