No New York

Brian Eno's definitive document of no wave at its most confrontational, gathering the scene's four essential bands together.

Brian Eno's 1978 compilation gathered DNA, the Contortions, Mars, and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks into the definitive document of no wave at its most confrontational. Eno had caught the final two nights of the Artists Space festival and came away convinced these four bands needed to be recorded together. The production stayed true to that instinct: the Contortions' tracks, for instance, were cut live in the studio with no separation between instruments and no overdrops, at Chance's insistence, so the record captures the scene as it actually sounded in a room rather than as a cleaned-up version of itself. On Mars's 'Helen Forsdale,' Eno ran the guitar's click through an echo unit to trigger compression across the whole track, producing a sound described as almost like a helicopter overhead.

Where to start with NYC No Wave