Alan Licht

Alan Licht (born June 6, 1968) is an American guitarist and composer, whose work combines elements of pop, noise, free jazz and minimalism.

He is also a writer and journalist.

Licht was born in New Jersey in 1968.

His earliest musical influences, in the 1970s, were mainstream rock bands like the Bee Gees and Wings—he remarks in an interview with Paris Transatlantic magazine that 'What made me want to play guitar was that painting of Wings in concert in the gatefold of Wings Over America.

It looked so exciting... I wanted to be part of it.' Later, in school, he listened to punk and no wave bands like Mission of Burma, Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth.

However, his musical trajectory was set when his guitar teacher gave him a copy of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, which would lead to his discovery of other minimalist music.

Licht majored in Film Studies at Vassar College in New York.

Since the 1980s, he has worked and recorded with the bands Love Child, Run On and The Pacific Ocean and with other avant-garde musicians including Jim O'Rourke, Rudolph Grey, and Loren Mazzacane Connors.

He has also recorded several solo albums.

Licht is also a music journalist and writer on minimalist music, and in 2000, he published his first book, An Emotional Memoir of Martha Quinn. In 2007 Rizzoli published his book Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Categories.

In 2021 his book Common Tones: Selected Interviews with Artists and Musicians 1995-2020 was published by Blank Forms Edition.

Alan participated as drummer 42 in the Boredoms 77 Boadrum performance which occurred on July 7, 2007, at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, New York.

Licht's music draws on a wide range of different styles, from tape-loops, to noisy guitar (sometimes using a prepared instrument), to pure pop music.