Arc (album)

Infobox Album |
Name = Arc
Type = Live album
Artist = Neil Young


Released = 1991
Recorded = 1991 North American tour
Genre = Noise rock
Computer music
Electronic music
Length = 35:00
Label = Reprise/Warner Bros. Records
26769
Producer = Neil Young
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|2|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:0pfwxqq5ldae link]
Last album = "Weld"
(1991)
This album = "Arc"
(1991)
Next album = "Harvest Moon"
(1992)

"Arc" is a composition of feedback, guitar noise, and vocal fragments that was realized from various shows on the 1991 Neil Young and Crazy Horse US tour, which was originally released with "Weld" in a special-edition 3-CD set called "Arc-Weld". "Arc" bears no small resemblance to the music of Sonic Youth, which was one of the support acts on the tour.

According to an interview with Steve Martin of Agnostic Front that appeared in the December 1991 issue of "Pulse!" magazine, "Arc" had its genesis in a film that Neil made (that he referred to as "Muddy Track" in an interview with David Fricke in the November 28, 1991 issue of "Rolling Stone"), which consisted of beginnings and endings of various songs from a mid-1980s European Tour. Young showed the video to Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, a noted figure in New York's avant-garde music scene, who suggested he record an entire album recorded in a similar manner. Neil placed a video camera on his amplifier during the 1991 tour and recorded the beginnings and endings of various songs that were later edited down into the single track of "Arc". "It was the sound of the entire band being sucked into this little limiter, being compressed and fuckin' distorted to hell," Neil said to Martin.

Track listing

#"Arc"—35:00A compilation composition by Neil Young

Personnel

*Neil Young: guitar, vocals, computer, feedback
*Frank "Poncho" Sampedro: guitar, univox stringman, vocals
*Billy Talbot: bass, vocals
*Ralph Molina: drums, vocals
*Sal Trentino: electronics