Glenn Branca (1948 - )
Biography
Glenn Branca is an avant-garde composer and guitarist.
In the early 1970s, Branca began experimenting with sound as the founder of an experimental theater group in Boston called Bastard Theater. He moved to New York in 1976, and his early music was performed in No Wave bands of the late 1970s, namely The Static and Theoretical Girls. He also performed Rhys Chatham's Guitar Trio in 1977, an experience that was very important in the development of his compositional voice (Branca 1979). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Branca [Feb 2005]
CDs
- Lesson #1
(1980) - Glenn Branca [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Reprint in CD single of the first GLENN BRANCA's EP originally released in 1980 on 99 Records.After the experience with the punk bands Theoretical Girls and Statics GLENN BRANCA met the Minimal music and started, with this first production, a carreer that during the 80's will sign a new approach to the Minimal music and in the 90's to become one of the most complex and innovative composers of the American school.
The band anticipate the ensembles of the 80s, full of guitarists. Here, beside BRANCA we find a second guitar player, Michael Gross, and a rhythmic section formed by Stephen Wischerth on drums, a constant presence in the BRANCA's bands through most of the eighties, F.L. Schroder on bass and a young Anthony Coleman on organ, a musician who collaborated in the following years with John Zorn and some of the most innovative improvisers becoming an important bandleader on his own today.
The compositions on the CD are two, for a total of 20 minutes. The first one, Lesson No.1 for electric guitar, the title of the CD, is fully inside the Minimalist musical language of the period. A short phrase repeated by the various instruments at regular intervals. The influence of Minimalist vocabulary, in particular of Steve Reich, that has a very high consideration of BRANCA's music, is evident. The second track, Dissonance, is a mixture of the minimalist language with the atmosphere punk. The result is very wild and intense.
A recording that after more than fifteen years still mantains the original innovative character and strength. --http://www.felmay.it/5032en.html