Electronic primitivist project
Amps for Christ was primarily the work of Claremont, California-based
Henry Barnes, formerly of sludge metal/hardcore legends
Man Is the Bastard and harsh noise offshoot
Bastard Noise. An outlet for
Barnes' interest in polyethnic folk traditions and faux-Celtic mysticism,
Amps for Christ proved equally distinctive for its use of custom-built guitars and electronics, recording with a number of occasional collaborators, including vocalist
Tara Tikkitavi, percussionist
Joel Connell, and
Enid Snarb (possibly an alias for
Barnes himself). Beginning with a few cassette releases on lo-fi tape label Shrimper in the mid-'90s,
Amps for Christ quietly released new volumes of sound as well as performed sporadically as the years rolled on. Releases of note from the first decade or so of output included 1995's debut Plains of Alluvial, 1997's
Thorny Path, 1999's
Circuits, 2000's
Electrosphere, 2001's
Oak in the Ashes, 2004's
People at Large, and 2006's
Every Eleven Seconds. By the middle of the 2000s, key figures of the burgeoning freak folk meta-movement acknowledged
Amps for Christ as an obscure but important early predecessor to the damaged folk sounds of that era. In 2006
Animal Collective invited
Barnes and company to open a short West Coast tour with them. This appreciation from a younger generation would continue with
Amps for Christ's inclusion on an RRR Records box set of California noise artists in 2008 as well as a collaborative split LP with Brooklyn communal folk-rockers
Woods in 2012.
Canyons Cars and Crows,
Barnes' first release of completely new, singularly
Amps for Christ material in over seven years, appeared on Shrimper in 2014. In 2017, Plains of Alluvial was reissued in a limited vinyl release.
