Sleeve notes
Rhys Chatham
Die Donnergötter · 1985
Rhys Chatham emerged from New York's downtown avant-garde scene in the mid-1970s, having studied under minimalist composers before turning his attention to the electric guitar as an instrument capable of the same kind of overtone-rich, massed-ensemble composition. His piece "Guitar Trio," first performed in 1977, became a foundational text for the no wave and guitar-minimalism scenes that followed, its use of multiple guitars tuned to emphasize harmonic overtones directly influencing musicians who would go on to form some of the era's most significant bands.
Die Donnergötter (1985) extended Chatham's guitar-ensemble compositions to a larger scale, continuing his practice of treating groups of electric guitars as a single, orchestral instrument capable of generating sounds no individual player could produce alone. Chatham's work developed alongside that of his contemporary Glenn Branca, the two composers pursuing related but distinct approaches to massed-guitar composition that together shaped how an entire generation of guitarists thought about volume, tuning, and repetition.
