Minimalism has always been a component of Noise. Much of Non's material is a classic example - the "Ragnarok Rune" ep is just a few organ chords looped, basically. Chop Shop features pretty basic blocks of solid sound. Some Whitehouse material like "Movement" is as stark and unmoving as it gets (and I recall an interview where Bennett describes what he does as minimalist). Aube loves getting as much as possible from repetition and small input. These are just some obvious examples.
I agree with Peterson about Grunt's "Installation etc", as a nice, basic construction of simple measures. Hal Hutchinson's upright use of layering un-effected metal junk abuse can very well be seen as minimalist, especially "Removing Aesthetics" with its looped background. Not sure if I'd classify Pestdemon as minimal, though - his material is often well nuanced and changing throughout his pieces, particularly the longer ones. I think "use of linear sounds moving minimally toward some kind of crescendo" can be just one description. There's also a stark, unchanging piece of sound that has the same elements throughout, which I would regard as minimal in composition. Whether it's a few basic elements that are clearly different, yet unchanging throughout the piece, or one basic element that dominates the piece.
I was always unsatisfied with the term "minimalism" when describing the music of such noted composers as Glass, Reich, Riley, etc. I would have thought "serialism" would have been a better term but I imagine there's issues with that. Morton Feldman is what I would call a minimalist composer, with classics like "Why Patterns?" and "For Samuel Beckett", being varied in intricacy but static in approach. I think the same kind of composition could apply to Noise if describing it as minimalist. Although it would depend, I suppose, on how much intricacy is involved - for example, some Japanese Harsh Noise may sound like a huge rush of oblivion on first listen but when one's ears get attuned there is all sorts of such intricate detail that it's obvious there's nothing minimal about it at all.
