Feb
18
Review: No New York (1978)
Filed Under Reviews
Two years after the year punk rock broke into the public consciousness (1976) with the release of the Ramones’ self-titled album, musicians were taking the then young genre to many different places. In England, many artists like Public Image Ltd., Bauhaus. Wire, and Joy Division, were taking punk towards darker, more atmospheric areas whereas in New York city a movement called No Wave was emerging. No Wave grew in the ashes of the great free jazz scene in New York. New York being the home of the most influential free jazz record label during the 1960′s (though the label was initially created to release music in Esperanto). No Wave musicians much like free jazz performers were focused on the emotion and texture of the music rather than melody, harmony, and the such.
In 1978 Brian Eno came across this New York sub-genre and decided he wanted to put out a compilation of artists on Island Records. Considering that nearly everything Brian Eno touched in the late 70′s became a hit (Devo, David Bowie, Talking Heads) Island Records decided to release the record on one of it’s sub-labels Achilles. Now, No New York is unlike most compilations because instead of doing a single track from numerous artists, this album plays more like a series of EPs of four artists performing four songs.
The first of the four bands is James Chance and the Contortions and this group has probably been the most successful of the four artists after the release of this album. For they were the only group to release a full length studio album before breaking up and this success is not undeserved. The Contortions play an eye-opening aggressive funky form of free form punk, which is probably best described by AllMusicGuide as the bastard child of James Brown, Albert Ayler and the Stooges. I know this sounds like a muddy mess
of genres, but James Chance’s saxophone playing is top notch and the rhythmic drumming makes me want to dance around with the grace of a furious tornado. Just check out “Dish it Out” for it has been my favorite song of the past two weeks.
The next group Teenage Jesus and the Jerks do not inspire such feelings from me. I find their four songs to be much more droning and simplistic any track from the three other bands. The repetition of the stop and go structure of their TJ&J’s songs makes the tracks sound nearly identical at times. Though many find Lydia Lunch’s vocals off-putting, I truthfully just find myself bored with the instrumentation on the longer tracks like “The Closet” leaving “Red Alert” the half-minute song the lone enjoyable track from this foursome.
Chaos, my beloved, returns with the first band on side two, Mars. And the first track of their quartet is not only a gem, but the guitar part just shows the influence that these no wave groups had on one of indie rock’s biggest heroes Sonic Youth. Though, Mars does not repeat the strength of “Helen Fordsdale” in the rest of the set they do not leave you empty handed, you’ll will still get an interesting listening of abstract if not alien noise.
The final act on No New York is D.N.A. a trio, which includes drummer Ikue Mori, who is also known for her work with Mike Patton, John Zorn, and Kim Gordon. Along with her was a keyboardist and guitarist Arto Lindsay who made his guitar screech and wail like no other. With all of these elements D.N.A. put out the most challenging music on this record, which is a compilation of confrontational artists. D.N.A.’s “Size” ends this album which is one of the only full length artifacts of this short lived New York music scene that ended up disintegrating before the mid-1980′s. Though this sub-genre lasted only a few years and produced little recorded material, it has influenced many including myself to look at music differently and to never fear experimentation.
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