Grapthar's Song of the Day: Glenn Branca 'Light Field (In Consonance)'

grapthar (74)in #music • 6 years ago

Glenn Branca - Light Field (In Consonance)

Glenn Branca was an avant-garde

composer and guitarist, who was known for using noise/drone, strange tunings, and writing really intense, often "difficult to listen to" avant-garde compositions. You can see guitar solo's of his from the late '70s where he is essentially not playing any notes, just using the guitar to create weird percussive sounds. This sort of style became popular later with bands like Sonic Youth and even more recently with Hella and Tera Melos. He also worked on making his own instruments so he could expand the timbre of his playing beyond what a guitar could do. Branca is generally considered part of the 'no-wave' movement, which was an avant-garde response to the rock cliches of punk, and rejected the pop-sensibilities of the new-wave bands. He recently passed away at age 70.

Listen to Light Field (In Consonance) here.

This song is from his debut full length 'The Ascension',

released in 1981. According to Wikipedia, on this album he experimented with various resonances generated from using alternate tunings on multiple electric guitars. The sound of this track is SO cool to me; I love the way he uses the guitars, and how he bounces back and forth between guitars to make the progressions feel like they jump around. This song actually sounds very Sonic Youth-esque, which isn't too surprising; Branca was a big influence on them later in the '80s.