| Off White | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | 1979 | |||
| Recorded | September–December 1978 | |||
| Genre | No wave, art punk, punk jazz, post-disco | |||
| Length | 42:06 | |||
| Label | ZE | |||
| Producer | James Chance | |||
| James White and the Blacks chronology | ||||
| ||||
Off White is a 1979 album by American no wave band James White and the Blacks.
In late 1978, ZE Records co-founder Michael Zilkha approached James Chance and offered Chance $10,000 to record a disco album. [1] Zilkha gave little direction and asked the band for its own take on the genre. [2] Anya Phillips, Chance's manager and girlfriend, came up with the idea to rename James Chance and the Contortions to James White and the Blacks for the album. [1] An alternate name, James White and His Blacks, was rejected by Zilkha. Phillips and the band put together outfits resembling 1960s soul singers. [3]
Chance said that he was interested in the monotonous sound of disco music because it "doesn't have beginnings and ends". [4] His persona is an homage to soul and funk musician James Brown. [5] Chance was also intrigued by the shock value of a punk group embracing disco. [6] He received disco records for free and passed time listening to a record for several seconds before throwing it out a window. [7] Chance wrote a piece for the first issue of East Village Eye, praising disco and denouncing "outdated, cornball 'new/no wave' drivel". [6] [8]
Off White includes contributions from Lydia Lunch, Robert Quine, and Vivienne Dick. [9] The band spent most of their budget recording the album's first side and used instrumentals for the second side. [10] The album often discusses racial issues, and most of its titles are references to race. [11] Some responded to the Off White with accusations of racism. [12] Chance later responded, "I was the one that brought black music onto the whole punk scene, and I took a lot of shit for it…I was just playing with my whole image of a white person doing black music." [13]
James White and the Blacks promoted the album with a February 1979 performance at Club 57 in the East Village, Manhattan. [12] ZE rented Irving Plaza for the album's launch party, where the band lip synced its songs. The band's live performances included two teenage dancers called the Disco Lolitas. [3]
The band released "Contort Yourself" as a 12" vinyl single. [9] The song originally appeared on Buy , and the group re-recorded it with a disco beat. Chance observed that the tempo was too fast to be played in discos, so ZE labelmate August Darnell created a remix of it. Darnell used a slower tempo and wrote a new guitar part. [14] James White and the Blacks' version of "Contort Yourself" was later included in ZE's 1981 Mutant Disco compilation, [15] its 2003 NY No Wave compilation, [16] Strut Records' 2008 Disco Not Disco 3 , [17] and ZE's 2009 compilation for its 30th anniversary. [18]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [19] |
| Christgau's Record Guide | B− [20] |
| DownBeat |  [21] |
| MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide | [22] |
Upon the album's release, Billboard magazine said that it "commands attention" and described the music as "savage, uncompromising, sometimes dissonant, but always interesting". [5] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau described it as "pretty good to dance to" but added that "like so much disco music it gets tedious over a whole side." [20] AllMusic characterized Off White as "an acquired taste" containing "some of the most challenging, intriguing music to emerge from the post-punk era." [19] The Guardian included Off White in its list of "1000 albums to hear before you die". [23]
All tracks are written by James White unless otherwise noted
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Contort Yourself" (produced by August Darnell) | 6:15 | |
| 2. | "Stained Sheets" | Chance, Lydia Lunch | 5:51 |
| 3. | "(Tropical) Heat Wave" | Irving Berlin | 3:55 |
| 4. | "Almost Black, pt. 1" | Chance, Kristian Hoffman | 3:17 |
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "White Savages" | Chance, Hoffman | 4:52 |
| 2. | "Off Black" | 6:29 | |
| 3. | "Almost Black, pt. 2" | Chance, Hoffman | 3:59 |
| 4. | "White Devil" | 4:36 | |
| 5. | "Bleached Black" | 2:52 |
No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and roll clichés, no wave musicians instead experimented with noise, dissonance, and atonality, as well as non-rock genres like free jazz, funk, and disco. The scene often reflected an abrasive, confrontational, and nihilistic world view.
DNA was an American no wave band formed in 1977 by guitarist Arto Lindsay and keyboardist Robin Crutchfield, and later joined by drummer Ikue Mori and bassist Tim Wright. They were associated with the late 1970s New York no wave scene, and were featured on the 1978 compilation No New York.
James Chance, also known as James White, was an American saxophonist, keyboard player, and singer.
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James Chance and the Contortions was a musical group led by saxophonist and vocalist James Chance, formed in 1977. They were a central act of New York City's downtown no wave music scene in the late 1970s, and were featured on the influential compilation No New York (1978).
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Dance-punk is a post-punk subgenre that emerged in the late 1970s, and is closely associated with the disco, post-disco and new wave movements. The genre is characterized by mixing the energy of punk rock with the danceable rhythms of funk and disco. It was most prominent in the New York City punk movement.
Anya Phillips was a Taiwanese fashion designer and the co-founder of the New York nightclub the Mudd Club. Phillips influenced the fashion, sound, and look of the New York-based no wave scene of the late 1970s. She was also the manager and girlfriend of musician James Chance.
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Jody Harris is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer who was born in Kansas and became a central figure in the seminal no wave scene in New York City in the 1970s.
Buy is the debut studio album by American no wave band Contortions. It was released in 1979 through ZE Records following the band's inclusion on the 1978 compilation No New York.
Punk jazz is a genre of music that combines elements of jazz, especially improvisation, with the instrumentation and performance style of punk rock. The term was first used to describe James Chance and the Contortions' 1979 album Buy. Punk jazz is closely related to free jazz, no wave, and loft jazz, and has since significantly inspired post-hardcore and alternative hip hop.
George Scott III was a bass player for several New York City bands during the No Wave era. He was a founding member of 8-Eyed Spy and the Raybeats, and he worked with James Chance and the Contortions, James White and the Blacks, Human Switchboard, and John Cale, among others.
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Michel Antoine Gaston Esteban is a French record producer, record company executive, cultural center director and former magazine editor, who founded the Paris shop Harry Cover in 1973, was influential in the early development of punk rock, and, together with Michael Zilkha, established the New York–based record label ZE Records in 1978.
ZE Records was a New York–based record label, started in 1978 by Michael Zilkha and Michel Esteban, and closed in 1984.
Adele Maria Bertei is an American singer, songwriter, writer, and director.
Pat Place is an American artist, photographer, and musician noted for her work as a founding member and guitarist of no wave bands James Chance and the Contortions and Bush Tetras.
Avant-funk is a music style in which artists combine funk or disco rhythms with an avant-garde or art rock mentality. Its most prominent era occurred in the late 1970s and 1980s among post-punk and no wave acts who embraced black dance music.
