Here's Five: Jakob

Post-rock trio Jakob have been pretty busy over the last eight months. Back in July the Napier-based group announced the impending arrival of their fourth album Sines, an incredible instrumental record that was well worth the eight year wait. Shortlisted for the 2015 Taite Prize, Sines has seen the group thrown back into the limelight and hit the road for a handful of spellbinding shows. The three-piece have a couple more shows up their collective sleeve, they will be heading to Auckland and Wellington in April to, no doubt, blow some minds. And in anticipation UnderTheRadar picked the brains of guitarist Jeff Boyle about the music that helped shape the sound of Jakob...

1. Bailter Space - Argonaut (1997)
This song was probably the most influential song on the beginnings of us as a band. The sound and feel of this song is basically what we set out to create right from the start. It also gave us reassurance that we could maybe get somewhere being a three-piece instrumental band.

2. Massive Attack - Angel (1991)
Another other vision we had for our 'sound' when we first got started was to try and cross the groove and ambiance of Massive Attack with the dark, heavy guitar textures of Godflesh. This song was a big part of that groove we were striving for.

3. Slint - Washer (1991)
These guys basically invented what became known as 'post-rock' and were a huge influence on us at the beginning. The dynamics these guys produced on this album, especially given how young they were when they wrote/recorded it, are astounding.

4. Shihad - I Only Said (1993)
When this album came out we were still at high school and to hear something of this quality and depth coming out of NZ was unheard of until then. It was an album that we, and I'm sure a good portion of our generation, were heavily influenced by and was something of a path finder for a plethora of New Zealand bands who followed.

5. Godflesh - Mantra
Godflesh, from the late 1980's, paved the way for a whole new set of genres that followed from the sound these guys created. J K Broderick reversed what was considered 'heavy' in the 80s and pitched and slowed their music down and for us it was revolutionary. Tuning guitars down to find new tones and sounds that are beautifully dark has been what we've been experimenting with right from the start, all thanks to Godflesh.

Jakob are performing on Saturday 11th April at San Fran in Wellington, and then on Saturday 18th April at Kings Arms Tavern in Auckland. Head over here for more details and to buy tickets.