Skronk

Skronk is the abrasive guitar-and-saxophone idiom that grew out of New York no wave in the late 1970s and 1980s: music that treats the guitar as a percussion instrument and the saxophone as a weapon. Built on alternate tunings, prepared instruments, scrapes, squeals and clusters of dissonance, it favours density and attack over harmony, drawing equally on free jazz, funk and downtown minimalism. Centred on figures such as *Glenn Branca*, *James Chance*, *Lydia Lunch* and the early *Sonic Youth*, skronk became the bridge between the no wave underground and the American noise-rock and alternative mainstream that followed.