Non

Boyd Rice functions as the central force behind NON, a solo endeavor defined by his role as an instigator of noise and controversy, with his independent recordings proving nearly indistinguishable from material issued under the NON name. His debut effort, initially known as The Black Album, took snippets from girl group and bubblegum pop tracks and looped them into a relentless drone before Mute issued it in 1981 as Boyd Rice. Later NON outings such as the confrontational Physical Evidence from 1982 and the layered sonic assault of Blood and Flame in 1987 tested boundaries of sonic tolerance. A 1991 anthology titled Easy Listening for Iron Youth gathered NON material from the 1980s, including several non-album pieces. Rice brought NON back into regular activity during the mid-1990s; the 1992 album In the Shadow of the Sword centered on themes of social Darwinism, whereas 1995’s Might! presented a large-scale work pairing music with recited verse drawn from the book Might Is Right by the writer credited as “Ragnar Redbeard,” widely believed to be Jack London. The 1997 release God and Beast marked NON’s clearest sonic presentation up to that point. Early 2000 brought Receive the Flame, followed in 2002 by Children of the Black Sun, which appeared alongside a DVD containing a 5.1 surround mix of the record. Although Rice maintained an active schedule of collaborations and solo projects, nearly ten years passed before NON delivered another full-length studio album, Back to Mono in 2012. That record departed from the sparse and atmospheric qualities that had become hallmarks of the project, returning instead to the abrasive textures and venomous attitude of its earliest phase.