Art Metropole

Alan Licht (born June 6, 1968) is an American guitarist and composer, whose work combines elements of pop, noise, free jazz and minimalism. He is also a writer and journalist.

Guitarist and improvisor Alan Licht has performed with legends of underground rock – Arthur Lee, Tom Verlaine, Royal Trux, Arto Lindsay, Jandek – as well as some of the foremost jazz and experimental musicians – Rashied Ali, Peter Brotzmann, Keith Rowe, Christian Marclay, Ken Vandermark, and Phill Niblock. In 2001 he and Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo co-founded Text of Light, an ensemble dedicated to combining music improvisation with screenings of avant garde cinema. A founding member of the bands Love Child & Run On, he has released five albums of pieces for solo and multiple guitars to date. His sound and video installations have been exhibited in the U.S. and Europe. A frequent contributor to the WIRE, Modern Painters, Time Out NY, Premiere, and the NY Sun, his first book, An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn, was published by Drag City Press in 2002.

A long-time fan of Michael Snow’s, Licht interviewed him in the late 90s and subsequently performed with Snow at the NO Music Festival 99 at London’s Forest City Gallery. “Of special note is Alan Licht’s duo with Canadian avant garde film maker and musician Michael Snow, of New York Eye And Ear Control fame. A Jim O’Rourke for the Slayer generation, Licht’s guitar sinuously chases Snow’s Fender Rhodes through a multitude of cosmic echoes, transitioning smoothly from one dimension to another.” – Alan Cummings in Wire Magazine.

Licht has been performing duos with photographer and cassette shape shifter Aki Onda for the past five years, and was reminded of Snow’s filmmaking when he heard Onda’s album Bon Voyage! Through meetings with the three in New York when Snow was opening his MOMA film retrospective in 2005, a performing trio was created which saw its debut at Tonic in December.