Socrates: "Good day, friend. The gods have certainly bestowed a fine summer day in the City That is Reputed to Never Sleep. Ah, July in that Largest of Apples, is there anything more wonderous?"

Pitchfork: "Uh, yeah... what's with the sheet?"

Socrates: "I was just about to inquire about your choice of apparel. Such thick blue trousers on such a warm today?"

Pitchfork: "Jeans. I haven't figured out a way to feel normal in shorts so I suffer."

Socrates: "How ennobling, dear friend. May I inquire into the nature of that small record album you are carrying?"

Pitchfork: "CD. And we don't really know each other."

Socrates: "Ah, yes, but that's surely soon to be rectified. What bards and minstrels to quicken the senses this fine day?"

Pitchfork: "3 Sounds by Hippopotamus. I don't really approve of the name of the album. And the cover art reminds me of something you see on the cover of some University press, post- modern, bottom- feeder lit crit hack on Breton or Ionesco or something."

Socrates: "I don't understand any of those words, but no matter. What sort of music do these great minstrels offer? Songs of love? War? Piety? Tragedy? Rampant hardcore incest?"

Pitchfork: "Well, according to the e-mail newsletter I received from this local East Village hole- in- the- wall music store (less a music store than a shrine to John Zorn and his avant cronies), it's New York post- rock."

Socrates: "What, may I ask, is post- rock?"

Pitchfork: "Oh, well. I'm not quite sure. It's a term used by music critics to easily categorize music that simply does not fit into any of the currently available sub- genres of rock music. You see, disparaging the contrived inanity of the term allows a smart critic to then employ the term with shameless abandon without ever defining it. Or is that reckless abandon? No, shameless."

Socrates: "But you have not yet told me what it is. You have merely described how it is used, and in an admittedly flawed manner. Um... hey, are you going to finish that Surge?"

Pitchfork: "Nah, knock yourself out. It's mostly backwash. Anyway, post- rock is the type of music that Tortoise plays. Some consider Slint post- rock. Some consider the drone of Spacemen 3 or the Dead C as an early incarnation of post- rock. Or even Flying Saucer Attack or Füxa."

Socrates: "And do these Hippopotami sound like any of these musicians?"

Pitchfork: "Frankly, no. 3 Sounds seems like it owes more to a strong Mind Left Body jam from the Grateful Dead circa 1973. But joylessly so. They seem to have more in common with some of the really out there exploratory stuff that Phish would do live. And their grooves smack of a stripped down Medeski Martin & Wood album, rather than, say, Millions Now Living Will Never Die.

"Certainly, there's something skewed about their music-- a kind of bizarre mechanical feel that derives from the stop/ start dynamics of most of the songs. Almost animatronic. Like that battery- powered Duracell family. They don't seem to enjoy the music they're playing, which is mostly just guitar, bass and drums. Occasional electric pianos color the background as in the meandering "Slow Ride in a Fast Car." Some of the tunes, like the trumpet- laden "Brown Sound" resemble Henry Cow- ish prog- rock from the '70s Canterbury school, but instead of excessive medieval fanfare and wankery, they've inserted sterile New York downtown intellectualism. And wankery."

Socrates: "An illuminating survey. However, you have not yet told me what post- rock is. What is the quidity of post- rock? Its true essence. The Form of post- rock, if you will."

Pitchfork: "Well, I always thought post- rock was to rock what the minimalist composers were to classical-- music based on repetition and texture rather than on drama and progress. Instrumental music without jazz's desperate fixation on continual improvisation. But that's just my take on it."

Socrates: "Oh. Well, it's usually much easier to stump people with these kinds of questions, you know. You aren't really supposed to come up with a definition that easily."

Pitchfork: "Oh. Sorry. I didn't realize..."

[awkward silence]

Socrates: "So, do you think you can spare any change?"

Pitchfork: "Keep the CD."

-Brent S. Sirota