Record Reviews » Avant / Experimental

Music for weirdos, and people who fancy themselves smart.


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    Tom Hamilton, J.D. Parran, Rich O'Donnell - Formal & Informal Music

    Tom Hamilton, J.D. Parran, Rich O’Donnell – Formal & Informal Music

    Here’s an experimental record from 1980, featuring the side long “Formal and Informal Music.” It’s performed by three musicians and led by the electronics guy Tom Hamilton. I can best describe it as an oscillating electronic bee-hive with beautiful woodwind solo’s by J.D. Parran and percussion by Rich O’Donnell. Especially the flute segment is amazing, [...]

    Added by Milan · 2 comments
  • Evelyn Lohoefer DeBoeck: Music For Movement Expression

    Evelyn Lohoefer DeBoeck: Music For Movement Expression

    I was pretty totally unprepared for an avant jazz freak-out on an Educational Activities Inc. record, but that is exactly what a couple tracks on here are. Prepared piano with bass and percussion that reminds me of something you might hear on an ESP-Disk lp. The rest is quite good too but it’s more of [...]

    Added by hcrink · 2 comments
  • Felice Fugazza - Megamoog

    Felice Fugazza – Megamoog

    Here is another ‘space electronics’ library, quite similar to the Electronic Age LP i posted a week or two ago. Released on Orly’s “Kaleidoscope” series, these tracks probably first appeared on a small Italian label and were soon after re-licensed to this particular French library (there are a few other records in this series credited [...]

    Added by ed · 5 comments
  • Electronic Age - Modern Science, Space & Mystery

    Electronic Age – Modern Science, Space & Mystery

    Absolute classic as far as avant garde/electronic library records are concerned. A number of Studio G regulars are on this LP, all of whom display a deep appreciation for tape delay, distortion, warbling synths, and minimal ‘space age’ electronics. If there were ever a soundtrack to everyday space station living in the 22nd century, this [...]

    Added by ed · 13 comments
  • The Entourage Music And Theatre Ensemble

    The Entourage Music And Theatre Ensemble

    From the back cover: A brilliant first album by a totally original group performing their own compositions in an experimental – spiritualistic environment. A synergism of instrumental sound (including saxophone, keyboards, percussion, viola, recorder, guitar, drums, and thumb piano, etc.) The Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble is a collective reflecting techniques found in Noh Theatre, [...]

    Added by jeremy · 1 comment
  • Bobby Naughton Units - Understanding

    Bobby Naughton Units – Understanding

    This release came out in 1972 on Otic records. It’s one of those records I always revisit and hear something new and fresh everytime. The album is split into half originals and half Carla Bley songs. Naughton gets down on the vibes, piano and clavinet, Mario Pavone is on bass and nice clarinet interplay by [...]

    Added by jeremy · 9 comments
  • Russ Vines and the Contemporary Music Ensemble - Gemini

    Russ Vines and the Contemporary Music Ensemble – Gemini

    I have no clue what Russ was aiming for when he put this out. A majority of this record is tepid jazz, the track “zippy’s night out” gets pretty funky but then goes downhill. Here’s a soundclip of one of the spacy electronic tracks on the record – “Gemini 1″

    Added by jeremy · 3 comments
  • Music for Electronic & Older Instruments

    Music for Electronic & Older Instruments

    Very impressive “tape music” record on the Composers Recordings Inc. label with sounds dating from the early to mid 1960′s. The first side is credited to Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky, co-founders of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. The b-side features Mel Powell, former director of electronic music at Yale University. The record begins with [...]

    Added by ed · 3 comments
  • Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band - One

    Gravity Adjusters Expansion Band – One

    This 1973 LP on the Los Angeles Nocturne label has something a lot of recordings of group improvisations tend to lack – ambience and atmospherics. The liner notes sum up the group’s approach: “The GAEB had its beginnings in the late 60′s. It emerged as a music ensemble simultaneously with the experimental sculptural instrumental creations [...]

    Added by Daniel · 6 comments
  • Walt Rockman - Pollution

    Walt Rockman – Pollution

    I now have a new pick for favorite library record cover ever. It’ll probably change in a few months but wow is this great. “Pollution” comes from the German SONOTON label and features some excellent electronic drone action. The record is mainly electronic, aside from two very kraut-rock / motorik percussion tracks, “Pollution Drums” and [...]

    Added by ed · 10 comments
  • Jo Kondo - Recordings

    Jo Kondo – Recordings

    One thing is for sure: at no point during the making of this record was Jo Kondo told that he needed ‘more cowbell’. His 20 minute trance suite ‘Under The Umbrella’ is performed by an ensemble of 25 musicians, all but one of them armed with nothing but that most erotic of instruments – the [...]

    Added by Daniel · 2 comments
  • El Rodeo / USC 1970-71 Audio Yearbook

    El Rodeo / USC 1970-71 Audio Yearbook

    Here’s a cool record. Side one consists of an audio collage covering a year in the life at the University of Southern California. Some of it is predictable — marching bands, football games, stuff like that. But then you’ve got clashes between student protesters and administrators, a glee club type song (“we will have these [...]

    Added by douglas · 6 comments
  • Jim Nollman: Playing Music With Animals

    Jim Nollman: Playing Music With Animals

    Put aside whatever bias you might have against inter-species communication for a few minutes and give Jim Nollman a try. Sure, I know your cat doesn’t listen when you scream, “Stop clawing the god damn furniture, you horrible fiend!!!” – but, have you ever tried jamming with the little fella on, say, a Viheula? Didn’t [...]

    Added by hcrink · 4 comments
  • Al Washi: Epitaph for an Ego

    Al Washi: Epitaph for an Ego

    Some people might already be familiar with this from my previous discussions of it, but there are still heads to be turned and this album is rather ripe for Waxidermic attention. This record cloaks itself in a thick smoke of mystery: no record label or date and it is even kind of unclear who the [...]

    Added by Caterwauling · 2 comments
  • Carlos Fariñas - Aguas Territoriales

    Carlos Fari̱as РAguas Territoriales

    The side long piece Aguas territoriales has a very cool concept that is executed perfectly. We start off with the sound of dripping water. Every minute or so the Cuban composer Carlos Fariñas adds another electronic effect to it, progressively rendering it unrecognizable untill it sounds as the score for some scifi flick. Halfway into [...]

    Added by Milan · 1 comment
  • Musiques De L'O.N.F. - Music of the N.F.B.

    Musiques De L’O.N.F. – Music of the N.F.B.

    What makes this double-LP from 1977 special is it perhaps the earliest appearance of backing tracks to many of the avant-garde films in Canada. They were composed and sequenced (if you can call it that)using the earliest synthesizers and/or tape manipulation techniques. The compositions date from 1951 (!) – 1972, early in the game indeed.

    Added by aschrock · 6 comments
  • Sound

    Sound

    This LP was produced for an ‘exhibition of sound sculpture, instrument building, and acoustically tuned spaces’ that took place at the Los Angeles Institute Of Contemporary Art July 14-August 31, 1979. It contains twenty six pieces of music and environmental sound from Yoshi Wada, Bill Fontana, Joan La Barbara, Terry Fox, Christina Kubisch, Tom Recchion [...]

    Added by Daniel · 4 comments

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    The Order Of Orpheus

    The Order Of Orpheus

    A 1977 record channeling ‘A trip through the planes from the throne of god’, this is not your typical blissed-out private press new age trip. Instead it’s a far more interesting mix of acoustic 1970′s new age music with improvisational group playing that reminds me of AMM or Harry Partch at times, with the end [...]

    Added by Daniel · 6 comments