Avant-funk
| Avant-funk | |
|---|---|
| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | Late 1970s, United Kingdom and United States |
| Derivative forms | House, drum and bass |
| Other topics | |
Avant-funk is a music style in which artists combine funk with an art rock mentality. It was pioneered in the late 1970s, amongst post-punk acts who embraced black dance styles.
Avant-funk was described by critic Simon Reynolds as "difficult dance music, more suited to cerebral contemplation in the bedroom than mindless frugging on the dancefloor." He further characterised it as a kind of psychedelia in which "oblivion was to be attained not through rising above the body, rather through immersion in the physical, self loss through animalism."Simon Frith described the style as an application of progressive rock mentality to rhythm rather than melody and harmony. Some motifs of the style include "Eurodisco rhythms; synthesizers used to generate not pristine, hygienic textures, but poisonous, noisome filth; Burroughs’ cut-up technique applied to found voices."
According to Reynolds, the first wave of pioneering avant-funk artists came in the late 1970s, when post-punk artists (including Public Image Ltd, Cabaret Voltaire, Talking Heads, The Pop Group, D.A.F., A Certain Ratio, and 23 Skidoo) embraced black dance music styles such as funk and disco. Reynolds noted these artists' preoccupations with issues such as alienation, repression and technocracy of Western modernity. The artists of the late 1970s New York no wave scene also explored avant-funk, influenced by figures such as Ornette Coleman.
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