for mixed sextet (1994)

Lick is the first work that I wrote for the Bang on a Can All-Stars. There’s an insistence, a feeling of pushing things to the edge, and there is a groove. The body energy of pop music definitely came into my music in Lick. Motown, funk, rock. This is the music I grew up on — listening, dancing to it. The word Lick has a lot of meanings. I took a fragment, a lick, and magnified it. The beat is split up among the players. Lick is about attacks, but there is a more sensual side. It’s saucy and aggressive. It’s impatient; although it stays with things for a long time, it hammers at them. I wanted to see the All-Stars lock in to this intense energy, to go over the top.

– Julia Wolfe