Blind Idiot God were a trio — Andy Hawkins (guitar), Gabriel Katz (bass), and Ted Epstein (drums) — who ideally belonged to the post-rock school of St. Louis (Missouri), although they only released a record after moving to New York.

Their music was purely instrumental and anything but catchy. Their sonic storms rivaled the fiercest MC5, their bursts matched hardcore in frenzy, and their angularity made Sonic Youth’s dissonances sound trivial. Their compositions were equally inspired by Jimi Hendrix (rock), John Coltrane (jazz), and Glenn Branca (avant-garde).

Blind Idiot God (SST, 1987) elevates exasperation to an art form. A primordial base energy is amplified by the use of repetitive and dissonant techniques, even more than by sheer volume. In Shifting Sand, the guitar is stroked like a violin until it almost enters resonance and emits nothing but a continuous buzz. The explosive charge of Wide Open Spaces is almost grunge-like, marked by machine-gun bursts of drums and the almost mystical rises and falls of the guitar.

The geometry of these pieces, however, is unknown to those like Subterranean Flight, which live on emotional swings and exploit more atmospheric effects. Be that as it may, every piece reaches intolerable levels of tension and spares no eardrums.
A kind of controlled improvisation derails the funky cadences of Dark & Bright and the reggae ones of the three final “dubs” (Wise Man Dub, Stealth Dub, Raining Dub), where the violence subsides and gives way to the dreamy reverberations of the guitar, the sensual bass lines, and the muffled beats of the drums.
Blind Idiot God is one of the most accomplished works of avant-garde music of the 1980s, a milestone of instrumental rock and an absolute masterpiece of hardcore.

Undertow (Enemy, 1988) continues that fusion program for punks, in which hardcore storms merge with the earthquakes of Branca’s symphonies (Sawtooth, Wailing Wall, and Drowning, overflowing with hypnotic and catastrophic sonorities) to give rise to a driving “wall of sound” distorted in a truly “Hendrix-ian” fashion (Atomic Whip). Floating amid this no man’s land are their evocative “dubs,” overflowing with somnambulant and exotic echoes and with phrasing reminiscent of Jody Harris (Clockwork Dub, Watch Yer Step, Dubbing In The Sinai, and especially Major Key Dub, where the guitar turns into a mandolin and an accordion and…). It is another impeccable work, another manual of instrumental rock for the 1990s, another highly mature and sophisticated display of creativity.

In the meantime, Blind Idiot God began collaborating with John Zorn, a guru of the New York avant-garde (Epstein even performed in a trio with Zorn and Elliott Sharp), and their musical stature grew steadily. After the EP Purged Specimen (Enemy), they released a new album, Cyclotron (Avant, 1992). It stands as another miracle of music that is both futile and conceptual, another exercise in manic precision applied to the most unrestrained compositions imaginable, another masterclass in erudite “crossover” (blending funk, jazz, metal, and reggae) delivered by a trio of exceptional musicians.
This is a collection of shorter pieces but the instrumental combo from hell has not been tamed yet. Three threads seem to overlap and alternate throughout the album: a cacophonous form of speedmetal, Hendrix-inspired fugues and reggae-based dance music. The ouverture, 747, pours titanic, granitic riffs that pulverize notes and hauls apocalyptic drumming that accelerates to an almost grindcore pace. The maelstrom infuriates and picks up speed with Thunderhead, a square dance for chainsaws and bazookas. Cloudcover is the ultimate metal experience: guitars and drums are sequenced and looped at high speed leaving only a flow of harsh noise.
In Slackjaw Hendrixian glissandos suffocate the stuttering rhythm, and Hendrix' specter returns in Head On, when a Third Stone From The Sun progression mauls melody with tornado force. Ever denser, ever less articulated, Cold Start is angst for a fantasy of self-martyrdom. In Broadside the guitar washes and the thundering drums obey a mathematical formula. Visceral emotion and mechanical algorithm are the two sides of the same coin.
The third thread may be the most intriguing. Ground Lift, Hangtime and Death Hollow Canyon Utah deconstruct reggae, toying with the metallic chords, the reverbed dub and the syncopated beat, achieving a spirited fusion of reggae, heavy metal and jazz. With Dead Continent Dub the original stereotype has been vivisected and reassembled: limbs move in a goofy way and control is loose; sounds are shuffled around, beats overflow.
The ugly geometry of these mini-rock symphonies has few precedents in popular music. BIG deserve the title of precursors and founding fathers of math-rock.

Blind Idiot God also collaborated with Bill Laswell on Sacrifist (1994).

Azonic Halo (Strata, 1994) was Andy Hawkins' new project after Blind Idiot God, yet another epic excursion at the edge of rock's sonic horizons but this time via four lengthy improvised solos (with help from bassist Gabriel Katz). The ten-minute Beyond the Pale unleashes a tornado of Hendrix-ian feedbacks, violent fits of angst-laden hallucination. The twelve-minute Shore explores the other (contemplative) side of the coin via a droning raga-like distortion, first soaring to the skies and then descending again to Earth. The eleven-minute Headwaters sends waves of metallic dissonance against an oscillating drone. The twelve-minute Raze is the gothic, suspenseful closer, sending alien tremors up cascading walls of white noise that sometimes sound like baroque keyboards played by the fingers of a mad ghost. Few albums in the history of rock music packed and conveys so much emotion with such minimal means.
This transcendent work is the equivalent of Peter Green's End of the Game (1969) for the punk and post-industrial generation: the soundtrack of a soul awash in the massive neurosis of his era.

The follow-up, Skinner's Black Laboratories (Sub Rosa, 1995), credited to Azonic, was a collaboration with Justin Broadrick of Godflesh. The shorter pieces coin an abrasive version of Robert Fripp's "Frippertronics". The two longer jams are concertos for deformed, hysterical (and extremely loud) guitar.

At the turn of the century Tim Wyskida of Khanate replaced Epstein on drums.

Before Ever After (Indivisible, 2015), Blind Idiot God's first album in 23 years contains music recorded between 2008 and 2010.