I’ve never really understood the classical avant-garde, meaning I don’t know how to appreciate it on an academic or intellectual level. I guess I’m just drawn to stuff that sounds weird and mental, especially if it disturbs me or makes me laugh. “De Natura Sonorum” may be brilliant for all I know, but I find it dull. I don’t understand the 'theory' behind this music, so I’m possibly getting a one-dimensional take on something quite complex. Can’t lie, the fact that friends thought this stuff was insufferable arty-farty bollocks and hated it was also part of the appeal.
Stockhausen (I just call him ‘Stockhausen’, like Madonna or Prince) blowing arts funds on sending a string quartet into the sky in helicopters is my kind of gig - especially if it’s true that the double bass player got airsick and threw up over her instrument (no clue if that’s true, or if there even was a female double bass player…could be a fake memory? Sure I read it somewhere. Maybe I dreamed it.)
Everyone goes on about Gesang der Junglinge, Stimmung and Kontakte, but Oktophonie is my favourite and seems underrated to me. Tense, doomy drone that really came into its own during the pandemic outbreak. I think the idea was to position eight loudspeakers, each connected to a separate ‘player’, around the listener(s) and bombard them from all directions. Would be brilliant to actually experience this live. Only edit I’d make would be to completely delete the annoying vocals that pop up in one section, but they’re extremely brief and not a deal-breaker.