Noise rock

This article is about the specific genre. For the general application of noise in rock music, see Noise in music § Rock music, and Noise music § Noise rock and no wave.

Noise rock
Flipper at the 9:30 Club, Washington, D.C., 1984
Other names	Noise punk
Stylistic origins	Experimental rock punk rock noise minimal psychedelic rock acid rock industrial hardcore punk
Cultural origins	c. Mid-1960s to 1980s, New York City, United States
Derivative forms	Grunge post-hardcore
Other topics
Alternative rock avant-punk indie rock noise pop post-punk no wave mathcore grindcore

Noise rock (sometimes called noise punk) is a noise-oriented style of experimental rock that spun off from punk rock in the 1980s. Drawing on movements such as minimalism, industrial music, and hardcore, artists indulge in extreme levels of distortion through the use of electric guitars and, less frequently, electronic instrumentation, either to provide percussive sounds or to contribute to the overall arrangement.

Some groups are tied to song structures, such as Sonic Youth. Although they are not representative of the entire genre, they helped popularize noise rock among alternative rock audiences by incorporating melodies into their droning textures of sound, which set a template that numerous other groups followed. Other early noise rock bands were Big Black, Swans and the Jesus Lizard.

Characteristics

Noise rock is a term that can refer to two distinct styles, each stemming from different influences and stylistic origins. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, music critic Robert Christgau coined the term "pigfuck" as a way to describe artists like Big Black, the Jesus Lizard, Flipper and No Trend who were more rooted in the post-hardcore and post-punk scenes and often associated with labels like Amphetamine Reptile as well as Touch and Go. The other strain of the genre originated in the late 1960s with more art-based influences, aligning itself with avant-garde music and psychedelic rock, pioneered by bands like the Velvet Underground, Les Rallizes Dénudés, Red Krayola and later Fushitsusha and Boredoms. Ultimately, the hardcore-influenced strain became the most dominant style of noise rock, with bands like Sonic Youth incorporating both the genre’s punk rooted origins as well as its art-damaged sound, by including the use of alternate tunings and unconventional techniques, such as playing guitar with drumsticks.

Sonic Youth are the only noise rock band to achieve commercial success with the single "100%" from their album "Dirty" reaching #4 on the US charts with frontman Thurston Moore stating:  

"Noise has taken the place of punk rock. People who play noise have no real aspirations to being part of the mainstream culture. Punk has been co-opted, and this subterranean noise music and the avant-garde folk scene have replaced it."

Additionally, the no wave scene helped further develop the sound of noise rock, with the compilation album "No New York" serving as a pivotal influence. Subsequently, bands like Sonic Youth and Swans, emerged out of the scene as key noise rock artists, drawing inspiration from no wave composers Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham.

Noise rock fuses rock to noise, usually with recognizable "rock" instrumentation, but with greater use of distortion and electronic effects, varying degrees of atonality, improvisation, and white noise.

While noise rock has never had any wide mainstream popularity, the raw, distorted and feedback-intensive sound of some noise rock bands had an influence on shoegaze, which enjoyed some popularity in the 90s, especially in the UK, and grunge, the most commercially successful with Nirvana's final studio album In Utero produced by Steve Albini and generally taking influences from bands like Big Black, Wipers, the Pixies, Dinosaur Jr. and the Jesus Lizard. The Butthole Surfers' mix of punk, heavy metal and noise rock was a major influence, particularly on the early work of Soundgarden. Other influential acts were Wisconsin's Killdozer, Chicago's Big Black, and most notably San Francisco's Flipper, a band known for its slowed-down and murky "noise punk".

History

The Velvet Underground have been credited with creating the first noise rock album in 1968.

See also: Experimental rock, Punk rock, and Grunge

Forerunners

While the music had been around for some time, the term "noise rock" was coined in the 1980s to describe an offshoot of punk groups with an increasingly abrasive approach. An archetypal album is the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat (1968). Treblezine's Joe Gross credits White Light/White Heat as the "cult classic" with being the first noise rock album, accordingly, "perhaps it's an obvious starting point, but it's also the starting point. Period." Influenced by the free jazz of Ornette Coleman Reed stated that:

"I thought, you put Hubert Selby with Burroughs or Ginsberg lyrics against some rock with these kind of harmonic [ideas] going in … wouldn't you have something?"

The 1960s experimental and psychedelic groups Red Krayola, Cromagnon, Pärson Sound, Godz, the Ethix, the Sperm and Nihilist Spasm Band are other bands that were later assessed by some music critics and journalists to be early pioneers of what would become noise rock.

However, most notably were Les Rallizes Denudés who quickly adopted the more abrasive elements developed by the Velvet Underground in White Light/White Heat as well as expanding towards an increasingly noise based sound in the 1970s, influencing a great number of artists in the Japanese noise and psychedelic rock scene. Subsequently, American groups like the Residents who released a noisy version of "Satisfaction", and Half Japanese, whose 1977 EP "Calling All Girls" influenced Sonic Youth and Kurt Cobain, began to explore similar territories.

Origins

Sonic Youth in a publicity photo issued by SST to promote their fourth album, Sister (1987). Left to right: Shelley, Ranaldo, Moore, Gordon.

During the advent of punk rock and post-punk in the late '70s, many bands began adopting a more abrasive approach to rock music such as San Francisco's influential acid-punk band Chrome who were covered by the Jesus Lizard, as well as art-punk group MX-80 Sound who influenced Steve Albini and Sonic Youth. However, most notable of these artists were Nick Cave's experimental post-punk band the Birthday Party. Inspired by the Pop Group, they went on to influence "a generation of US noise-rock groups, from Sonic Youth to Big Black and the Jesus Lizard". Other influences include This Heat, Swell Maps, Wire, The Fall and Pere Ubu. In addition, "Weird Noise E.P." the British DIY punk various artists 7" single released in 1979 was the earliest noise rock compilation album.

Guitarist Steve Albini of noise rock band Big Black stated in 1984 in an article that "good noise is like orgasm". He commented: "Anybody can play notes. There's no trick. What is a trick and a good one is to make a guitar do things that don't sound like a guitar at all. The point here is stretching the boundaries." He said that Ron Asheton of the Stooges "made squealy death noise feedback" on "Iggy's monstruous songs". Albini also mentioned John McKay of Siouxsie and the Banshees, saying: "The Scream is notable for a couple of things: only now people are trying to copy it, and even now nobody understands how that guitar player got all that pointless noise to stick together as songs". Albini also said that Keith Levene of Public Image Ltd had this "ability to make an excruciating noise come out of his guitar". Additionally, Andy Gill of Gang of Four would incorporate drawn-out abrasive guitar feedback on their song "Love Like Anthrax".

In an article about noise rock, Spin wrote that the US compilation album No New York, produced by Brian Eno and released in 1978 was an important document of the late '70s New York no wave scene that acted as an influence to bands like Sonic Youth and Swans. It featured several songs of Lydia Lunch's first band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks along with material of other groups Mars, DNA and James Chance and the Contortions, other bands who were not featured on the compilation such as Theoretical Girls, Suicide, the Notekillers, Red Transistor, the Static and Jack Ruby were also influential to the scene.

1980s

In the 1980s, Big Black, Sonic Youth and Swans were the leading figures of noise rock. Sonic Youth were the first noise rock band to get signed by a major label in 1990. Other influential groups were Scratch Acid, Oxbow, Barkmarket, the Dead C, Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 and No Trend. Noise rock bands like Ruins and Bitch Magnet began drawing influences from math rock. Subsequently, Japan would also contribute with influential bands such as High Rise, Boredoms, Zeni Geva and Mainliner. Later notable bands of the noise rock scene included Cows, Brainbombs, Steve Albini's Rapeman, Season to Risk and Unsane.

Pigfuck

Big Black at Chicago's Union Station in 1986; left to right: Riley, Albini, and Durango

Music critic Robert Christgau coined the term "pigfuck" in the 1980s when trying to describe the caustic sounds of emerging noise rock band Sonic Youth (similar to another term he coined "skronk" as a descriptor for jagged and noisy guitar music), the term later took on a life of its own and became associated with the sounds of post-hardcore adjacent bands like Big Black, Butthole Surfers, Cows and Flipper as well as those on labels such as Touch and Go Records and Amphetamine Reptile Records.

Noisecore

Noisecore was a derivate of hardcore punk and noise music which emerged in the mid-1980s, notable artists include Melt-Banana, Hanatarash and the Gerogerigegege.

1990s-2000s

Subsequently, as genres like post-hardcore developed into the early 1990s, noise rock bands such as Mclusky, U.S. Maple, Polvo, Unwound, Drive Like Jehu, Today Is the Day and Cherubs began further incorporating these influences into the noise rock genre whilst bands like Helmet infused influences indebted to heavy metal, and most notably Brainiac who merged post-hardcore with synth-punk. Steve Albini formed the influential noise rock band Shellac in 1992. The Jesus Lizard emerged in the early 1990s as a "leading noise rock band" in the American scene with their "willfully abrasive and atonal" style.

Later on in the 1990s, the term "noise punk" began developing with the band Lightning Bolt serving as key players in the 2000s noise punk scene in Providence, Rhode Island, although Brian Gibson, the band's bassist, is dismissive of the noise punk label, stating "I hate, hate, hate the category "noise-punk" I really don't like being labeled with two words that have so much baggage. It's gross." Other noise punk artists include Arab on Radar, Liars, Boris, the Flying Luttenbachers, Zs, Laddio Bolocko, Hella, Royal Trux and Harry Pussy. In Japan, notable noise rock bands began to emerge out of the japanoise scene such as Fushitsusha, EX-Girl, Destroy 2 and Space Streakings.

Lightning Bolt Live (2005) at the Southgate House

Notable noise rock bands that emerged in the early 2000s were Daughters, Japandroids, METZ, the Goslings and Death from Above 1979.

Shitgaze

During the 2000s, lo-fi noise pop bands Psychedelic Horseshit pioneered a brand of noise rock they dubbed "shitgaze", the New Republic briefly discussed the term, while bands labelled as part of the scene included the Hospitals, No Age, Times New Viking, Pink Reason and Eat Skull.

2010s-2020s

Chat Pile performing at 2023 Roadburn Festival

During the early 2010s, noise rock artists such as Gilla Band, Whores and Mannequin Pussy emerged onto the scene. Subsequently, bands like Sprain and Chat Pile would later follow, gaining prominence as modern noise rock groups.

See also

• List of noise rock bands
• List of noise musicians

Sources

• Blush, Steven (2016). New York Rock: From the Rise of The Velvet Underground to the Fall of CBGB. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-08361-6.
• Felix, Stanford (2010). The Complete Idiot's Guide Music Dictionary. DK Publishing. ISBN 978-1-101-19809-4.