Alan Licht

It’s something of the cliché to state a musician “stubbornly won’t end up being categorized,” but with Alan Licht, that declaration is simply the reality. Although guitarist’s body of function encompasses noise rock and roll, alternative pop/rock and roll, improvisational music, free of charge jazz, minimalism, musique concrète, consumer electronics, and a lot of various other halts within and outside those limitations, Licht has were able to achieve this without ever chaining himself to anybody design, and his muse is among the most unfettered in modern music. Alan Licht was created in NJ on June 6, 1968. His parents liked opera and present music, and Licht says he previously no fascination with rock & move until 1978, when viewing teenager idol Shaun Cassidy on tv changed his brain about well-known music. When Licht noticed the painting of Paul McCartney and Wings on-stage within the gatefold from the live recording Wings Over America, he made the decision playing your guitar appeared cool and began monitoring the device. As an adolescent, Licht’s likes quickly advanced from traditional rock towards the Velvet Underground, and he quickly embraced a heady selection of punk and fresh wave acts which range from the brand new York Dolls as well as the Clash to Objective of Burma and General public Picture Ltd.. Licht also started looking into avant-garde jazz after reading evaluations of Cecil Taylor and late-period John Coltrane albums that piqued his curiosity, however when Licht’s acoustic guitar instructor lent him a duplicate of Steve Reich’s pioneering minimalist function Music for 18 Music artists it experienced a profound influence on his musical considering and he started tinkering with forms and ideas beyond your traditional pop platform, specifically serialism and drone patterns. Licht’s research in experimental music continuing as he found out the task of La Monte Small, unearthing uncommon recordings of Young’s group the Theatre of Eternal Music. After graduating from senior high school, Licht went to Vassar, where he majored in film research and performed in several tongue-in-cheek punk rings (his earlier stage experience included a high college cover music group), however in 1987 he created the group Like Kid with Will Baum and Rebecca Odes, whose music fused a few of Licht’s exciting suggestions with post-punk option rock. Love Kid released their 1st recording, Ok?, in 1991; by this time around, Licht experienced also started collaborating with experimental guitarist Rudolph Gray, and in 1993, exactly the same 12 months Love Kid released their last recording, Witchcraft, Licht produced his debut with Grey’s ensemble the Blue Human beings, whose work shown the impact of free of charge jazz as well as the downtown Simply no Wave picture. Licht next became a member of the band OPERATE ON, whose songs offered an unusually available framework for his acoustic guitar work; he produced his debut together around the 1995 EP On/Off, and would continue to record two full-length albums using the group. (Licht also briefly toured as guitarist with previous Like frontman Arthur Lee, though Licht’s commitments with OPERATE ON and Lee’s arrest on weapon charges assured the collaboration was short-lived.) Licht’s single acoustic guitar pieces experienced popped through to several compilation albums and self-released 7″ singles in the first ’90s, and in 1994, he released his first single effort, Sink growing older, which presented two extended items, one a minimalist variance around the Minutemen’s Polarity. Since that time, Licht offers released a reliable stream of single materials and collaborations with additional performers, including Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, Loren Connors, Aki Onda, and Oren Ambarchi. He in addition has performed and documented with Text message of Light, an ensemble whose function accompanies the movies of Stan Brakhage and in addition features DJ Olive, Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youngsters, and free of charge jazz drummer William Hooker. In 2007, Licht released another “all-star” cooperation, Nothing at all Makes Any Feeling, with Nels Cline, Lee Ranaldo, and Carlos Giffoni. You should definitely active with music, Licht in addition has earned a popularity being a talented music journalist, having released numerous articles within the Cable and Halana, and he’s also made sound installations which have been provided at main galleries all over the world.