I saw Arto Lindsay last week at Cafe Oto. It was great to see such a pivotal figure of the No Wave scene in the flesh. I first heard of Arto Lindsay from the DNA performance in film, Downtown 81. They sound so raw and the guitar is cutting and percussive. I hadn’t heard anything like it at the time.

I’ve mostly listened to Arto Lindsay as a secondary but unmistakable presence on recordings by other musicians. Ryuichi Sakamoto, Seigen Ono, Lounge Lizards and probably more, It’s an unmistakeable signature. I hadn’t listened to his solo music that much before going, apart from Ambitious Lovers. He has also played on Laurie Anderson records and collaborated with lots of high profile brazilian artists, like Caetano Veloso, Tom Ze and Gal Costa along with more obvious no-wave-linked John Zorn and Marc Ribot.

The performance was mostly like the second half of ‘The Encyclopedia of Arto Lindsay’, I preferred the first half of the album which was produced in a very 2000s fashion and drew from his collaboration with Brazilian artists and contemporary R&B. I love Lindsay’s openness with who he collaborates with, his style cuts through most of the records he’s affiliated with, but there is no logic or expectation about how these records will sound outside of his playing. It seems like a very collaborative style of working where he is more a textural effect or rhythmic element, leaving space for others to fill in the gaps. The space that Arto leaves is to me one of his most impressive qualities. In his solo music, the melody can hang on by a thread around the improvisation, in his collaborative group work, he can take on more of a provocative instigator of a musical dialogue that is saturated and high in contrast – always concerned with the offset or counter balance.

To a lesser extreme, as primarily a musician I am concerned with speaking through my instrument, finding a way to play that is mine. I think I’ve lost track of some of what I used to have and seeing Lindsay was a great jolt that there is the direction of an untutored, expressive extended technique that I am still able to explore, and Arto Lindsay is an example that a singular, abstract instinct can still be used in a collaborative sense with people from different musical or sonic backgrounds. Something that maybe a classical mindset would consider exclusive and anti-social is focussed into diverse collaboration.