Noise

About the Noise genre

The roots trace back to Luigi Russolo, a futurist composer who released Veglio di una città as a single in 1913, creating what's considered the first noise composition. His work shocked Italian audiences by abandoning traditional instrumentation entirely. The genre lay dormant for decades until the mid-1970s, when free improvisation began pushing into increasingly extreme territory through groups like Dedalus.

Industrial musicians revived and formalized noise in the late 1970s. Boyd Rice, performing as NON, crafted a crucial landmark with his 1978 single Pagan Muzak, a 7 inch record built from locked grooves that could play at any speed and loop infinitely at the listener's discretion. SPK and Maurizio Bianchi explored similar sonic territory, establishing noise as a deliberate compositional approach rather than accidental distortion.

The genre solidified into distinct subgenres during the 1980s and beyond. Japanoise musicians like Hanatarash and Hijokaidan developed the modern harsh noise sound in the mid-1980s, creating their own aesthetic separate from Western industrial approaches. Today collectors encounter harsh wall noise, which emphasizes unchanging masses of sound, and power electronics, which layers modified electronics with screamed and shouted vocals. These subgenres remain the primary branches of serious noise collecting.