Non

by Steve Huey
Non is essentially the one-man project of noisemonger and provocateur Boyd Rice, whose solo work is virtually interchangeable with that released under his Non alias. Rice's first work, originally titled The Black Album, consisted of looped bits of girl-group and bubblegum songs worked into a numbing drone; it was released in 1981 by Mute under the title Boyd Rice. Subsequent Non releases like the antagonistic Physical Evidence (1982) and the textured noise of Blood and Flame (1987) pushed the limits of aural accessibility. A compilation of Non's '80s material, some of it non-LP, was released in 1991 under the title Easy Listening for Iron Youth. In the mid-'90s, Rice has revived Non often; 1992's In the Shadow of the Sword focused on social Darwinism, while 1995's Might! was an opus of musically backed poetry inspired by author Ragnar Redbeard's (likely Jack London) Might Is Right. Non released the album God and Beast in 1997, sporting the clearest production to date on any of their works. Receive the Flame followed in early 2000 and Children of the Black Sun in 2002, the latter accompanied by a DVD 5.1 mix of the album.