Glenn Branca

(Originally written for and posted to Thunder on 10/27/09)

Glenn Branca is a post-minimalist guitar composer who spawned from New York’s downtown No Wave music scene of the late 1970’s. Branca’s first bands, Theoretical Girls and The Static, played skewed, brash and abrasive punk structured songs. Moving on to what he would focus his writing on up to current day, Branca began to write music for small electric guitar ensembles (that of which Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth were members) and would expand his efforts to include pieces for guitar symphonies consisting of orchestras of 100 or more guitarists (!).

The Sound

Favoring texture over melody, Branca’s works utilize alternate guitar tunings, chord repetition and extreme volume to create dissonance along with a steady drumbeat to produce tense, minimalist rock songs. Branca thought of each guitar in a piece as having it’s own role in the overall tone of the work. In his early guitar ensemble work, guitars were divided into soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and bass and later in his electric guitar symphony constructs the same was true- but instead of one guitar playing a part, an army of guitars would.
Glenn Branca is currently working on The Ascension: The Sequel that will be a continuation of his first full length LP, The Ascension (99 Records, 1981) from which he has previewed sections of at three NYC shows this year.