Working in an office for the past eight months or so, I’ve realized the importance of maintaining focus. I do that with headphones and music. Recently, I’ve been listening to math rock to drown out the sounds of the office while I work.

For me, focus is a function of the average decibal level of the music $L$ and the rhythmic distance from the plain old 4/4 time signature $m$, mediated by the hours of sleep I've had $H$ and the number of people talking in the office $P$.

In other words, give me loud, rhythmically complex music and a reasonably good night’s sleep and I’m ready to do my work—as long as too many people aren’t talking in the office.

What is math rock?

In a word, it’s rock that is harder to dance to. It features clean electric guitar, lots of fretboard tapping, strange and interesting time signatures, and … did I mention guitar?

It’s often quite loud, too, as rock (or post-rock, as math rock is sometimes called) should be. Loud music is a great way to drown out conversations about somebody’s weekend while I do my work.

Here’s what shows up on shuffle.

Japanese groups

Here are a few groups that I’ve enjoyed listening to, with some example videos of their live shows.

水中スピカ (Spica)

I’m only familiar with one song of theirs (“Soaring”), but it sounds great on record. You can see it live below.

Paranoid Void

This group is a trio. Trios can be amazing—just look at Rush—and it’s an all-female group, too. There seem to be a lot of women in math rock, a welcome change in a traditionally testosterone-fueled genre.

カルマの犬 (“Karma’s Dog”) is one example song.

意識のないクランケ (ishiki no nai kranke, “comatose patient”)

Noisy! It’s great.

Other groups

• toe: one of the more popular math rock groups from Japan, based on Spotify streaming stats.
• Stereo Type, うつろう (utsurou)
• Uchu Conbini, “8films”
• Chou Chou Merged Syrups. The song that I hear most is 白昼夢は色彩のない (hakuchūmu ha shikisai no nai, “Colorless daydream”). It reminds me just a little of Evanescence from back in the early 2000s.

American groups

American groups often show off guitar chops more than other groups.

Chon

Wow, there’s some really smooth guitar playing on “Story.” This group’s sometimes mentioned on Reddit:

There is a Chon-shaped hole in my heart that cannot be filled. Bands like Floral and Nyu./ that one Eternity Forever EP kind of satisfy it but nothing ever quite scratches that same itch —/u/blake_k47

Indeed, they had some pretty sweet licks.

Floral

Floral is a duo from California—just guitar and drums. It’s all you need, really. Their song “Climbing a Wall” shows up regularly.

Chinese groups

Japan and the US have most of the market cornered for math rock, but a few Chinese groups are worth a mention.

Elephant Gym

Elephant Gym is a trio from Kaohsiung, Taiwan—I’m always a fan of a good trio because each musician has a lot of sonic room to play around with.

Chinese Football

This group is from Wuhan. They have a lot more vocals than most of the other groups on this list. Their music focuses less on the instrumental side of the music. I like their song “Electronic Girl,” but I’m not a huge fan of their other work. As a group, their timing on slower sections of music seems a little off, and that’s distracting when you’re trying to get things done.

I’m easily distracted by music, which is why I never used to listen to music while working, but in an open-layout office where sound travels across the room so easily, music is the only way to tune out the noise. For me, math rock combines high energy with a mostly instrumental style that lets it take a back seat to the task at hand. I put together a Spotify playlist of the music mentioned in this article in case you want to listen.