Noise rock

Noise rock
Stylistic origins	Experimental rock, punk rock, post-punk, proto-punk, no wave, hardcore punk, industrial music, art punk, krautrock, rock, noise, experimental music
Cultural origins	c. 1967–1980s, New York City, United States
Derivative forms	Grunge, noise pop, post-rock, Shoegazing
Genre
Fusion genres	Noisecore, noisegrind

Noise rock describes a style of post-punk that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of hardcore punk, but incorporatesatonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.

Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimalism, industrial music, and New York hardcore, artists indulge in extreme levels of distortion through the use of electric guitars and, less frequently, electronic instrumentation, either to provide percussive sounds or to contribute to the overall arrangement.

Some groups are tied to song structures, such as Sonic Youth. Although they are not representative of the entire genre, they helped popularize noise rock among alternative rock audiences by incorporating melodies into their droning textures of sound, which set a template that numerous other groups followed. Other early noise rock bands were Big Black, Swans and the Jesus Lizard.

Characteristics

Noise rock fuses rock to noise, usually with recognizable "rock" instrumentation, but with greater use of distortion and electronic effects, varying degrees of atonality, improvisation, and white noise. One notable band of this genre is Sonic Youth, who took inspiration from the no wave composers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has stated: "Noise has taken the place of punk rock. People who play noise have no real aspirations to being part of the mainstream culture. Punk has been co-opted, and this subterranean noise music and the avant-garde folk scene have replaced it."

History

File:Velvet Underground 1968 by Billy Name.png

The Velvet Underground have been credited with creating the first noise rock album in 1968.

See also: Experimental rock, Punk rock, and Grunge

Forerunners

In 1964, John Cale recorded the track "Loop" which comprised solely of audio feedback in a locked groove, it was released in 1966 as a single credited to the Velvet Underground. It has been described as "a precursor to [Reed's] Metal Machine Music". The Velvet Underground would later experiment heavily with the use of drone and noise in rock music.

In the mid-to-late 1960s, artists such as the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, the Who, Pink Floyd, the Velvet Underground, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the Yardbirds began experimenting with and incorporating heavy distortion, layered effects and noisy guitar feedback into rock music, this became a staple of a heavier branch of psychedelia known as acid rock. Online music publication Far Out cites these innovations with being influential to the development of noise music and noise rock.

Jimi Hendrix and Lou Reed were influential innovators in the intentional use of guitar feedback in rock music, a feature which would become a staple characteristic of noise rock. However, artists such as Frank Zappa and the Beatles had experimented with feedback prior on songs like "Who Are the Brain Police?" and "I Feel Fine". The Yardbirds pioneered the "rave up", inspired by jazz, it involved speeding up a song's beat to double-time during the mid-section whilst building up the instrumental to a climax through improvised guitar noise courtesy of Jeff Beck.

Moreover, the British Invasion kickstarted the development of garage rock in the United States, encouraging young amateur musicians to utilize cheap distortion pedals as inspired by groups like the Rolling Stones and the Kinks, which resulted in a branch of heavier and noisier music, notable bands were the Electric Prunes, the Seeds and Count Five. These experiments sometimes culminated in extended songs such as "Sister Ray" by the Velvet Underground and "Up in Her Room" by the Seeds.

Garage rock group the Monks' Gary Burger began introducing abrasive guitar feedback into their music in 1965. Cole Alexander of psychedelic-rock band Black Lips credits experimental artist Michael Yonkers with taking guitar noise and feedback to extreme lengths. Subsequently, rock band Chicago would feature the song "Free Form Guitar" built purely on guitar feedback as part of their debut album, similar to the Grateful Dead's "Feedback".

While the music had been around for some time, the term "noise rock" was coined in the 1980s to describe an offshoot of punk groups with an increasingly abrasive approach. An archetypal album is the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat (1968). Treblezine‍ '​s Joe Gross credits White Light/White Heat as the "cult classic" with being the first noise rock album, accordingly, "perhaps it's an obvious starting point, but it's also the starting point. Period." Influenced by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman Reed stated that:

"I thought, you put Hubert Selby with Burroughs or Ginsberg lyrics against some rock with these kind of harmonic [ideas] going in … wouldn't you have something?"

The 1960s experimental groups Red Krayola, Cromagnon, Godz, the Ethix, Pärson Sound, the Sperm and Nihilist Spasm Band are other bands that were later assessed by some music critics and journalists to be early pioneers of what would become noise rock.

However, most notably were Les Rallizes Denudés who quickly adopted the more abrasive elements developed by the Velvet Underground in White Light/White Heat as well as expanding towards an increasingly noise based sound in the 1970s, influencing a great number of artists in the Japanese noise and psychedelic rock scene. Additionally, proto-punk artists such as the Stooges, Electric Eels, Rocket from the Tombs, Deviants, the Sonics, Destroy All Monsters, Simply Saucer, Patti Smith and MC5 would also have an influence on the noise rock genre. As well as avant-garde music artists Yoko Ono and Captain Beefheart. In Germany, groups emerging out of the influential krautrock scene such as Can, Faust, Amon Düül II and Neu! routinely entwined abrasive, free-improvised noises within their brand of rock music. Subsequently, American groups like the Residents who released a noisy version of "Satisfaction", and Half Japanese, who influenced Sonic Youth and Kurt Cobain, began to explore similar territories.

Origins

During the advent of punk rock and post-punk in the late '70s, many bands began adopting a more abrasive approach to rock music, influential amongst these artists were This Heat, Swell Maps, Wire, The Fall and Pere Ubu. However, most notable of these groups were Nick Cave'sexperimental post-punk band the Birthday Party. Inspired by the Pop Group, they went on to influence "a generation of US noise-rock groups, from Sonic Youth to Big Black and the Jesus Lizard". Others include, San Francisco's influential acid-punk band Chrome who were covered by the Jesus Lizard, as well as art-punk group MX-80 Sound who influenced Steve Albini and Sonic Youth. In addition, "Weird Noise E.P." the British DIY punk various artists 7" single released in 1979 was the earliest noise rock compilation album.

Guitarist Steve Albini of noise rock band Big Black stated in a 1984 article that "good noise is like orgasm". He commented: "Anybody can play notes. There's no trick. What is a trick and a good one is to make a guitar do things that don't sound like a guitar at all. The point here is stretching the boundaries." He said that Ron Asheton of the Stooges "made squealy death noise feedback" on "Iggy's monstruous songs". Albini also mentioned John McKay of Siouxsie and the Banshees, saying: "The Scream is notable for a couple of things: only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". Albini also said that Keith Levene of Public Image Ltd had this "ability to make an excruciating noise come out of his guitar". Additionally, Andy Gill of Gang of Four would incorporate drawn-out abrasive guitar feedback on their song "Love Like Anthrax".

In an article about noise rock, Spin wrote that the US compilation album No New York, produced by Brian Eno and released in 1978 was an important document of the late '70s New York no wave scene that acted as an influence to bands like Sonic Youth and Swans. It featured several songs of Lydia Lunch's first band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks along with material of other groups Mars, DNA and James Chance and the Contortions, other bands who were not featured on the compilation such as Theoretical Girls, Suicide, the Notekillers, Red Transistor, the Static and Jack Ruby were also influential to the scene.

While noise rock has never had any wide mainstream popularity, the raw, distorted and feedback-intensive sound of some noise rock bands had an influence on shoegaze, which enjoyed some popularity in the 90s, especially in the UK, and grunge, the most commercially successful with Nirvana's final studio album In Utero produced by Steve Albini and generally taking influences from bands like Big Black, Wipers, the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr. and the Jesus Lizard. The Butthole Surfers' mix of punk, heavy metal and noise rock was a major influence, particularly on the early work of Soundgarden. Other influential acts were Wisconsin's Killdozer, Chicago's Big Black, and most notably San Francisco's Flipper, a band known for its slowed-down and murky "noise punk".

1980s-early 1990s

In the 1980s, Big Black, Sonic Youth and Swans were the leading figures of noise rock. Sonic Youth were the first noise rock band to get signed by a major label in 1990. Other influential groups were Scratch Acid, Oxbow, the Dead C, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 and No Trend. Japan would also contribute with bands like High Rise, Ruins and Mainliner. Later notable bands of the noise rock scene were Cows, Brainbombs, Liars, Season to Risk and Unsane. Subsequently, as genres like hardcore punk and post-hardcore developed, noise rock bands such as Mclusky, Shellac, U.S. Maple, Barkmarket, Polvo, Rapeman, Unwound, Drive Like Jehu, Today Is the Day and Cherubs began incorporating these influences into the noise rock genre whilst bands like Helmet infused influences indebted to heavy metal, and most notably Brainiac who merged post-hardcore with synth-punk.

The Jesus Lizard emerged in the early 1990s as a "leading noise rock band" in the American scene with their "willfully abrasive and atonal" style.

Pigfuck

Music critic Robert Christgau coined the term "pigfuck" in the 1980s when trying to describe the caustic sounds of emerging noise rock band Sonic Youth (similar to another term he coined "skronk" as a descriptor for jagged and noisy guitar music), the term later took on a life of its own and became associated with the sounds of bands like Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Cows and Flipper as well as those on labels such as Touch and Go Records and Amphetamine Reptile Records.

Noisecore

Noisecore was a derivate of hardcore punk and noise music which emerged in the mid-1980s, notable artists include Melt-Banana and the Gerogerigegege.

Late 1990s-2000s

Later on in the 1990s, the term "noise punk" began developing with the band Lightning Bolt serving as key players in the 2000s noise punk scene in Providence, Rhode Island, although Brian Gibson, the band's bassist, is dismissive of the noise punk label, stating "I hate, hate, hate the category "noise-punk" I really don't like being labeled with two words that have so much baggage. It's gross." Other noise punk artists include Arab on Radar, Boris, the Flying Luttenbachers, Zs, Laddio Bolocko, Boredoms, Hella, Royal Trux and Harry Pussy. In Japan, notable noise rock bands began to emerge out of the japanoise scene such as Fushitsusha, Zeni Geva and Space Streakings. Notable noise rock bands that emerged in the early 2000s were Daughters, Japandroids, METZ, the Goslings and Death from Above 1979.

Shitgaze

During the 2000s, lo-fi noise pop bands Psychedelic Horseshit pioneered a brand of noise rock they dubbed "shitgaze", the New Republic briefly discussed the term, while bands labelled as part of the scene included the Hospitals, No Age, Times New Viking, Pink Reason and Eat Skull.

2010s-2020s

During the early 2010s, noise rock artists such as Gilla Band, Whores and Mannequin Pussy emerged onto the scene. Subsequently, bands like Black Midi, Sprain and Chat Pile would later follow, gaining prominence as modern noise rock groups.

See also

• List of noise rock bands
• List of noise musicians

Sources

• Blush, Steven (2016). New York Rock: From the Rise of The Velvet Underground to the Fall of CBGB. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-08361-6. https://books.google.com/books?id=ezTpDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA266. 
• Felix, Stanford (2010). The Complete Idiot's Guide Music Dictionary. DK Publishing. ISBN 978-1-101-19809-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=lJ_Ql1fOCuwC&pg=PT172. 

Contents

 [hide] *1 Style

• 2 Visual and conceptual elements
• 3 History
  • 3.1 Precursors
  • 3.2 1970s
  • 3.3 1980s
  • 3.4 1990s
  • 3.5 2000s
  • 3.6 2010s
• 4 Related genres
• 5 Labels
• 6 References
• 7 Bibliography

Style

Noise rock is a genre of music descended from early avant-garde music and sound art. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has said that

“

Noise has taken the place of punk rock. People who play noise have no real aspirations to being part of the mainstream culture. Punk has been co-opted, and this subterranean noise music and the avant-garde folk scene have replaced it.

”

Visual and conceptual elements

[1][2]Steve Albini

Many noise rock groups have a confrontational performance style which mirrors the aggression of their music. This reaches back to The Who and Jimi Hendrix, who were famous for destroying their instruments on stage, and Iggy Pop, of the Stooges, and Darby Crash, of the Germs, who lacerated their bodies in a spectacle comparable to the performance art of Chris Burdenand Vito Acconci. Acconci was also a significant inspiration for no wave. Some performers, such as Black Flag and the Birthday Party, for example, also physically assaulted audience members, on occasion.

1980s noise rock musicians tended to adopt a Spartan, utilitarian mode of dress following the hardcore punk ethos and in partial reaction against the more ostentatious elements of punk fashion. Steve Albini articulated an ethical stance that emphasized restraint, irony, and self-sufficiency. The Butthole Surfers were an exception in their desire to dress as bizarrely as possible. Several bands also made public reference to drug use, particularly LSD (Jimi Hendrix, the Butthole Surfers) and heroin (the Velvet Underground, Royal Trux). Many contemporary noise rock musicians, such as the Locust, Comparative Anatomy, and Lightning Bolt, have a very theatrical mode of presentation and wear costumes. Some bands incorporate visual displays, such as film or video art.

History

Precursors

The origins of noise rock are in the first rock musicians who explored extreme dissonance and electronic feedback. Examples of commercially successful figures include the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, and Neil Young. Underground rock musicians such as the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, and the MC5 incorporated elements of free jazz and minimalism, notably The Velvet Underground's self-titled debut and their second album, White Light/White Heat, which incorporated free musicianship and drone sounds. More obscure musicians, such as the Monks, San Francisco's Fifty Foot Hose, and Japan's Les Rallizes Dénudés, also incorporated the effects of dissonance. The German groups described as Krautrock are significant influences on later noise rock, particularly Can and Faust. Lou Reed's 1975 album Metal Machine Music, which entirely eschewed song structure in favor of a minimalist wave of guitar feedback, also anticipated and influenced many later developments in noise rock. Punk rock groups such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Ramones tended to avoid extreme dissonance, preferring a more traditional, straight-ahead approach to rock'n'roll. One exception was the L.A. hardcore punk group the Germs, who pursued punk rock with an amateurish, free-form tenacity.

1970s

The New York no wave scene, featuring such artists as Mars and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, which began to coalesce in 1978, was also an essential development in noise rock. While no wave included a variety of post-punk, experimental tendencies (different groups incorporated elements of free jazz, soul, and disco), the most abrasive groups would find their innovations streamlined into noise rock tradition. Chrome, from San Francisco, produced their own style of psychedelic punk, which shared some common ground with the no wave groups.

Australian noise rock also developed in the late 1970s. The Scientists anticipated grunge.

1980s

A number of noise rock bands emerged from many different scenes in North America in the 1980s. These included IAO Core, Caroliner Rainbow, and Grotus (San Francisco), Big Black (Chicago), Butthole Surfers, The Jesus Lizard Scratch Acid (Texas), The Melvins (Montesano, Washington), Dinosaur Jr., Sonic Youth, Live Skull, Swans, White Zombie, The Thing, and Helmet (New York), Pussy Galore and Royal Trux(Washington DC), among many others. These bands were initially referred to as "pigfuck" by Robert Christgau, in a reference to Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris, though the increasingly melodic tendencies of many of these groups quickly rendered the tag misleading. The Minneapolis label Amphetamine Reptile released a great deal of music in this tradition.

Industrial groups (such as Throbbing Gristle) developed in parallel to, and sometimes in collaboration with, the noise rock groups.

Many of these bands went on to temper the initial ferocity and amelodicism of their approach. IAO Core covered (and were influenced by) The Stranglers, Sonic Youth spoke highly of the Beatles, Pussy Galore covered (and were influenced by) the Rolling Stones, Black Flag drew inspiration from Black Sabbath, and the Butthole Surfers worked with John Paul Jones and emulated Jimi Hendrix.

Beginning in 1986, the British group Napalm Death created "grindcore" by melding the noise rock of Swans with hardcore punk and death metal. While later grindcore groups tended to move in the direction of death metal, American bands such as Anal Cunt continued in an extremely dissonant, freeform vein.

[3][4]Melt-Banana

A similar scene also began to develop in Osaka, Japan, spearheaded by Hanatarash and the Boredoms, who composed extremely short, fast "songs", marked by blasts of rhythm (reflecting an influence from grindcore), screaming, and overloaded guitars. Boredoms singer Yamantaka Eye also worked with the New York City jazzcore group Naked City. The Boredoms eventually evolved towards a far more meditative sound, taking inspiration from Krautrock. Gore Beyond Necropsy, Ground Zero, Zeni Geva, Guitar Wolf, and Melt-Banana extended the Japanese noise rock style. These bands also reflected the impact of the Japanoise scene pioneered by Merzbow.

The British shoegazing groups developed an entirely distinct form of noise rock, largely derived from the so-called noise pop related genre. Taking equal inspiration from the dream popgroups, in addition to aggressive rock like the Jesus and Mary Chain, The Telescopes and Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine produced a warm, feminine, but also dissonant, formless and psychedelic genre that belongs in the noise rock tradition.

Some math rock groups like Don Caballero are also considered noise rock. Post-hardcore, screamo, and some riot grrl groups also take influence from noise rock.

1990s

The '80s noise rock bands were significant influences on Nirvana and Hole, and as a result had some mainstream currency during the period when grunge was played on the radio.Nirvana's album In Utero is particularly evident in its debts to '80s noise rock, and was produced by Big Black frontman and noise rock icon Steve Albini. Industrial metal groups, such as Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, and White Zombie, were also indebted to noise rock.

In 1992 Melt-Banana started in Japan, afterwards being picked up by John Zorn and Steve Albini and became a known act in Europe and the U.S. at the end of the nineties and a famous example of ultra fast noise rock. In France,Diabologum experimented a mixture of dadaist collages and noisy rock.

The powerviolence scene was close to noise rock, with Man Is the Bastard eventually dissolving into unstructured noise music. The Locust also picked up from Man Is The Bastard and created a synth-driven powerviolence sound. They have gone to a more noise drone on their latest album New Erections. Contemporaneous groups like Neurosis and Today Is the Day began to further blend noise rock with extreme metal. Much of the resulting innovations have been incorporated into the more experimental practitioners of metalcore, such as Converge, Botch, and Dillinger Escape Plan.

[5][6]Lightning Bolt

Beginning in the mid-90s, Providence became the center of a new crop of noise-rock bands, largely a product of the RISD scene. These groups tended to owe less to traditional rock song structures, and were more minimal and drone-like. These included Lightning Bolt, Arab on Radar, Six Finger Satellite, and Pink and Brown. Black Dice were originally part of this scene, but moved to Brooklyn, where they aligned themselves with groups like Gang Gang Dance. As journalist Marc Masters puts it, these groups "trafficked in a kind of art school version of 90's scum rock, mixing in overloaded effects, damaged electronics, and gimmicks like masks and in-mouth mics." These groups were also related, in part, to the San Diego scene that emerged from screamo, most famously the Locust,and to Wolf Eyes, from Ann Arbor.

Noise rock also spread into the American South with bands such as the Ed Kemper Trio. Heavily influenced by the sound of SST and Touch and Go, EK3 was the focus of the 2004 documentary People Will Eat Anything.

Mike Patton is also an advocate of the noise rock scene, maintaining the label Ipecac.

2000s

After 2000, noise rock groups formed all over the world. These included mclusky, Scarling, Black Dice, An Albatross, Deerhunter, The Death Set, Oneida, Parts and Labor, Fuck Buttons, Indian Jewelry, Yuck (band), Health, Wavves,Neptune, Fiasco, Aa (Big A Little a), Girls in Love, Magik Markers, Mohamed UFO, Mindflayer, Part Chimp, Slicing Grandpa, Japanther, and Hella. In L.A. No Age, Skeleteen, Pre, Part Chimp, Male Bonding, and Action Beat from the UK, The Maharajah Commission from Malaysia, The Intelligence, from Seattle, Japandroids from Vancouver, and The New Flesh and Ponytail, from Baltimore are more examples of modern noise rock outfits. In 2007, San Francisco's IAO Core announced that after 23 studio albums, they would only release recordings of the their live performances, many of which are ritually located and time/date specific, and often several hours long. Experimental luthier Yuri Landman has experimented with a variety of extended techniques, with instruments created for the benefit of numerous groups in the scene, including Sonic Youth, Lightning Bolt, Liars, Jad Fair.

The post 2000 noise rock often features tribal polyrhythmic drum patterns. Recent bands have carried on older traditions while branching out and furthering their theatrics. Bands such as Comparative Anatomy, Lightning Bolt, The Locust are known for wearing outlandish costumes.

[7][8]Comparative Anatomy===2010s===

More recent noise rock that came up past 2010 are Nü Sensae, Zs, METZ, Disappears, The Futurians, Thee Oh Sees, Cloud Nothings, Riggots, Thurston Moore's Chelsea Light Moving,GRIZZLOR, Dumb Numbers as well as new Japanese acts such as Nisennenmondai and ZZZ's.

Related genres

• Drone metal
• Mathcore
• Sludge metal
• Shoegazing

Labels

The following is a list of record labels that specialize in noise rock.

• Amphetamine Reptile Records
• Atypeek Music
• Bulb Records
• Ecstatic Peace!
• Gold Standard Laboratories
• Hanson Records

• Homestead Records
• In the Red Records
• Ipecac Recordings
• Load Records
• Lo-Fi Eyed Records
• Narnack Records

• Silent Explosion
• Skin Graft Records
• SYR
• Three One G
• Touch and Go Records