Review Summary: Forget what you've learned.
In late 1970s, Glenn Branca was working in experimental theatre and with his punk band, Theoretical Girls, in New York. After only twenty gigs, the project ended and Branca launched his solo career and, together with Ed Bahlman, founded an independent record label called 99 Records.
Originally released in 1980, "Lesson No. 1" is Branca's first major work and the birth of a career whose influence would spread to everyone from Sonic Youth to Page Hamilton's Helmet. Branca created the sound that would become his recurring concept of making the electric guitar an instrument of sonic experimentation. This record lays the foundation for the composer's future studio works and symphonies.
This EP features two pieces for various electric guitars, which combine minimal music with the noise aesthetic of punk rock. Lesson No. 1 for Electric Guitar is an experiment based on the minimalist drone of multiple guitars. This piece begins with two guitars on a riff similar to Steve Reich's "pulse", before introducing a triumphant wall of single-note sound, with organ and bass passing underneath to give a sense of harmonic movement. It continues to build and build with more feedback and noise on top of it until it becomes something unique, almost heavenly.
On the B-side, there's Dissonant, an intriguing ten minute piece for two guitars, keyboards, bass, drums and sledgehammer (!), which foretells the industrial sound that would be born 10 years later. This track focuses on the constant motion of urban life, relying on polyrhythmic experimentation. In addition to the two original tracks, the Acute label came up with the idea of adding the song Bad Smell on the reissue of the album. This unreleased track, over 16 minutes long and featuring Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo from Sonic Youth, follows the same sound as the EP with a more ambient edge, although it comes closer to what would become noise rock.
All in all, "Lesson No. 1" is an astonishing record, which marked its time and what was to come. For the strength of its content, the intensity of its songs and, finally, for all the influence it generated in the following decades in a sea of musicians, this record became a classic and an essential archive in the history of noise rock. The intense energy that emerges from this album is like a punch that never stops hurting.
