"I'll sell out anytime anybody wants me to" Glenn Branca once mused, "[but] there are no buyers." This accords with Branca's perennial position on that fringe between the edgier end of art music and the artsier end of rock. An admirer of Young, Glass, and Reich, and a mentor to members of Sonic Youth, Helmet, and the Swans, Branca helped pollinate the downtown New York scene in the 1980s and '90s and infused experimental rock with minimalist ideas. While he earned his reputation with a series of high-volume, microtonal works for multiple electric guitars, his oeuvre also includes works for traditional orchestral forces. In the face of Branca's eclectic output and rather ambiguous aesthetic, the label "crossover" is at once convenient and clumsy.
