Mogwai

The elegiac, altogether soul-shaking Mogwai has kept audiences stirred for two decades of critically lauded post-rock shimmer. "I'm Jim Morrison, I'm Dead," which opens last year's The Hawk Is Howling LP, is almost seven minutes of dramatic sprawl that has nothing specifically to do with the late Doors' lead singer, but carries his spirit of chaos. Since 1995, the Scottish Mogwai has churned out six albums of instrumental rock, largely influenced by krautrock monolith Can and Irish etherealists My Bloody Valentine. Fans and critics alike still look on 2001's Rock Action as the group's magnum opus, while others see their debut Mogwai Young Team as post-rock's finest hour, though the band itself refuses that clichéd tag. However you label them, the sonic debt bands like Pelican and Austin's Explosions In The Sky owe to these Scotsmen is immense.