No, No, No
Is there another compilation that canboast of being the entire history of a whole genre? The legendary No New York record is the definitive chronicle of the no-wave movement, encapsulating its entirety across 16 songs by four bands. Forget the Top 10 No-Wave Albums, here, all you need is a Top 1.
It's 1978, and former Roxy Music keyboardist Brian Eno has landed in New York to master the Talking Heads' second album More Songs About Buildings and Food. Eno checks in on an underground series of shows at the Artists Space gallery in New York. The bands he sees —D.N.A., James Chance and the Contortions, Mars, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks— are playing a frenetic form of post-punk; in which the familiar blues riffs of rock'n'roll are dispatched for dissonance and atonalism.
It's an atonal sound that has few precedents; a self-contained movement limited to the weirdos of the East Village; and a scene that certainly doesn't have a name. Eno convinces the bigwigs at Island Records to bankroll a compilation of bands that he'll oversee. Initially, it's going to be a grand overview, but, by the time the tape rolls, Eno's settled on the above four bands.
The sessions —which essentially seek to capture the bands live— end up as a compilation called No New York. Taking its title as a cue, critics dub the sound/scene "no-wave"; forever canonizing this music as new-wave's antithesis; the negative, nasty work of a bunch of bonafide refuseniks. They're so rebellious that as soon as their scene has a name, they abandon it. Which is how No New York marks both the beginning and end of no-wave.
Noise New York
Over 30 years on, and for many, No New York will still remain difficult listen; an album free from melody, unsure of rhythm, and so rich in discordance is not to everyone's tastes. For others, it'll be a kind of classic rock; an obvious antecedent for bands from Sonic Youth through to Liars.
The comp kicks off with James Chance and the Contortions, perhaps so chosen because they remain closest to familiar guitar-rock form. Of course, any casual 1978 listener who stumbled upon, say, the ferocious "Flip Your Face" &Mdash;a lurching, horrorshow cacophony of strangulated vocals, squawking saxophone, bashed-out organ chords, and shrill guitar— would've been terrified. Of course, the Contortions are, in hindsight, considered the 'least' purely no-wave band on the bill.
That honor would go to D.N.A., a band whose resolute ugliness takes shape in spasmodic clusters of keyboards, drums, guitar. Their defining instrument is Arto Lindsay's guitar, which never seems to play anything resembling a note, let alone a chord; Lindsay constantly scraping at his strings to create a metallic sound of pure provocation. If punk-rock was built on three chords, D.N.A. were built on none.
Mars have another archetypical no-wave sound; with elastic bass and clattering, cardboard-and-tin-can drums bathe in sheets of guitar-noise. In terms of tone and emotion, their four cuts span a greater range than the other No New York acts; shifting swiftly from the vulgar, raucous "Tunnel" to the floating, eerie "Hairwaves."
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks gave the no-wave scene its star, Lydia Lunch. On the swaggering, herky jerky "The Closet," Lunch smashes her guitar strings until their ring with a sound resembling radio-static, all whilst barking in defiant screams.
Added up, it's a fascinating snapshot of a time, a self-contained chronicle of a scene that rose up and fell away, and, if your ears are properly tuned to its particular brand of nastiness, a hell of a good listen.
Record Label: Antilles
Release Date: Spring 1978
