Ascension

This is an Enhanced disc, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Personnel: Glenn Branca, Lee Renaldo, Ned Sublette, David Rosenbloom (guitar); Jeffrey Glenn (bass); Stephan Wischerth (drums).
Recorded at The Power Station, New York, New York. Includes liner notes by Lee Ranaldo.
In 1981, Glen Branca recorded a four-guitar symphony that reached peaks of transcendent beauty and lows of challenging shrillness. It was a work that in many ways changed the face of experimental music, and reintroduced clanging noise as a pop concept. The 2003 Acute Records reissue should only serve to hammer that point home. ASCENSION's five tracks are all odd and brilliant in their own way: "The Spectacular Commodity," for example, is 12 minutes long and almost operatic at points. "Lesson Number 2" is likewise orchestral in scope, and the title track is a sheer assault of guitars battling each other until the players reach an almost orgasmic frenzy. Branca, who had previously played with the Theoretical Girls and the Static, created the sound of New York City dying and being reborn in the process. A note for the historically minded: a young Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo appear here on guitars.