Bang On A Can: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Videos
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• David Watson
• Icebreaker
• Alarm Will Sound

• Louis Andriessen

• Tristan Perich
• Mark Stewart
• Don Byron
• Iva Bittová
• Mark Stewart
• Ethel
• Giovanni Sollima

• Brian Eno
• Nick Didkovsky

Genres:

Electronic & Dance Music, New Age Music, Rock Music, Classical Music

Decades Active:

1980's|1990's|2000's

Artistic Quality

Low

Cultural Impact

Low

Popularity

Low

Ratings Guide

Technically, the name Bang on a Can refers not to a specific set of musicians but to a yearly festival of new music curated by avantgarde composer/performers Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon. (Albums by the group are most often credited to the Bang on a Can AllStars, a relatively stable group of six to eight performers and arrangers who comprise the core of the creative group.) The trio formed Bang on a Can in 1987; over the next ten years, the concept grew from a oneday festival to an impressive array of live and recorded works. The first three Bang on a Can releases were CD anthologies of live recordings taken from the group's 1992, 1993, and 1994 festivals released on their own CRI label as Bang on a Can Live, Vol. 1, 2, and 3. Their studio debut came with 1995's Industry, featuring a track each by Wolfe, Lang, and Gordon and two lengthy chamber music pieces by their spiritual mentor Louis Andriessen. Both Industry and its more eclectic followup, 1996's Cheating, Lying, Stealing, were released by Sony Classical. Bang on a Can jumped to Universal's new music imprint Point for their next release, a brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed reimagining of Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports that often turned Eno's sketches for tape recorders into beautiful works for live musicians.

Next, Lang, Wolfe, and Gordon collaborated on the opera +Lost Objects, an extended narrative work with libretto by Deborah Artman featuring vocal soloists, a mixed chorus, a full orchestra and, intriguingly, guest appearances by turntable guru DJ Spooky. Following that masterwork, the group recorded several early pieces by the great minimalist composer Steve Reich and paid tribute to another landmark of modern classical music by reinterpreting Terry Riley's In C for a bevy of electric, electronic, and acoustic instruments. That recording was the first release on Cantaloupe Records, a label owned by Bang on a Can to release albums by affiliated composers and performers. The second Bang on a Can release on the label was 2001's eclectic Renegade Heaven, featuring pieces by Glenn Branca and Phil Kline, as well as Gordon's "I Buried Paul," a tongue in cheek salute to the playing of backwards tapes and other unintentional avantgardisms in relation to the Paul Is Dead hoax of 1969.

- Stewart Mason, All Music Guide