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Manchester newcomers Tundra emerge from the underground with colossal post-rock drones
Tundra are a brand new Manchester trio emerging from the city’s experimental underground with a sound that already feels far bigger than their few months of existence.
A three-piece built around guitar, drums and double bass, the band feature two members of Yaswadah and are already carving out their own space somewhere between post-rock, drone and the darker edges of noise.
There are obvious touchstones in Swans and Slint, but Tundra are not simply retracing someone else’s footsteps. They take that sense of repetition, tension and slow-building weight and push it into something of their own.
This is total drone gonzo.
The music seems to disappear into the dark matter, with vast sustained tones, grinding low-end and hypnotic repetition creating a sound that feels both physical and strangely meditative.
What is most striking is the maturity of it.
For a band this new, the dynamics already feel fully formed, with the trio format somehow producing a huge, layered noisescape. Beneath all that sonic mass there are genuine songs too, pulsing away inside the drones and slowly revealing themselves as the sound opens up.
The double bass gives Tundra an especially unusual weight, adding a deep organic throb beneath the guitar and drums and helping separate them from the usual post-rock blueprint.
They may have only just appeared, but there is already a strong sense of identity here: dark, patient, heavy and immersive without simply relying on volume for effect.
An EP is currently on the way, and on this early evidence Tundra could become one of the more intriguing new names to emerge from Manchester’s experimental scene.
Remarkable stuff from a band barely out of the starting blocks.
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