l’esprit de l’escalier 1. The experience of thinking of a devastating rejoinder only after leaving the scene of the debate. 2. “staircase wit”

Spirit of the Stairs holds a special place in the heart of Wichita music. Composed of five instrumentalists from several notable Wichita bands, the group drips, then rushes, straight into the veins of a limited body of post-rock greats. Originally described as “rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes,” the genre became characterized by long, dynamic songs of symphonic magnitude, often composed of multiple movements and with massive tonal and instrumental range with minimal or no vocals.

SotS captures the heart and soul of this hard-to-pin pseudo-genre. At once subtle and grand, songs roll forth first with melancholy drones that ache the soul, build to a stupefying collage of wailing and thrashing pure-rock wonder, then scale back to ribcage-shaking drum solos that segue into guitar duets with the chemistry of a slow-building adrenaline rush.

These grassland sound scientists build a portrait of the beauty and splendor of wide-open spaces. Their unique sound is the roll of thunder reverberating in the crannies of the Flint Hills and the whisper of wheat on the windswept high plains. It plays like a soundtrack to the ebb and flow of water silently seeping toward the river lowlands to return home to sea, only to signal its return in the tense electricity you feel before a convection cell tears open the sky.

The band was recently featured on Wichita Sessions, a showcase of local musical talent that is fresh off its first season. The response, as the band members put it, has been nothing short of phenomenal. The show was started by producers Eric Zoller and Lonny Quattlebaum, and is hosted by Jedd Beaudoin and recorded and mixed by Jon Cyphers, who plan to see it into its second season on KPTS in the spring. Beaudoin has been a long-time supporter and close friend of the band. After suggesting to Zoller that he check out the band for a possible Sessions subject, Zoller caught their act at a show on the roof of the Grant Telegraph Building and was instantly sold. After the show aired the band caught another break when a segment of the show, posted online by Quattlebaum, made it to the front page after a massive response from the online community.

Though the band has been around in some form for the better part of six years, the lineup and dynamic has changed substantially during that time. Starting with a standard rock lineup – minus a vocalist – they decided to bring on a second guitarist to expand the depth of their sound. After two transitions from founding members to new instrumentalists, a second drummer came on board by sheer chance when he was asked by a friend to join the SotS guys to play a going-away party. A night of jamming and one wildly successful show later, he was a full-fledged member, and there were five.

Esprit d’escalier captures the quintet’s underdog position in their arena, but for the fact that one can’t help but think and hope that they’ll win. Certainly the achievement of their sound speaks against the notion of the impotent afterthought of staircase wit. Though geographically separate from a genre dominated by myriad pieces out of Chicago, Austin and numerous west-Texas locales, and over a decade behind pioneers and exemplars of the concept like Slint, Talk Talk and Tortoise, Spirit seems to be the thought rather than the afterthought.

Upcoming shows:

10 pm, Nov. 28 @ Lucky’s Bar
10 pm, Dec 11 @ Rock Island live w/ The Listeners, Chime Owls, Toy Sails, and Stars Go Cold
10 pm, Jan 16 @ Rock Island Live for Stars Go Cold CD release

Lineup:

Josh Wilson – Bass
Kody Ramsey – Drums
Kyle Hupp – Drums
Torin Anderson – Guitar
Zack Roach – Guitar

Find the band on MySpace and Last.fm.

Quotable:

“It feels like you’re being dive-bombed by metal fire flies.” – Devin Gillette

Download “Slicklavicle” by Spirit of the Stairs

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