My Only Swerving

El Ten Eleven is Kristian Donaldson and Tim Fogarty — a guitarist-bassist and a drummer who together create a sound that shouldn't work as well as it does. Donaldson plays bass with his feet while simultaneously playing guitar and looping both in real time. The result is dense, melodic post-rock with no overdubs.

My Only Swerving, from their 2007 self-titled debut, is a master class in loop-based composition: each element arrives and layers until the piece is doing something neither instrument could do alone. The lack of a vocalist is irrelevant — the guitar carries all the melody needed.

El Ten Eleven have remained one of the more quietly influential American instrumental bands of the past two decades — steadily releasing records without ever quite breaking into the mainstream. The work doesn't need the mainstream.