{"title":"Alan Licht","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlan Licht is an improv guitarist and a member of avant-garde rock acts such as Run On, Love Child, and Blue Humans. With influential recordings like \"The Evan Dando of Noise?\" and \"A New York Minute,\" this Jersey-born artist has become a seminal figure in New York's art music scene.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis unique style and collaborations with artists like *The Shadow Ring*, *Bill Orcutt*, *Phill Niblock*, *Chris Corsano*, and many others have garnered him critical acclaim. Known for his experimental approach to guitar playing, Licht's work pushes the boundaries of traditional music genres.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you enjoy the sounds of artists such as *David Grubbs*, *The Dead C*, *Steve Roden*, or *Philip Jeck,* then Alan Licht's innovative compositions will surely captivate your musical sensibilities. His contributions to the field have influenced notable musicians including members of the bands *No-Neck Blues Band* and *Wolf Eyes*.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"at-the-top-of-the-stairs-3","title":"At The Top Of The Stairs","description":"\u003cp\u003eRIYL Grouper, Sonic Youth, Jeff Parker. Acclaimed guitar duo Loren Connors and Alan Licht celebrate their 30-year collaboration with release of their eighth album “At The Top Of The Stairs”. Across the decades, their improvisations turned increasingly abstract and atonal, while still maintaining complex, ethereal arrangements. The harmonious blend of Licht's meticulously crafted feedback and harmonic patterns with Connors' ghostly blue tones remains the core sound of this partnership. At The Top Of The Stairs was recorded live in 2018. Across two side-long pieces, the duo ascends slowly, through layers of atmospheric tension punctuated by thunderous waves of Connors' effects. For fifty years, Connors's adaptation of acoustic Delta blues has transmuted into miniature gray scale compositions and howling riffs. His collaborators include Oren Ambarchi, Keiji Haino, and Kim Gordon. Rock\/experimental musician Alan Licht was a member of the bands Love Child, Run On, and Lee Ranaldo \u0026amp; the Dust, and has released a range of acclaimed rock and experimental albums. He is an author with books published by Rizzoli, W.W. Norton, Faber \u0026amp; Faber and Blank Forms\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Family Vineyard","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50405286543691,"sku":"2188120","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Loren_Connors_And_Alan_Licht_-_At_The_Top_Of_The_Stairs_29c85095_thumbnail_4.jpg?v=1726575246"},{"product_id":"the-blue-hour","title":"The Blue Hour","description":"\u003cp\u003eCelebrating thirty years of collaboration, Loren Connors and Alan Licht performed for two nights at OTO on May 5 and 6th, 2023. The shows celebrated a new release titled “At The Top of the Stairs”; a document of the pair's reunion in 2018 after a period of 8 years not playing together. It’s a dark, swirling two-sided spectral noir session, put out by the duo’s home label, Family Vineyard, and we expected a similar kind of atonal abyss to appear at the OTO residency. On the second night however, with the stage lit in blue, Connors took up a seat on the piano stool whilst Licht picked up the guitar. What followed was the duo’s first ever set with Connors on piano - one of only a few times Connors has played piano live at all - here captured and issued as The Blue Hour. Its spacious warmth came as a total surprise live, but makes complete sense for a duo whose dedicated expressionism takes inspiration from a vast spectrum of emotion. Both opening with single notes to start, it doesn't take long before a surface rises and begins to shimmer between the pair. A run up the keys, the drop of a feedback layer on a sustained and bent note. When the two begin to exchange notes in tandem, brief touches of melody and chord hover and the hush of the room is palpapale. After a while, Connors picks up the guitar, stands it in his lap and sweeps a wash of colour across Licht’s melody. Sharp, glassy edges begin to form, open strings and barred frets darkening the space. When his two pedals begin to merge, Licht finds a dramatic organ-like feedback and it’s hard not to imagine Rothko’s Chapel, its varying shades of blue black ascending and descending in the room. When Connors goes back to the piano for the second side, the pair quickly lock into a refrain and light pours in. It’s a kind of sound that Licht says reminds him of what he and Connors would do when the duo first started playing together 30 years ago. It’s certainly more melodic than some of their more recent shows, and the atonal shards of At The Top of the Stairs seem to totally dissolve. What is always remarkable about Licht is that his enormous frame of reference doesn't seem to weigh him down, and instead here he is able to delicately place fractures of a Jackson C Frank song (“Just Like Anything”,) amongst the vast sea of Connors’ blues. Perhaps it's the pleasure of playing two nights in a row together, or the nature of Connor’s piano playing combined with Licht’s careful listening, but the improvisation on The Blue Hour feels remarkably calm and unafraid. There’s nothing to prove and no agenda except the joy of sounding colour together. Totally beautiful.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50443003461963,"sku":"2196551","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50443003920715,"sku":"2196555","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/LOREN_CONNORS_ALAN_LICHT_LP_COVER_web_cf36fcd6_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1727007237"},{"product_id":"may-99-2","title":"May 99","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the spring of 1999, Charles Curtis, Alan Licht, and Dean Roberts brought an unconventional mix of drone, improvisation, and experimental rock on an eleven-stop tour of Europe. The concept was straightforward, yet novel: each night, they would improvise a single piece while sustained sine waves played for the duration of the concert. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eMay 99\u003c\/i\u003e, culled from three shorter pieces recorded for a radio program at Amsterdam's VPRO near the end of the tour, represents an early high watermark in the collision of minimal and rock sensibilities that started to become prevalent in the late 90s and is an ear-opening listen even for those familiar with the musicians' other projects.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Blank Forms Editions","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50530457223499,"sku":"2016465","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Alan_Licht_Charles_Curtis__Dean_Roberts_-_May_99_93472d65_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1728079344"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_ca255fe6_thumbnail_4096_081b3d30-cca1-47fb-9865-d4340ce11897.jpg?v=1726575225","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/de\/collections\/alan-licht.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}