Avant Garde Music

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
^ did anyone else spend the first 30 seconds or so of this waiting for the amen and the 808 bassline to kick in?
 

droid

Well-known member
Shut up! This has been in the sample bank for a while and recently featured in an actual work in progress.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Ha!

I go out to a lot of stuff that could probably be called avant garde, and have a slightly weird End of History type relationship with it - like, a hundred years after the Second Viennese School and seventy after Black Mountain College and fifty after AMM and after thirty plus years of Merzbow people are having to stop going on about how their particular choice of avant praxis is going to have some sort of world-changing impact or redefine how we think about music in a philosophically important way and admit that they're basically doing it because it's actually kind of fun. (I'm not sure how much this is genuinely the case and how much it's just my perspective on it.) But at the same time, there's something weirdly energizing about being in a room full of people and communally wigging out to something properly fucking niche.
 
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cwmbran-city

Well-known member
off the top of my head, i guess canonical avant garde would include people like john cage, terry riley, tony conrad, la monte young, early yoko ono, etc.


would add:
Robert Ashley, Bernard Parmegiani, Alvin Lucier, Ingram Marshall, Tod Dockstader from the Concrète crew, some of the Soviet composers who worked with Tarkovsky and the ANS like Eduard Artemiev, Vyacheslav Ovchinnikov & Oleg Buloshkin, from Germany Wolfgang Dauner, Floh de Cologne & Xhol Caravan but theres so much good gear from this place & time you could go right off the deep end on Krautrock alone via its own thread, Alan Splet/Ann Kroeber, Kevin Ayers, Severed Heads, Jon Hassell, Patrick Cowley odds n sods, Craig Leon up to Weatherall's comedown/mid 90's projects & that delicious Mica Levi soundtrack for Under the Skin

music theory pretentiousness states that as there are no new chords or notes to explore (note the word tone is excluded), "relational music" is the current avant-garde = out of key piano runs immediate cut to people in a public park sample immediate cut to water down a sinkhole......un-listenable bs where the concept takes precedent over the intrigue

the drone thread offers real pleasures usually associated with this field, but out of the names not really listed Andrew Liles is someone who deserves respect for keeping things uneasy, pushing his studio chops and he's one of a handful of producers worth buying on sight. Zoviet France & certain Rapoon gear? Jeff Bridges of all people did a safe-mode/F8 hate to use the word concept lp recently (Sleeping Tapes)

its unhelpful trying to frame things as avant-garde because then you have to define it, its historiography & the fact that a lot of acts, eg: Jim O'Rourke & Jim Haynes as 2 from hundreds of names, can wade into these waters at any given time.....the list is metaphorically endless but proper fun exploring, you could live a few lifetimes & never really engage in it all
 
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DannyL

Wild Horses
I just put a new mix online which I've called avant-garde in the descriptors. I agree with what's said above that it's phrase of is of increasing irrelevance. It feels like a canon now, rather than a frontier. To me, it just means a bit of dissonance, odd tunings etc rather than what the phrase really points to. What drove this was in part the fact that no one buys this stuff so it's easy to find random things for cheap on vinyl for still-sane prices. Anyway, it's here if people want to give it a listen:
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Happy to rename thread

Although discussion is interesting perhaps it distracts too much... I used the term cos a lot of music is experimental without being self conscious about it.

Whereas I'd argue a lot of the music bjork played, while not perhaps groundbreaking in a world where everything has been done, is deliberately experimental and weird.
 

cwmbran-city

Well-known member
Happy to rename thread

Although discussion is interesting perhaps it distracts too much... I used the term cos a lot of music is experimental without being self conscious about it.

no need - discussion is fun because almost every genre will have its experimental fringe, which often then relay back into the feedback loop of influences moving things forward, even more interesting when getting down to specifics, tracks, artists & differentials....the pejorative connotations mainly flow from the visual arts & their appropriation of this tag which can clouds things after Duchamp ripped the piss with his toilet exhibit & all the derivative bollix that the YBA's ran off a cliff with. The Ambient & Drone threads show that music can still be at the vanguard of sonic art, even if the visual arts have disappeared up their own shit pipe in this regard


Hail praise Xenakis!
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape

ya that is a very sick record especially Wave Song

mentioned this upthread, tar + setar (Persian stringed instruments) + electronics, very good, really blends acoustic/electronic seamlessly in a good way

cool repurposing of Reich/Riley's non-Western influences back into Western non-Western context
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
see also one of my favorite obscure krautrock bits

Iranian dude getting the fuck down on santur + percussion over early Tangerine Dream style massive droning analogue electronics
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
am listening to hecker Sun Pandämonium right now.

i love this alien insect sounding computer DSP/patch stuff.

in my alternate universe this stuff finds its way into rnb, the otherworldly highs of Stocha Acid Zlook with the sheen of the beats. full metal android soul music.

will check that baba yaga record out - it's really hard to find decent middle eastern early electronics once you've gone past alireza mashayekhi, ilhan mimaroglu, arel halim el dab etc.

Actually what I'd like to hear is more electronics based on turkish/iranian/arab maqam mashayekhi is the only dude who really went there. and gökçen kaynatan did some psychedelic electronic bits, i posted one of his bits in the choon of the day thread.

will check that bjork playlist now...
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
isn't arca basically idm for 2010s generation tbf.

Not that i have an issue with that but being a bit of an autechre fanboy i need to go beyond personally.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
on a bit of a ryoji ikeda kick atm. some of 'is stuff sounds like geometric pure data music (supercodex and dataplex.) perfectly modern.

+/- is closer to pulsing minimal glitchdance.

Either way, not an artist i listen to often but when the urge hits it really hits. for fans of alva noto.
 

Leo

Well-known member
+/- is closer to pulsing minimal glitchdance.

i saw him perform that live at sonar back in '99, a totally different experience when heard really loud. every pulse felt like i was getting punched in the chest. the album sounds pristine and clinical when heard at home. heard live, it was fucking punishing. in a good way.
 
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