No Wave

No wave was a short-lived avant-garde scene that emerged in the late 1970s in downtown New York City. In partial reaction against punk rock's recycling of traditionalist rock and roll cliches, no wave musicians instead experimented with noise, dissonance and atonality in addition to a variety of non-rock genres, including free jazz and funk, while often reflecting an abrasive, confrontational and nihilistic worldview. In the later years of the scene, it adopted a more playful, danceable aesthetic inspired by disco, early hip hop and world music sources.