Ex Models

Late in 1998 the Ex Models set out to restore a measure of genuine grit to New York’s underground rock circuit through their precisely calculated strain of post-punk. The lineup featured sibling guitarists Shahin Motia and Shahryar Motia alongside bassist Mikhail Masiello and drummer Jake Fiedler; together the quartet spent the next two years merging abrupt shifts in meter and sharply angled guitar-and-bass figures with jagged, dismantled song forms that slowly built a modest audience across the city’s club circuit. Their efforts eventually drew the attention of Ace Fu Records, which signed the band for its first album, Other Mathematics, issued in spring 2001. The group recorded and produced the LP entirely on its own, yielding a raw document of the abrasive onstage force that had already positioned the Ex Models among the fresh standard-bearers of the local underground. Their inward-looking take on rock ideology rendered the music both a reflection on earlier phases of punk history and an early indicator of the hybrid directions post-rock and post-punk would soon explore. Two years after Other Mathematics appeared, the band released Zoo Psychology, fulfilling the promise shown on its debut.