Pretty subjective, for a massive destruction of symphony orchestra from an Avant Garde enthusiast, Glenn Branca. Era of 70’s was more than everything, punk rock movement, pop culture and starting the early days of post modernism art which is the days of defiance against the conservative lines. Apparently not for the sake of rebellious, but pretty sure thirsty for something new. The new form of symphony by his arrangement was a contribution of criticizing towards old conservatives thoughts in making music precisely. He’s the early pioneer of noisy galore, tendency of full horrible custom tuning on his guitar. Unpredictable dark and horror, making experimental noise and annoying sound as a threat for music perfectionist.
Glenn was first studied theatre at Emerson College in Boston in the early 70’s but previously he was exposed into musical frame since he was at 15. In 1974, he was with John Rehberger founded a theatre group called ‘The Bastard Theatre’. Since then, he began to experimenting with variety form of sounds and implied for any plays from the group itself. The spectacular of Branca was, all songs were played live during the show. In the midst of 70’s, Branca went to New York and met Jeffrey Lohn, a band member of N. Dodo (a notorious topsy-turvy-chirpy experimental band) as he wanted to use a space for theatre show. But then he was impressed with the band during their rehearsals and so he decided to form a band which precisely on No Wave aesthetical centric called Static (which later on known as Theoritical Girls). Their first show was at Franklin Furnace – a meeting place for the artist and an archieve centre for Avant Garde works. His few notable conjunction works was with Barbara Ess’s Y-Pants as he recorded for their first debut release entitled ‘Off The Hook’ and ‘Guitar Trio’ with Rhys Cantham during late 70’s. In 1982, he launched a record label called Neutral Records and had released first few records of Sonic Youth and Y-Pants’s 7” inch LP ‘Off The Hook’.
Several years after worked behind the scenes, he released his first album entitled ‘Lesson No. 1, which comprising two songs featuring ‘Lesson No.1 For Electric Guitar’ and ‘Dissonance’. Then he produced again his next album ‘The Ascension’ and Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses’ in 1981. Later, he began for symphony orchestras, which counted in electric guitars and percussions both in one blended composition. Another Branca’s notable work is Symphony No. 3 (Gloria) which kindly full of dark, horror, mysticism though considered as harmony vibrant, initially it was a metaphor significant for human endeavors through the sound. Early members of this project included Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, Page Hamilton from Helmet, Phil Kline from The Del-Byzanteens and few members of Swans. The project seemed as a bunch of collective and far different from typical orchestras melody.
Through the custom tuned of strings and experimenting the musical line, he built his own electrically instruments and had brought another invention of musical instruments to another phase. He dipped his both ears to catch an eargasm and connecting the dots from one to one another to break the barrier of musical line, as he built a mallet guitar – a guitar with many strings and zither in addition with the bridge of guitar, which he considered as “harmonic guitars”. After all his works with experimenting variety of sounds, he started to composing musical line for traditional orchestra in 1990 and received few grants for academic purposes as his works finally begun received recognitions and attention among scholars. Rough perspective, he’s a stunning philosopher and a forefather for the early sound of indie rock, as yet his works succeed brings you drowning to another realm. Hats off.
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