Skip to page content

About this Piece

Some of the first non-classical musicians to absorb the lessons of minimalism were the No Wavers of downtown New York. John Cale of the Velvet Underground (who collaborated with minimalist pioneer La Monte Young) was instrumental in this dispersal of the message. But even those who had no personal link to the minimalists, like Suicide, found themselves under their spell. The first track on their first album Ghost Rider - in which a a rockabilly vocal line plays off the throb of a looping bass line - shows the extent to which Minimalism had infiltrated the electronic and art rock world.