Windsor for the Derby

Since its 1994 beginnings in Austin, Windsor for the Derby has made music for brooding and sleeping- introspective in scope and highly emotional in concept- primarily through guitars and the occasional sampler. As a result, they’ve been perched on the cusp of many musical arenas; the band’s sound is uniquely organic, but at the same time, the ambience they make with guitars and patience often sounds electronic-based, or at least electronic-influenced. Perhaps it is their spaciousness, but when they want to, Windsor for the Derby closes the circle between atmospheric “post-rock” music and the newer, more music/less dance-oriented “intelligent Dance Music” (iDM).
After making several recordings of linear, spatial music, in 1999, Windsor for the Derby recorded Difference and Repetition, an album that was fully organic and intimate, complete with acoustic guitars and the occasional sweet, whispered vocals. The band waited two years to release their next record, The Awkwardness EP, on Aesthetics Records in late 2001; as if to further blur the line, the EP consists of remixes by such iDM luminaries as Pulseprogramming and I-Sound (and Windsor for the Derby themselves).
Daniel Matz and Jason McNeely have always been the band’s core, along with a rotating cast of musicians that currently includes Karl Bauer and Ben Cissner. Past members have included Stars of the Lid’s Adam Wiltzie and Bowery Electric/Calla’s Wayne Magruder; it would appear that Windsor for the Derby’s flirtation with a more electronic-based world is calcified by both history and association.

Surprisingly, however, Matz denies listening to current iDM; instead of staking a claim in an aesthetic crossover between Windsor for the Derby’s music and electronics, he asserts, “I feel that we are playing an evolved form of rock music (as are our peers). Naturally, all the other music that we listen to is going to seep in to our projects. The important thing is to be able to combine them cohesively. I do not think it’s only electronic music in this crossover. Personally, I don’t actively listen to electronic music. I’m not sure about Jason.”