Avant / Experimental

Music for weirdos, and people who fancy themselves smart.

  • 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 […]

  • Les Bardanes - Vers l'homme, Gospel Night N°4 Les Bardanes - Vers l’homme, Gospel Night N°4

    Right people, like with my last post, if you want the sound clip you have to patiently plug into my webpage and hear mix 1 at http://dr.lloyd.free.fr/ I have this propensity I can’t shake for sonic and sensual overload and I totally recognise that one of my biggest faults is overuse of the tape echo function on […]

  • 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 of […]

  • 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, […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • 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 […]

  • Carlos Fariñas - Aguas Territoriales Carlos Fariñas - Aguas 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 […]

  • 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.

  • 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 and […]

  • 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 […]

  • Romolo Grano - Musica Elettronica 1 Romolo Grano - Musica Elettronica 1

    “A new dimension in sound — electronically tested in sound labratory.” This sentence, which is seen on the front cover, the back cover, and the label of the record itself successfully emphasizes what this LP is all about. Tons of analog drones, hums, bloops, delays. You know, all that good, test-your-patience-type stuff […]

  • Ilhan Mimaroglu - Music For Jean Dubuffet's Coucou Bazar (Finnadar 1973) Ilhan Mimaroglu - Music For Jean Dubuffet’s Coucou Bazar (Finnadar 1973)

    Dear Mr. Schnipper,
    Please consider this review for future re-publication in your zine (the pay here at Waxidermy is awful and I could use the extra $):
    Back when I was a kid in the UK, there was a commercial for the instant mashed potatoes brand “Smash”. It showed small kitchen appliance robot dudes who lived on […]

  • New American Music Vol. 1 New American Music Vol. 1

    Here’s the first of four volumes in Folkways’ New American Music series. You know it’s new American music because the Eagle on the cover is playing a harp. Eagles mean America, harps mean music and new means new. But this record is actually 30 years old, so I guess in this case new means old. […]

  • Tod Dockstader: Quatermass Tod Dockstader: Quatermass

    One of the four rare Dockstader lp’s on Owl from the 60’s. Haven’t heard the other 3, but this is supposedly the best. It is pretty darn great! Unlike many Avant Garde artists of his era, Dockstader was not really a composer - his background was in sound engineering - and his music very much […]

  • Jacques Lasry - Chronophagie (The Time Eaters) Jacques Lasry - Chronophagie (The Time Eaters)

    Subtitled ‘The Hypnotic music of the sculptures that sound.’ and released on the touchstone ‘Music Of Our Time’ series on Columbia, this LP is interesting not so much for Jacques Lasry’s compositions, but for the fact that the music was composed for and played on the Baschet Brothers’ Structures Sonores.
    As the Baschet brother not named […]

  • Freddie Hubbard/Ilhan Mimaroglu: Song of Songmy Freddie Hubbard/Ilhan Mimaroglu: Song of Songmy

    Crazy record that probably scared Freddie Hubbard fans with it’s extreme Avant Garde-ness. Yet, does not seem to be super well known among Avant Garde enthusiasts - proabaly because it’s credited to Hubbard and was released on Atlantic. But, this is every bit as ruthlessly experimantal as anything I’ve heard on any fringe Classical label. […]

  • Gerry Olds Trio - here goes Gerry Olds Trio - here goes

    No date on this one, but my assumption is that Gerry released this in the early seventies. This is a double lp, most of this record is really nice standard jazz trio stuff. They do a really dark version of Gershwin’s “summertime” that’s just begging for Rza from the Wu Tang to work wonders with. […]

  • Various Artists - Electronic Music Various Artists - Electronic Music

    Outstanding set of early electronics on the ever-popular Folkways label. It’s hard to imagine the nerdish looking dudes pictured in the included booklet would be the ones producing these totally bizarre sound structures.

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