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Alan Licht | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | June 6, 1968 New Jersey, U.S. |
| Genres | Avant-garde, noise rock, pop |
| Instrument(s) | Guitar |
| Years active | 1991-current |
Alan Licht (born June 6, 1968) is an American guitarist and composer, whose work combines elements of pop, noise, free jazz and minimalism. He is also a writer and journalist.
Licht was born in New Jersey in 1968. His earliest musical influences, in the 1970s, were mainstream rock bands like the Bee Gees and Wings —he remarks in an interview with Paris Transatlantic magazine that 'What made me want to play guitar was that painting of Wings in concert in the gatefold of Wings Over America. It looked so exciting... I wanted to be part of it.' Later, in school, he listened to punk and no wave bands like Mission of Burma, Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth. However, his musical trajectory was set when his guitar teacher gave him a copy of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, which would lead to his discovery of other minimalist music. Licht majored in Film Studies at Vassar College in New York. Since the 1980s, he has worked and recorded with the bands Love Child, Run On and The Pacific Ocean and with other avant-garde musicians including Jim O'Rourke, Rudolph Grey, and Loren Mazzacane Connors. He has also recorded several solo albums. [1] Licht participated as drummer 42 in the Boredoms 77 Boadrum performance which occurred on July 7, 2007, at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, New York.
Licht's music draws on a wide range of different styles, from tape-loops, to noisy guitar (sometimes using a prepared instrument), to pure pop music. [2]
Licht is also a music journalist and writer on minimalist music, [3] and in 2000, he published his first book, An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn. [4] In 2007 Rizzoli published his book Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories. In 2021 his book Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020 was published by Blank Forms Edition.
Sonic Youth was an American rock band based in New York City and formed in 1981. Founding members Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo remained together for the entire history of the band, while Steve Shelley (drums) followed a series of short-term drummers in 1985, rounding out the core line-up. Jim O'Rourke was also a member of the band from 1999 to 2005, and Mark Ibold was a member from 2006 to 2011.
Thurston Joseph Moore is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter best known as a member of the rock band Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moore was ranked 34th in Rolling Stone's 2004 edition of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Lee Mark Ranaldo is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as a co-founder of the rock band Sonic Youth. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Ranaldo at number 33 on its "Greatest Guitarists of All Time" list. In May 2012, Spin published a staff-selected top 100 guitarist list, ranking Ranaldo and his Sonic Youth bandmate Thurston Moore together at number 1.
Jim O'Rourke is an American musician, instrumentalist, composer, singer-songwriter and record producer. He is best known for his numerous solo and collaborative music projects, many of which are instrumental, and has been acclaimed for his music that spans varied genres, including avant-garde styles such as ambient, noise and minimalism, and styles of rock like indie rock and post-rock. He has been associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene, as well as with New York City when he relocated to it in 2000 for his tenure as a member of American indie rock band Sonic Youth. He subsequently moved to Japan and has since been a Japanese resident.
William Hooker is an American drummer and composer.
David Grubbs is an American composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. He was a founding member of Squirrel Bait, Bastro, and Gastr del Sol. He has also played in Codeine, The Red Krayola, Bitch Magnet and The Wingdale Community Singers.
Rhys Chatham is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist, primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orchestra" compositions. He has lived in France since 1987.
Phillip Earl Niblock was an American composer, filmmaker, and videographer. In 1985, he was appointed director of Experimental Intermedia, a foundation for avant-garde music based in New York with a parallel branch in Ghent, Belgium.
Loren Mazzacane Connors is an American guitarist who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors. His music has touched on many genres, but often features an abstract or experimental version of blues and folk styles.
Sharon Ann Cheslow is an American musician, composer, artist, writer, photographer, educator, and archivist. In 1981, she formed Chalk Circle, Washington, D.C.'s first all-female punk band. She has since become an accomplished artist who works between different mediums, mostly sound-based.
Leah Singer is a photographer and multimedia artist. She is the long-time artistic collaborator and wife of Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. Singer performs with multiple modified film projectors that allow her to improvise and manipulate the film projections by adjusting the frame rate. She has likened what she does with film as similar to DJs who scratch with records.
Bad Moon Rising is the second studio album by American rock band Sonic Youth, released on March 29, 1985, by Blast First and Homestead Records. The album is loosely themed around the dark side of America, including references to obsession, insanity, Charles Manson, heavy metal, Satanism, and early European settlers' encounters with Native Americans.
The Eternal is the fifteenth and final studio album by American alternative rock band Sonic Youth, released on June 9, 2009, by Matador Records, their first and only on that label. It was their first studio album in three years, making it the band's longest delay between studio albums.
Between the Times and the Tides is the ninth studio album by the American alternative rock musician Lee Ranaldo, released on March 20, 2012 on Matador Records. His first release on Matador Records and since Sonic Youth's indefinite hiatus, the album features a more straightforward songwriting approach to his prior material and includes guest musicians such as Nels Cline, John Medeski and Leah Singer. The album was originally intended to be a minimalist acoustic album but its sound was developed by Ranaldo during its recording at Echo Canyon West in Hoboken, New Jersey during a seven-month period in early 2011.
Run On were an American art rock band based in New York City, formed in 1993. The group originally consisted of Rick Brown, Sue Garner and Alan Licht. This line-up recorded the single Days Away and released it on Ajax in 1994. The EP On/Off was issued through Matador in 1995 and according to Licht a vast improvement over the band's previous effort. Newgarden was replaced by Katie Gentile after the release of Run On's debut album. No Way, released in 1997, found the band exploring acid rock and Indian music territories while remaining rooted in classic rock.
Last Night on Earth is the tenth studio album by the American alternative rock musician Lee Ranaldo, released on October 7, 2013 on Matador Records. Recorded over a nine-month period at Echo Canyon West in Hoboken, New Jersey, the album features Ranaldo's backing band The Dust which comprises former Sonic Youth bandmate Steve Shelley, guitarist Alan Licht and bassist Tim Lüntzel. In addition to studio recordings, Last Night on Earth incorporates field recordings of Ranaldo in Berlin, Germany and Valeggio sul Mincio, Italy.
Record Without a Cover is an album by artist Christian Marclay. It was released in 1985 by Recycled Records. An improvised sound collage, the album was sold as an LP record with no cover or protective packaging, such that the damage from shipping, storing, and playing the record becomes a part of the work.
Graffiti Composition is an album by Christian Marclay. It began as a street installation in 1996 before being converted into a score and recorded. The album was released by Dog W/A Bone on August 17, 2010.
Electric Trim is the twelfth studio album by American musician Lee Ranaldo, the former Sonic Youth guitarist, released on September 15, 2017, on Mute Records, marking his first solo album to be released on the label. The album was produced by Ranaldo along with Spanish musician Raül Refree. The album features several musicians, including Sharon Van Etten, Steve Shelley, Alan Licht, and Nels Cline.
Love Child was a New York City-based alternative rock band whose music combined elements of punk rock and no wave. According to Trouser Press's David Sprague, Love Child was "...one of Gotham's most mercurial bands, able to leap from twee pop tunes to galvanizing skronkadelic constructs in a single bound."
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