Experimental rock

Experimental rock (also known as avant-rock) is a subgenre of rock music^[2], that emerged in the mid-to late 1960s. The genre incorporates influences and ideas lifted from avant-garde music into that of traditional rock music instrumentation, primarily defined by the use of unconventional song structures, rhythms and lyricism.^[10][11][3]

Experimental rock
Other names	Avant-rock[1]
Stylistic origins	Rock[2] avant-garde[3] experimental free jazz
Cultural origins	1960s; United States and United Kingdom
Derivative forms	Art rock[4]
Subgenres
Krautrock[5] art-punk[6] noise rock[6] no wave[7] avant-prog zeuhl post-rock[6][8][9] mathcore[6] neo-prog[6] post-progressive
Other topics
Avant-garde metal avant-pop electronics in rock music experimental pop industrial music math rock post-punk progressive rock psychedelic rock shoegaze

History

Forerunners (1930s-1950s)

See also: Overdubbing, Distortion (music), and Delay (music)

Although not associated with the avant-garde, during the early years of rock and roll, several artists experimented with the medium creating innovative techniques that would later become staples of the genre. In 1930, Les Paul became an early innovator of overdubbing, originally creating multi-track recordings by using a modified disk lathe to record several generations of sound on a single disk,^[12][13] before later using tape technology, having been given one of the first Ampex 300 series tape recorders as a gift from Bing Crosby.^[14] During the early 1940s–1950s, labels such as King Records, Sun Records, and Stax^[15] played a crucial role in the development of jazz, rhythm and blues, and early rock and roll, which were initially sidelined by the major companies and were also responsible for pioneering both musical innovation and production techniques that major labels would later emulate, with Atlantic being the first label to make recordings in stereo, while Sun's Sam Phillips and Chess introduced slapback echo and makeshift echo chambers.^[16] Additionally, independent labels were often the only platforms available for marginalized artists in America at the time, which included many African-American musicians, as viable mediums to release and distribute their work.^[17]

Les Paul released "How High The Moon" in 1951 which showcased early audio effects such as flanging, delay, phasing and vari-speed.

At the time, guitar amplifiers were often low-fidelity, and would often produce distortion when their volume (gain) was increased beyond their design limit or if they sustained minor damage.^[18] Between 1935-1945 guitarists such as Bob Dunn ,^[19] Junior Barnard, ^[19] Elmore James and Buddy Guy, experimented with early distortion-based guitar sounds.^[20] In early rock music, Goree Carter's "Rock Awhile" (1949) featured an over-driven electric guitar style similar to that of Chuck Berry several years later, as well as Joe Hill Louis' "Boogie in the Park" (1950).^[21][22][23] By 1950, electric guitarists began "doctoring" amplifiers and speakers to emulate this form of distortion,^[24] which was also inspired by the accidental damage to amps, featured in popular recordings such as Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm song "Rocket 88" released in March 1951, where guitarist Willie Kizart used a vacuum tube amplifier that had a speaker cone slightly damaged in transport.^[25][26][27] Subsequent developments in rock music distortion were later pioneered by guitarists such as Willie Johnson of Howlin' Wolf's band,^[18] Guitar Slim,^[28] Chuck Berry,^[29] Pat Hare of James Cotton's band, Paul Burlison of the Johnny Burnette Trio, and Link Wray throughout the 1950s.^{[30][31][32][33]}

On March 26, 1951, Les Paul released "How High The Moon", performed with his then-wife Mary Ford, and spent 25 weeks (beginning on March 26, 1951) on the Billboard chart,^[34] which included 9 weeks at #1. At the time, the song featured a significant amount of overdubbing, along with other studio techniques such as flanging, delay, phasing and vari-speed.^[13][35] Les Paul's advancements in recording were seen in the adoption of his techniques by artists like Buddy Holly. In 1958, Holly released "Words of Love" and "Listen to Me", which were composed with overdubbing for added instrumentation and harmonies.^[36]

Additionally, Space Guitar by Johnny "Guitar" Watson released in April 1954, showcased over-the-top guitar playing and the heavy use of reverb and echo effects which later influenced artists such as Bo Diddley,^[37] Ike Turner,^[38] Frank Zappa,^[39] and Jimi Hendrix.^[40]

Origins (1960s)

See also: Guitar feedback, Avant-garde music, and Art rock § Influential albums

The Velvet Underground and Nico were an influential experimental rock act in the late 1960s.

Although experimentation had always existed in rock music,^{[nb 1]} it was not until the early to mid-1960s that the genre widely began to incorporate influences from contemporary art and the avant-garde.^[42][43] Artists such as Pete Townshend, attended art school, which later led to the incorporation of avant-garde ideas such as that of auto-destructive art, that inspired his guitar smashing in the Who^[44], while others such as Syd Barrett drew influence from avant-garde music movements like free improvisation, particularly the prepared guitar techniques of AMM's Keith Rowe which he incorporated into his psychedelic free-form guitar playing in Pink Floyd which involved using the use of a zippo lighter as a guitar slide.^[45] Additionally, rock musicians drew from previous counterculture movements such as the Beat Generation, as well as contemporaneous developments in experimental film and music. Other early influences included avant-garde and free jazz^[46], musique concrète,^[47] and the works of composers Igor Stravinsky, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio.^[48] Subsequently, early attempts to merge the avant-garde with rock music were made by several underground music acts such as the Fugs, the Daevid Allen Trio, the Mothers of Invention, the Velvet Underground, Nico, Nihilist Spasm Band, Soft Machine, the Godz, Red Krayola, Silver Apples^[49], the United States of America, Cromagnon, the Ethix, the Sperm, Pärson Sound and Pink Floyd who incorporated elements of avant-garde music, sound collage, and poetry into their work.^{[50][51][nb 2][53]}

The Fugs' promotional poster for their album It Crawled into My Hand, Honest, 1968.

In 1963, influential underground rock band the Fugs were formed by Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg in the Lower East Side, their music has been described as helping to "bridge the gap between the Beat Generation and experimental rock", their songs blended beat poetry and folk music with rock and roll,^[54] and they collaborated frequently with New York folk-based act the Holy Modal Rounders, originally formed in 1963 by Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber, who both later briefly joined the band. The Fugs were an early influence on Lou Reed, David Peel,^[55] Iggy Pop,^[56] and subsequent underground and experimental rock acts. By 1966, New York visual artist and film producer Andy Warhol began scouting for bands to represent the music for his multimedia art performance series the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the Fugs were briefly considered by Warhol alongside the Holy Modal Rounders,^[57] before Warhol ultimately chose the Velvet Underground. These performance art happenings aimed to bridge the gap between the avant-garde and popular music, mixing screenings of Warhol's films, the Velvet Underground's experimental rock music, as well as dancing and performance art by regulars of Warhol's Factory.^[58] Additionally, Warhol's lights engineer Danny Williams pioneered many innovations that later became standard practice in psychedelic liquid light shows and subsequently rave culture.^[59]

Development of production techniques

The Beatles 1964 track "I Feel Fine" was the first commercially released rock song to feature guitar feedback.

During the early 1960s, guitar distortion became integral to contemporary rock music, and was further developed by musicians such as Link Wray, Grady Martin of Marty Robbins's band,^[60] Dave Davies of the Kinks,^[61] and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones,^[62] while Grady Martin and Keith Richards pioneered and popularized the use of fuzz distortion in rock music.^[62][60] Other forms of early rock music experimentation included a deliberate use of guitar feedback which was originally pioneered by blues and rock and roll guitarists such as Willie Johnson, Johnny Watson and Link Wray. According to AllMusic's Richie Unterberger, the very first use of feedback on a commercial rock record is the introduction of the song "I Feel Fine" by the Beatles, recorded in 1964.^[63] Jay Hodgson agrees that this feedback created by John Lennon leaning a semi-acoustic guitar against an amplifier was "the first chart-topper" to showcase feedback distortion.^[64] The Who's 1965 hits "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" and "My Generation" featured feedback manipulation by Pete Townshend, with an extended solo in the former and the shaking of his guitar in front of the amplifier to create a throbbing noise in the latter. By 1965, feedback was used extensively by the Monks,^[65] Jefferson Airplane, and the Velvet Underground, and later the Grateful Dead and underground music acts like Michael Yonkers, whose use of feedback was described by Dazed as far more extreme than any of his contemporaries.^[66]

Frank Zappa's the Mothers of Invention released Freak Out! in 1966, which inspired several experimental rock bands.

Throughout the decade, the advancing technology of multitrack recording and mixing boards inspired prominent artists to create complex and layered compositions,^[67] producers such as Joe Meek,^[68] Phil Spector, the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, Beatles producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick, contributed to the pioneering of the recording studio as an instrument.^{[47][nb 3]} In 1966, the release of influential albums such as the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and Frank Zappa's Freak Out!^[70], inspired many rock-based groups to incorporate unconventional approaches and recording studio techniques into their music. In August of the same year, the Beatles released Revolver, which further advanced contemporary production techniques, particularly on its closing track "Tomorrow Never Knows". By 1967, the innovations of Pet Sounds^[71] and Freak Out!^[72] influenced the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band which contributed to the wider popularization of advanced unconventional studio techniques in popular music.^{[73][nb 4][76][77][78]}

Frank Zappa with Captain Beefheart, seated left, during a 1975 concert

In the opinion of Stuart Rosenberg, the first "noteworthy" experimental rock group was the Mothers of Invention, formed in 1964 by composer Frank Zappa.^[2] Greene recognises the group's debut album, Freak Out!, as marking the "emergence of the 'avant-rock' studio album." Alongside, the Velvet Underground who drew influence from avant-garde artists such as La Monte Young, John Cage and the Theatre of Eternal Music, they blended minimalism and drone music with rock music instrumentation, that was described by Rosenberg as being, "even further out of step with popular culture than the early recordings of the Mothers of Invention".^{[79][80][81][nb 5]} According to author Kelly Fisher Lowe, Zappa "set the tone" for experimental rock with the way he incorporated "countertextural aspects [...] calling attention to the very recordedness of the album."^[76] By the mid to late 1960s, the rise of psychedelia and psychoactive drugs like LSD, inspired commercially successful groups such as the Doors,^[83] the Rolling Stones,^[84] and the Beatles to incorporate avant-garde influences into their music, while Beatles songs like Carnival of Light and Revolution 9 drew influences from the contemporary art world.^[85] Subsequently, genres such as art rock, progressive rock and later art pop would emerge during this period.^{[2][nb 6][87]} In 1969, the release of Captain Beefheart's album Trout Mask Replica on Frank Zappa's record label Straight Records, marked a foundational moment for experimental rock music, with the Guardian stating, "Trout Mask Replica remains the standard by which almost all experimental rock music is judged."^[88]

Early 1970s

See also: Krautrock

By the late 1960s to early 1970s, experimental rock music further proliferated across the world with the emergence of scenes that drew influence from American and British avant-garde rock bands. Germany's "krautrock" scene, partly born out of the student movements of 1968, and originally centered around Kommune 1, took form as German youth sought a unique countercultural identity^[89][50] distinct from the country's past traditions^[5], which ultimately led to bands developing a form of experimental rock^[5][89] that rejected formal rock conventions, and was primarily inspired by minimalism, avant-garde and contemporary classical composers such as Stockhausen, as well as American experimental rock artists like the Velvet Underground, and Frank Zappa.^[50][50] Prominent acts such as Can, Faust, Neu!, Amon Düül II, Ash Ra Tempel, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, and Popol Vuh merged elements of psychedelic rock with electronic music, funk, and jazz improvisation.^[90][89][50]

In England, art rock band Roxy Music^[91] emerged during the early 1970s, singer Bryan Ferry briefly attended art school^[92], while keyboardist Brian Eno, later drew influences from Germany's krautrock scene, alongside frequent collaborator David Bowie, with Eno releasing influential debut and sophomore albums, which were later followed by Bowie's Berlin Trilogy in the late 1970s.^[93] While in America, during the early 1970s, New York City artists such as Television, Patti Smith, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and Talking Heads emerged out of the early NYC punk scene, centered around local venues such as CBGB and Max's Kansas City, with their music blending the raw energy of early punk with influences from the local art and avant-garde scenes, which contributed to the development of "art punk".^[94] Other contemporaneous developments included the Cleveland punk scene spearheaded by Mirrors, Electric Eels, the Styrenes, Rocket from the Tombs and later Pere Ubu.^[95] As well as Half Japanese, formed by brothers Jad and David Fair in 1974.^[96]

Late 1970s–1990s

See also: Post-punk, No wave, Art punk, and Post-rock

Glenn Branca performing in New York in the early 1980s

By the late 1970s, several developments emerged influenced by the punk rock movement, in England this was represented by the burgeoning post-punk movement. Similarly to Germany's krautrock scene, artists eschewed rock conventionality, in favor of influences indebted to music genres such as funk, dub, and avant-garde jazz. Notable avant-punk acts during this period included This Heat^[97], Public Image Ltd, and the Fall.^[98][99] In America, the New York no wave scene consisted of experimental rock bands that rejected the commerciality of new wave,^[7] and who, according to Village Voice writer Steve Anderson, pursued an abrasive reductionism which "undermined the power and mystique of a rock vanguard by depriving it of a tradition to react against."^[100] Anderson claims that the no wave scene represented "New York's last stylistically cohesive avant-rock movement."^[100]

By the early 1980s, notable broader experimental rock groups, included acts such as Material, the Work, Last Exit, Sonic Youth, John Zorn^[101] and Massacre.^[102]Pitchfork later described acts such as the Birthday Party as "avant-rock icons."^[103] According to journalist David Stubbs, "no other major rock group [...] has done as much to try to bridge the gap between rock and the avant garde" as Sonic Youth, who drew on improvisation and noise as well as the sound of the Velvet Underground.^[104][102] Subsequently, the innovation of the shoegaze movement was described by Guardian writer Jude Rogers as being better received outside the United Kingdom, stating: "there wasn't a shoegazing backlash in America; the music was seen as part of an ongoing heritage of experimental rock, which fed into later genres like space-rock and post-rock."^[105] By the 1990s, post-rock became the dominant form of innovative experimental rock music.^[8] In a reaction against traditional rock music formula, post-rock artists combined standard rock instrumentation with electronics and influences from various styles such as ambient music, IDM, krautrock, minimalism, and jazz.^[8]

2000s-2020s

See also: Windmill scene

Black Midi performing at Sideways Festival 2019 in Helsinki, Finland

In 2015, The Quietus' Bryan Brussee contemporarily noted uncertainty with the term "experimental rock", and that "it seem[ed] like every rock band [...] ha[d] some kind of post-, kraut-, psych-, or noise- prefixed to their genre."^[106]

By the late 2010s to early 2020s, the experimental rock-based Windmill scene emerged in Brixton, London, drawing from post-punk and no wave music, and centered around the venue known simply as "the Windmill."^[107] Notable artists described as being part of the scene include Black Midi, Black Country, New Road, Squid, Shame, Maruja, the Last Dinner Party, Fat White Family, Heartworms, Goat Girl, PVA and occasionally, Fontaines D.C.^{[108][109][110][111][112][113][114]}

See also

• Postmodern music
• Experimental music
• Industrial music

Footnotes

1. Young John Watson's 1954 single "Space Guitar" has been cited as an early example of experimental rock due to its extreme usage of dissonance and noise.^[41]
2. Author Barry Miles commented on Pink Floyd, "They were the first people I'd ever heard who were combining some kind of intellectual experimentation with rock 'n' roll". Photographer John Hopkins remembers: "The band did not play music, they were playing sounds. Waves and walls of sound, quite unlike anything anybody in rock 'n' roll had played before. It was like people in serious, nonpopular music".^[52]
3. In the popular music of the early 1960s, it was common for producers, songwriters, and engineers to freely experiment with musical form, arrangements, unnatural reverb, and other sound effects. Some of the best known examples are Phil Spector's Wall of Sound production formula and Joe Meek's use of homemade electronics for acts like the Tornados.^[69]
4. The Beach Boys followed Pet Sounds several months later with the single "Good Vibrations" (1966), credited as a milestone in the development of rock music^[74] and, with the Beatles' Revolver, a prime proponent in revolutionizing rock music from live concert performances to studio productions which could only exist on record.^[75]
5. According to Clash Music, the group's debut March 1967 album The Velvet Underground & Nico was the first art rock record.^[82]
6. Martin believes: "almost everything that is interesting and creative in rock music that comes after about 1970 is influenced one way or another by progressive rock".^[86] Specific influences on rock musicians were: improvement in musicianship, broad eclecticism, utopianism, romanticism, and a commitment to experimentation.^[86]