Few women in the history of rock & roll have stirred as much controversy as Yoko Ono. Although her romance with John Lennon was hardly the only factor straining the relationships between the individual Beatles, she made a convenient scapegoat for the group's breakup, and was repeatedly raked over the coals in the media for the influence she held... [+] Read More

Few women in the history of rock & roll have stirred as much controversy as Yoko Ono. Although her romance with John Lennon was hardly the only factor straining the relationships between the individual Beatles, she made a convenient scapegoat for the group's breakup, and was repeatedly raked over the coals in the media for the influence she held over Lennon, both in his life and his music. Ono's own work as an artist and musician didn't mitigate the public's enmity toward her; to the average man on the street, her avant-garde conceptual art seemed bizarre and ridiculous, and her highly experimental rock & roll (which often spotlighted her primal, caterwauling vocals) was simply too abrasive to tolerate. That view wasn't necessarily universal (or true), and in fact the merits of her work are still hotly debated. Regardless of individual opinion, Ono has left a lasting legacy; she was an undeniably seminal figure in the history of performance art, and elements of her music prefigured the arty sides of punk and new wave (whether she was a direct influence is still debated, although the B-52's did admit to drawing from her early records). Moreover, between Lennon's assassination and the myriad drubbings she's taken in the press and the court of public opinion, an alternate portrait of Ono as a strong, uncompromising survivor has emerged in more recent years.

Although her link with John Lennon will always be foremost in the public's mind, Ono's own life story is fascinating in its own right. She was born February 18, 1933, into a wealthy Japanese family in Tokyo. Her childhood was somewhat lonely and isolated; her father, a banker and onetime classical pianist, was transferred to San Francisco a few weeks before she was born, and her socialite mother was often busy throwing elaborate parties. She didn't meet her father until age two, when the whole family moved to San Francisco. However, they returned to Tokyo three years later to avoid the anti-Japanese backlash that was beginning in the United States in response to Japan's growing military expansionism. Ono was educated at the Gakushuin School, the most exclusive private school in Japan (the Emperor's sons were her classmates). She began classical piano lessons at a very young age, and later received vocal training in opera. In 1945, her mother took the family to the countryside to escape Tokyo, in time to survive the massive Allied bombing of the city; however, rich city dwellers were unwelcome, and the Ono children were often forced to beg for food.

After the war, Ono's father transferred to New York, and she moved to the U.S. in 1952, where she studied music at Sarah Lawrence College. During this time, Ono became enamored of classical avant-gardists like Schoenberg, Webern, and especially Cage. She also began dating Juilliard student Toshi Ichiyanagi, who shared her interests and became her husband (over her family's objections) in 1956. The couple moved to Manhattan, and Ono made ends meet by teaching Japanese art and music in the public school system, among other sporadic jobs (she'd rejected her parents' wealth and the attendant lifestyle). The couple's Chambers Street loft soon became a hot spot in the nascent downtown New York art scene; Ono frequently staged "happenings" (sometimes in partnership with minimalist composer LaMonte Young) that featured music, poetry, and other performance, and John Cage used the loft space to teach classes in experimental composition. During this period, Ono's art was largely conceptual, sometimes existing only in theory or imagination; she created a series of instructional pieces suggesting nonsensical activities, which were later published in book form as Grapefruit in 1964. Her first solo show was at George Maciunas' gallery in mid-1961, but the same year, Ichiyanagi and Ono separated, with the former returning to Japan. That November, Ono performed at the Carnegie Recital Hall (not the main hall), an event that featured a miked-up toilet flushing at various points throughout the show. It received negative reviews, however. With her parents' encouragement, Ono returned to Japan in March 1962, seeking a resolution to her marriage.

Once in Japan, Ono became lonely and depressed; not only was her marriage effectively over, but she received more negative reviews for her performances in conjunction with John Cage. After an overdose of pills, she was committed to a mental institution and kept under extremely heavy sedation. Fortunately, she was rescued by Anthony Cox, a jazz musician, film producer, and friend of LaMonte Young's who had traveled to Japan hoping to study calligraphy with her. Cox threatened to publicize the callous treatment Ono had received at the institution (her sedative dosage was abnormally high), and secured her release; the two became romantically involved, and when Ono became pregnant, she made her divorce from Ichiyanagi official and married Cox. Their daughter Kyoko was born in 1963, but Cox's sometime volatility put a strain on the relationship, and they separated in 1964. Cox returned to New York, and Ono followed a few months later, after which the couple reconciled.

Once back in New York, Ono resumed her art career to considerable attention from the avant-garde community; by this time, George Maciunas had become the leader of an art movement dubbed Fluxus, whose philosophies were compatible with (and even influenced by) Ono's, prizing abstraction and audience interaction. Ono performed at the Carnegie Recital Hall for a second time in early 1965, and debuted her seminal "Cut Piece," in which audience members were invited to cut off pieces of her clothing with scissors. In September 1966, she traveled to England for an art symposium, and "Cut Piece" helped make her a sensation in the London art world. In November, she got her own exhibition at the famed Indica Gallery, which was ardently patronized by John Lennon. Lennon was impressed by her work, particularly a piece where the viewer was required to climb a ladder and hold up a magnifying glass to read a small inscription on the ceiling that said "Yes!" The two read each other's writings, and Lennon financed an exhibition in which Ono painted various everyday objects white and cut them in half. In the meantime, Ono and Cox had begun making experimental films, usually centered on the repetition of simple movements; their fourth effort, Bottoms, consisted of 365 close-ups of nude buttocks (the idea was to fill the screen with motion when the subjects walked). British film censors were scandalized, and Ono became an even more notorious public figure with "Wrapping Event," in which she wrapped the lion statues beneath Nelson's column in Trafalgar Square with white cloth and tied herself to one. She also sang in concert with pioneering free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman at the Royal Albert Hall. The avant-garde was becoming increasingly suspicious of her visibility, which only intensified when Ono and Lennon began having an affair that spring.

Fans of Lennon the pop musician couldn't understand what he saw in Ono, but it's important to know that Lennon was an art student prior to falling in love with rock & roll, and had long harbored an interest in avant-garde art. The difficulty with understanding Ono's art was that its impact came largely from her ideas; from putting new contextual frames around everyday objects, or asking her audience to complete an experience with their own imaginations. For example, most of Ono's pieces were white, so that the audience could imagine their own colors (or, in the case of her all-white chess set "Play It By Trust," to create ambiguity); even her so-called "Blue Room" was all-white (viewers were supposed to stay in the room until it turned blue). Her first musical composition, 1955's "Secret Piece," existed only in her mind (she was unable to transcribe the notes of a bird song effectively), and, in 1968, she announced a 13-day dance festival that would take place entirely in the imaginations of anyone who participated. In 1971, she took things a step further by presenting an imaginary art exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art, and filmed the spectators as the real works of art. As an artist, Ono dealt in concepts, not craft (i.e., practiced, developed technique and training in a specific medium). Her work wasn't what most people recognized as art, which was why many Beatles fans dismissed her as a talentless charlatan. Lennon, on the other hand, saw someone who could help him find a new direction.

Lennon and Ono's first musical collaboration was on the highly experimental Unfinished Music, No. 1: Two Virgins, which was recorded around the beginning of their affair and released toward the end of 1968. None of Lennon's fans knew what to make of any aspect of the album; not the odd snippets of noise, faint dialogue, and sounds from the immediate environment, and not the fully nude photographs of the couple on the record jacket, taken from the front and rear. They were further dismayed with Lennon's participation in Ono's bizarre public events, such as appearing together in black plastic bags as a statement about judging by appearances. (Ono herself long suspected that fans' hostility was due to their discomfort seeing Lennon with a woman who was not only strong-willed, but of a different race.) After Ono's divorce from Cox, the couple married in Gibraltar on March 20, 1969, and took advantage of the publicity surrounding their honeymoon to hold "Bed-Ins for Peace" in Amsterdam and Montreal (the latter of which produced the single "Give Peace a Chance"). Cox was later able to gain custody of Kyoko, pointing to Lennon and Ono's drug intake, and disappeared with the child, whom Ono would not see again for 25 years.

The second Lennon/Ono album, Unfinished Music, No. 2: Life With the Lions, was released not long after their wedding; it spotlighted Ono's cathartic, wailing vocal improvisations, as well as addressing her first of several miscarriages. It was quickly followed by The Wedding Album, one side of which featured more Ono improv, the other of which consisted of nothing but the couple calling each other's names. Over the next few years, Lennon and Ono continued their peace activism, and entered primal-scream therapy with Dr. Arthur Janov, which began to inform both of their individual careers. In 1970, they each recorded an album backed by the Plastic Ono Band; predictably, Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band was the less structured, more avant-garde of the two. Ono followed it in 1971 with the double-LP Fly, which featured more conventionally structured songs as well as her typical experimentalism. 1972 brought the Lennon/Ono protest-song album Sometime in New York City, which was roasted for the simplicity of its sentiments. Ono returned in 1973 with two of her strongest solo statements, the brutally intense, explicitly feminist Feeling the Space and the more varied Approximately Infinite Universe, both of which featured less musical involvement from Lennon. Perhaps that was symptomatic of the problems the couple had been having; they split up for a year and a half toward the end of 1973, exhausted from their constant time together and their battles with U.S. immigration over Lennon's threatened deportation. Ono recorded a more accessible album, A Story, in 1974, but it was shelved and remained unavailable until 1997.

The couple got back together in early 1975, and Ono was finally able to bear a child, Sean Taro Ono Lennon, who was born on John's birthday, October 9. Lennon dropped out of show business for several years to raise his son and effectively become a house-husband, while Ono took charge of his business affairs. Although she contributed some of her most accessible songs to his 1980 comeback album Double Fantasy, she did not return to solo recording until after Lennon's assassination on December 8, 1980. The harrowing, grief-stricken Season of Glass was released the following year to highly complimentary reviews. Ono followed it in 1982 with the more hopeful, pop-oriented It's Alright (I See Rainbows), and had a minor success with the single "Never Say Goodbye." 1985's Starpeace continued that optimistic trend, and teamed Ono with producer Bill Laswell and other downtown New York scenesters, but failed to connect as her previous two efforts had.

Ono gradually returned to visual art, creating installations and also exploring photography. Interest in her previous work led to several retrospectives over the course of the '90s, and in 1992, Rykodisc reissued her complete back catalog on CD, as well as the six-CD box set retrospective Onobox. In 1995, she recorded a new album for Capitol called Rising, which featured son Sean and recalled the harsh experimentalism of her early recordings. The same year, her musical play New York Rock debuted off Broadway. 2001 brought another new album, Blueprint for a Sunrise, which updated the feminist tone of Feeling the Space while being somewhat more accessible. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide [-] Hide

"There is no group more mythical than Faust," wrote Julian Cope in his book Krautrocksampler, which detailed the pivotal influence the German band exerted over the development of ambient and industrial textures. Producer/overseer Uwe Nettelbeck, a onetime music journalist, formed Faust in Wumme, Germany, in 1971 with founding members Hans... [+] Read More

"There is no group more mythical than Faust," wrote Julian Cope in his book Krautrocksampler, which detailed the pivotal influence the German band exerted over the development of ambient and industrial textures. Producer/overseer Uwe Nettelbeck, a onetime music journalist, formed Faust in Wumme, Germany, in 1971 with founding members Hans Joachim Irmler, Jean Hervé Peron, Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Rudolf Sosna, Gunther Wusthoff, and Armulf Meifert. Upon receiving advance money from their label, Nettelbeck converted an old schoolhouse into a recording studio, where the group spent the first several months of its existence in almost total isolation, honing its unique cacophonous sound with the aid of occasional guests like minimalist composer Tony Conrad and members of Slapp Happy.

Issued on clear vinyl in a transparent sleeve, Faust's eponymously titled debut LP surfaced in 1971. Although sales were notoriously bad, the album -- a noisy sound collage of cut-and-paste musical fragments -- did earn the group a solid cult following. Another lavishly packaged work, Faust So Far, followed in 1972, and earned the group a contract with Virgin, which issued 1973's The Faust Tapes -- a fan-assembled collection of home recordings -- for about the price of a single, a marketing ploy that earned considerable media interest. After Outside the Dream Syndicate, a collaboration with Tony Conrad, Faust released 1973's Faust IV, a commercial failure that resulted in the loss of their contract with Virgin, which refused to release their planned fifth long-player.

When Nettelbeck turned his focus away from the group, Faust disbanded in 1975, and the members scattered throughout Germany. However, after more than a decade of playing together in various incarnations, Faust officially reunited around the nucleus of Irmler, Peron, and Diermaier for a handful of European performances at the outset of the 1990s. In 1993, they made their first-ever U.S. live appearance backing Conrad, followed by a series of other stateside performances. After several live releases, a pair of new studio albums, Rien and You Know FaUSt, followed in 1996. Ravvivando appeared three years later. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide [-] Hide

French Dadaist Marcel Duchamp was an influential figure in the development of 20th century avant-garde, causing a stir with innovations in the visual arts with his sculpture and painting, but he also utilized chance operations in composing. Starting as a painter influenced by fauvism, Duchamp developed a cubist painting style similar to... [+] Read More

French Dadaist Marcel Duchamp was an influential figure in the development of 20th century avant-garde, causing a stir with innovations in the visual arts with his sculpture and painting, but he also utilized chance operations in composing. Starting as a painter influenced by fauvism, Duchamp developed a cubist painting style similar to futurism. His most famous painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912), featured successive images of a body, giving the impression of movement; the painting was quite controversial at the 1913 Armory Show in N.Y.C. Following this, Duchamp painted less, but still completed 20 works in all, including Tu m' (1918), which mixed painted objects with real. Around the same time as the Armory Show, Duchamp was also introducing ready-made art (sculptures that are simply ordinary objects, signed and displayed) and kinetic art, such as his Bicycle Wheel (1913) mounted on a stool.

His acknowledged masterpiece is The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1923), also known as The Large Glass; an abstract work using wire and foil between glass. Although he turned his attention from painting to chess in the early '20s, he created one last work years later, the Etant Donnes (1946-1949). ~ Joslyn Layne, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Eclectic guitarist Marc Ribot has recorded a wide variety of music over his career, working with Elvis Costello and on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs. He has also recorded compositions for classical guitar by Haiti's Franz Casseus, a friend of his parents, and has participated actively in New York City's downtown avant-garde music scene for some time,... [+] Read More

Eclectic guitarist Marc Ribot has recorded a wide variety of music over his career, working with Elvis Costello and on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs. He has also recorded compositions for classical guitar by Haiti's Franz Casseus, a friend of his parents, and has participated actively in New York City's downtown avant-garde music scene for some time, most notably as a member of the Lounge Lizards. Ribot's solo albums include Rootless Cosmopolitans and Requiem for What's His Name; later Ribot worked with his avant-garde jazz/rock fusion band, Shrek, whose eponymous debut was released in 1994. With a new group, he also issued Marc Ribot y Los Cubanos Postizos in 1998; Muy Divertido followed two years later. Additionally, Ribot played a major part in initiating the Radical New Jewish Culture Festival in Germany and New York City. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide [-] Hide

One of the longest-lived underground rock groups (if not the longest-lived), the Red Krayola lasted through the birth pangs of psychedelia past the death throes of post-punk. The one constant in its ever-shifting lineup was principal singer/songwriter/visionary Mayo Thompson, who seemed as concerned with deconstructing the language of... [+] Read More

One of the longest-lived underground rock groups (if not the longest-lived), the Red Krayola lasted through the birth pangs of psychedelia past the death throes of post-punk. The one constant in its ever-shifting lineup was principal singer/songwriter/visionary Mayo Thompson, who seemed as concerned with deconstructing the language of "rock" music as with actually expressing himself within it. That made the Red Krayola's catalog challenging, often difficult listening. Its saving grace was the quirky charm of Thompson's songs and vocals, with a whimsical humor and open-mindedness rather atypical of avant rock.

The Red Krayola, initially spelled Red Crayola, was formed in Houston as a trio in 1966. The International Artists label, which was building a roster of Texas psychedelic bands, signed the group after watching one of their performances in a shopping mall, of all places. The company was convinced that if the musicians could entertain a crowd without anything in the way of conventional command of their instruments, they must be onto something. Early demos (now on the compilation Epitaph for a Legend) indicated a spacy folk-rock bent. But although some of the material was reprised on their debut, The Parable of Arable Land, by this time the group was taking a more confrontational, experimental approach in the studio. With "war sucks!" chants and layers of "free-form freak-out" noise threatening to smother the songs underneath, it's been hailed as a precursor to the assault of industrial rock and made their International Artists labelmates the 13th Floor Elevators sound almost normal. Although the Krayola, like the Elevators, was able to attract a small cult following, it was a very small hardcore of devotees, centered around hip metropolises like San Francisco and New York.

An even more avant-garde follow-up, Coconut Hotel, was rejected for release by International Artists. A gentler, more song-based effort appeared in its place (God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail on Her). But by the late '60s the Krayola had disbanded, partially due to disputes with their label. Thompson released a solo album in 1970 that was the very definition of "quirky," with an eclectic folk-rock base that bore some rough similarities to Syd Barrett's work. The Red Krayola, however, was put in deep freeze as Thompson concentrated on non-musical media.

The Red Krayola was unexpectedly resurrected in the late '70s, however. Thompson had moved to England, where he found that the old Red Krayola recordings enjoyed a cult among hip listeners. Thompson was never a champion of hippie ideals, and he was able to make the transition into the punk era effectively by forming new incarnations of the Red Krayola with such musicians as Gina Birch (the Raincoats), Epic Soundtracks (Swell Maps), and Lora Logic (X-Ray Spex). The Red Krayola's releases on underground European labels like Rough Trade and Recommended presented an ensemble that dove into the heart of post-punk, with skronky guitars and horns, and disjointed, arty song structures.

Thompson joined Pere Ubu for a while in the early '80s. He always kept the Red Krayola going, however, although most of their releases went all but unheard in the U.S., as they were only available as obscure European indie imports. The situation changed to some degree in the mid-'90s, when the Krayola landed a U.S. deal with Drag City and Thompson returned to the States after a long residency in Europe, even embarking on some modest American touring. Albums such as The Red Krayola (1994), Coconut Hotel (1995), Hazel (1996), and Fingerpainting (1999) were still resolutely uncommercial, but the material was nonetheless more approachable for adventurous listeners who shied away from full-throttle avant rock. Thompson's collaborators included members of Gastr del Sol and Slovenly, as well as guitarist Jim O'Rourke. At the start of the new millennium the Red Krayola continued releasing material on Drag City, including the Blues Hollars and Hellos EP in 2000, Singles 1968-2002 in 2004, and Introduction in 2006. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Although known as a radical visual artist, Duchamp never ceased from employing any medium or art form believing that these were open to anyone. Erratum Musical was written for three voices, which may be sung in any combination or sequence, each part inscribed with a name: Yvonne, Magdeleine (Duchamp's sisters), and Marcel. This composition, from... [+] Read More

Although known as a radical visual artist, Duchamp never ceased from employing any medium or art form believing that these were open to anyone. Erratum Musical was written for three voices, which may be sung in any combination or sequence, each part inscribed with a name: Yvonne, Magdeleine (Duchamp's sisters), and Marcel. This composition, from 1913, employs techniques of random generation that would surface in popular culture 40 years later, showing that in music, like art, Duchamp was quite ahead of his time. The text was derived by running together the definitions of "imprimer" (print) -- "faire une empreinte marquer des traits une figure sur une surface imprimer un sceau sur cire (make an imprint[,] mark with lines[,] a figure on a surface[,] impress a seal on wax)." One note, in two chromatic octaves, was given to each of the 25 syllables. The notes on 25 cards were mixed in a hat, withdrawn, and written on score paper as they occurred. Each of the pieces makes use of prepared or invented instruments and compositional devices (like the aforementioned cards, numbered balls, etc.). All of these pieces are beautifully direct, unique, and spare -- interesting for more than just their historical value. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Records 1981-1989 is a fascinating collection of Marclay's work during the 1980s, the results of hours of home recordings -- using up to eight turntables and various other instruments of his own making -- plus many live performances (one track comes from a nationally televised appearance on the David Sanborn/Hal Willner program Night Music).... [+] Read More

Records 1981-1989 is a fascinating collection of Marclay's work during the 1980s, the results of hours of home recordings -- using up to eight turntables and various other instruments of his own making -- plus many live performances (one track comes from a nationally televised appearance on the David Sanborn/Hal Willner program Night Music). Marclay did much more than just scratching and sampling for these tracks -- "One Thousand Cycles" uses an increasing variety of repeated samples and clicks to create a complex rhythm of its own, while "Pandora's Box" varies the speed on its array of plunderphonics. (Though the latter sounds like an easy contemporary of late-'90s major-label turntablist LPs, it was originally released on a 1984 avant-indie compilation from Sweden that also featured Sonic Youth and Live Skull.) ~ John Bush, All Music Guide [-] Hide

For the past quarter century the varied recordings of musical renegade Fred Frith have provided a far-flung tour of the worldwide avant-garde fringe. On Traffic Continues, he composes for and plays guitar with Ensemble Modern, the venerable 21-piece German new music assemblage. This handsomely packaged CD is one of the strongest statements of... [+] Read More

For the past quarter century the varied recordings of musical renegade Fred Frith have provided a far-flung tour of the worldwide avant-garde fringe. On Traffic Continues, he composes for and plays guitar with Ensemble Modern, the venerable 21-piece German new music assemblage. This handsomely packaged CD is one of the strongest statements of Frith's career, a finely balanced work that contains concert hall and street sensibilities in equal measure. There are two lengthy pieces, the 29-minute "Traffic Continues" and the 35-minute "Traffic Continues II: Gusto (for Tom Cora)," an homage to the phenomenal cellist who with Frith was a member of the avant rock band Skeleton Crew. Scored for 15 musicians, the first composition nearly summarizes all the diverse strains of Frith's music, with varied instrumental groupings vertically layered in polyrhythmic counterpoint; wild improvisations scattered between, over, and through the scored sections; and rubato passages punctuated by crisp pointillistic gestures. "Gusto" moves through a series of vignettes performed by Frith, harpist Zeena Parkins, Ikue Mori on drum machines, and Ensemble Modern members. The piece mixes the ragged energy of downtown New York improv with the Ensemble's massed instruments, while going straight for the heart with samples of Cora at his most lyrical and evocative. At the closing, the music hovers in stasis with Cora's cello a ghostly presence; the full Ensemble then gradually reenters in a stunningly beautiful passage. Tom Cora's untimely death was a tremendous loss, and anyone listening to "Gusto" will realize that Cora was not only a wonderful collaborator to Frith, but also a fellow life traveler and friend. The closing elegiac minutes of this CD prove that even the most cutting-edge new music is most meaningful when there is emotional resonance at its core. ~ Dave Lynch, All Music Guide [-] Hide

There was a backlash against Laurie Anderson in "serious" musical and artistic circles after the completely unexpected mainstream commercial success of her debut album, Big Science. (The eight-plus-minute single "O Superman" was a chart hit in England, unbelievably enough.) A fair listen to Big Science leaves the impression that jealousy must... [+] Read More

There was a backlash against Laurie Anderson in "serious" musical and artistic circles after the completely unexpected mainstream commercial success of her debut album, Big Science. (The eight-plus-minute single "O Superman" was a chart hit in England, unbelievably enough.) A fair listen to Big Science leaves the impression that jealousy must have been at the root of the reception because Big Science is in no way a commercial sellout. A thoughtful and often hilariously funny collection of songs from Anderson's work in progress, United States I-IV, Big Science works both as a preview of the larger work and on its own merits. Opening with the hypnotic art rock of "From the Air," in which an airline pilot casually mentions that he's a caveman to a cyclical melody played in unison by a three-part reeds section, and the strangely beautiful title track, which must feature the most deadpan yodeling ever, the album dispenses witty one-liners, perceptive social commentary (the subtext of the album concerns Anderson's own suburban upbringing, which she views with more of a bemused fondness than the tiresome irony that many brought to the subject), and a surprisingly impressive sense of melody for someone who was until recently a strictly visual artist. For example, the marimba and handclap-led closer, "It Tango," is downright pretty in the way the minimalistic tune interacts with Anderson's voice, which is softer and more intimate (almost sexy, in a downtown-cool sort of way) than on the rest of the album. Not everything works -- "Walking and Falling" is negligible, and the way Rufus Harley's bagpipes intentionally clash with Anderson's harsh, nasal singing and mannered phrasing in "Sweaters" will annoy those listeners who can't take either Yoko Ono or Meredith Monk -- but Big Science is a landmark release in the New York art scene of the '80s, and quite possibly the best art rock album of the decade. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide [-] Hide

Though composed for four very different films (among them two documentaries -- one on the life of gay erotic artist Tom of Finland and the other on transvestites who live in the salt warehouses of New York City), the music on Figure Ground hangs together as a cohesive collection. Somewhat confusing liner notes make it a bit difficult to assign... [+] Read More

Though composed for four very different films (among them two documentaries -- one on the life of gay erotic artist Tom of Finland and the other on transvestites who live in the salt warehouses of New York City), the music on Figure Ground hangs together as a cohesive collection. Somewhat confusing liner notes make it a bit difficult to assign all of the songs to specific films, but a general idea of their distribution is given. The songs seethe and hum with an often erotic energy, with long, vibrating synth tones stretched over layers of shuffling rhythm. A kind of dark minimalism pervades, especially on the first track, "Incandescent," which lumbers on like a somnambulent slave. A strong dance influence can be felt in places, with somewhat tribal drums setting the pace for rhythmic scratching. Indeed, the influence of many kinds of music can be felt on these works, with Sharp pulling musical tricks out of his hat to suit the mood he is trying to create, from bluesy to icy to hyperactive. The nearly frenetic "Letha" is one of the most interesting tracks on the album, combining hypnotizing rhythms and guitar gurgles. Two tracks later, "Nightmare" seems like a score for the yawning gates of hell. This is one of Sharp's most complex and varied albums -- nevertheless, it rarely manages to miss the mark. ~ Stacia Proefrock, All Music Guide [-] Hide