Experimental Work of the Month - Vote Here

cornbb

Ok, we're gonna try to get regular threads going. Every week you can propose a work (a piece, an album, whatever you want to call it) or cast your vote for a previously nominated piece. Every week (Sunday evening, if I can) I'll tally the votes and start a thread on the piece in question. If your nominated piece didn't make the cut, you can propose it again.

Because the music in this thread is a niche area and traffic around here is generally slow enough, lets make the threads as informative and helpful as possible. If there are any lurkers reading the forum, you are more than welcome to join in It would also help if someone familiar with the work could go to the trouble of writing a short introduction, with youtube clips or audio samples if possible, to get the ball rolling.

So without further ado, Experimental Work of the Week #1 is Terry Riley's "In C"

Edit - this is now a monthly thing

John

Nice idea

I'm going to suggest something old, Erik Satie's Vexations. His infamous 18 hour piano piece.

cornbb

John wrote: »

Nice idea

I'm going to suggest something old, Erik Satie's Vexations. His infamous 18 hour piano piece.

And the winner, with one vote, is Vexations

markw999

My favourite band at the moment is a London band called Baraclough. They have a myspace (myspace.com/baraclough) and a website (www.baraclough.co.uk). They've a few tracks on the myspace but recently they did an HOUR long session for ILL FM (www.illfm.net) and it's fab. They are described as "experimental" and an "elastic three piece". Shades of TG, but better than TG at times, and other bands but I love it. I love it. Hence the vote.

The session for ILL FM can be legally downloaded and/or streamed at www.illfm.net and is under the archives section.

So yes, that's my vote

ogy

Just listening to Music For 18 Musicians by Steve Reich and thought I would suggest it as its quite brilliant!:)

cornbb

ogy wrote: »

Just listening to Music For 18 Musicians by Steve Reich and thought I would suggest it as its quite brilliant!:)

I'll add my vote to that, thats an amazing piece

JC 2K3

I haven't read/posted in this forum for a while.

I vote for the album "94 Diskont" by Oval.

It's just brilliant...

nlgbbbblth

Belbury Poly - The Owl's Map.

Ghost Box is an amazing label.

http://www.ghostbox.co.uk

thusspakeblixa

ogy wrote: »

Just listening to Music For 18 Musicians by Steve Reich and thought I would suggest it as its quite brilliant!:)

+1

cornbb

Seeing as it's been over a month, I'll start a new thread on Music For 18 Musicians in the morning.

cornbb

For next month I'm going to vote for Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Work vol II as we were discussing it recently. (Remember that ye are free to vote for previous nominations that didn't make the cut. But ye should vote for Aphex Twin )

cornbb

Any more votes for next month's selection? We've only had one vote so far. I'll be posting it in a few days so get yer choices in!

JC 2K3

Again, "94 Diskont" by Oval.

Setun

I'm going to throw Kontakte out there, by Stockhausen.

Scubadevils

I'm going to go with Aphex Twin too, mainly because it was one of the first electronic albums I bought back then. The other around the same time was 'Surfing on Sine Waves' - both very special albums in my music collection and scary to think I have them since '94 - 14 years! :eek: Time really does fly.

But I do agree also with Oval so that gets my vote for the following month - this album actually took a couple of listens to click at first but soon did.

Oh and 'Sheet One' by Plastikman for the month after

http://www.discogs.com/release/2256

Minimal acid techno brilliance with a cool acid tabs sleeve :pac:

cornbb

Aphex Twin wins the day this month.

I'll vote for 94 Diskont for next month...

thusspakeblixa

Daddio wrote: »

I'm going to throw Kontakte out there, by Stockhausen.

+1 :pac:

macinalli

Think I'll rock the boat and go for something that's not electronic. I'll go for '6' by Supersilent

cavedave

How about Nude by Radiohead
http://www.radioheadremix.com/information/

They have made the different instrument tracks available so you can produce your own version of it. Experimental in the sense you can make it into whatever you want to.

JC 2K3

94 Diskont again.

Alice Junge

squarepushers-normal/hard daddy :):):):):):):):):)

cornbb

Alice Junge wrote: »

squarepushers-normal/hard daddy :):):):):):):):):)

I freakin' love that album

Scubadevils

Alice Junge wrote: »

squarepushers-normal/hard daddy :):):):):):):):):)

Haven't got this yet, must invest :pac:

cornbb

94 Diskont is leading with 2 votes... around a week left to get yer nominations in!

Scubadevils

I may be alone with this one but I would recommend that folks check it out at some stage -

Deepchord Presents Echospace - The Coldest Season
http://www.discogs.com/release/1232865

I only got this a few weeks ago and genuinely it is now one of my favourite CD's for unwinding. The sound just drags you in and demands that you listen from start to finish. An absolutely stunning album that I put forward for work of the month at some stage!

After four sellout twelves and a barrage of critical acclaim - Deepchord's full length Echospace excursion "The Coldest Season" is at long last available on CD and Download - featuring material not featured on the EP's and different versions of familiar tracks - all expertly blended and mastered by Rod Modell for your enjoyment. Produced using nothing but vintage analog equipment : Roland Space Echo, Echoplex, Korg tape delay, vintage signal processors, noise generators, Sequential Circuits 8 bit samplers & numerous analog synthesizers - this project goes back to the heady days of Berlin-based proto dub/techno variations, recorded and produced in Detroit and Chicago. Three of the worlds most important Techno cities colliding to form a whole that perfectly bridges the gap between The Motor City's emotive arrangements, The Windy city's percussive robustness, and Berlin's life-altering Basic Channel continuum. Listened to in one sitting, "The Coldest Season" chooses a different arrangement and track selection to slowly build up momentum and space - taking in the muted steppers reduction of "Abraxas" and the icy soundscaping of "Ocean Of Emptiness" before reaching a crescendo of sorts with the radiant techno of "Elysian" and the majestic dub killer "Empyrean" - the most revered track on board bringing this 80 minute album to a perfect close. Where Echospace go from here only time will tell - but for the moment "The Coldest Season" is a perfect distillation of dub techno and BASS reductions for 2007 and beyond. ESSENTIAL PURCHASE!
http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=37153

cornbb

Sorry I was late with this but 94 Diskont is this month's chosen piece.

Just to clarify a few quick points that have come up:
- Although you may nominate a work that has been nominated and hasn't won previously, voting starts from zero again each month
- Yes, it is totally fine to bump old Work Of The Month threads for discussion.

Scubadevils

Tis gone all quiet in experimental? How about this for future 'works of the month' - if you don't already own what has been nominated for work of the month, you go and buy it! I'm always keen to hear new music so would possibly stretch to one album of this nature per month

Also, as an OT point. I know this forum needs to be called 'Experimental' but I feel it probably doesn't get the traffic it deserves as a lot may not class what is deemed experimental to be so. How is that resolved? Haven't a clue! :pac:

cornbb

Yeah, its a shame its so quiet around here lately.

I have gone out and bought albums as a result of recommendations from this forum actually (not this thread though) and hopefully other people will find the place to be a good place to discover new experimental music.

The "Experimental" label is a bit open to interpretation I suppose. Different people would have a different opinion of what constitutes "Experimental" music. Its a nice little niche of boards to be involved in, its just a pity its so damn quiet recently. Any idea how we could attract traffic without dumbing the place down?

Scubadevils

cornbb wrote: »

Yeah, its a shame its so quiet around here lately.

I have gone out and bought albums as a result of recommendations from this forum actually (not this thread though) and hopefully other people will find the place to be a good place to discover new experimental music.

The "Experimental" label is a bit open to interpretation I suppose. Different people would have a different opinion of what constitutes "Experimental" music. Its a nice little niche of boards to be involved in, its just a pity its so damn quiet recently. Any idea how we could attract traffic without dumbing the place down?

Not this thread, shame on you! :pac: Seriously though, that Echospace album I waffled on about is essential listening - that one album has me hunting down lots more like it now from other artists and labels; and also has me buying vinyl again... expensive habit to get back into! I did actually buy Steve Reich (Phases) as a result of here alright.

I think different people would definitely have differing opinions as to what could be deemed experimental. I had never even looked at this section of boards until one day I happened to see a recent post on the boards front page which was in the Autechre thread - that got my interest so I then started posting here. I often see posts relating to Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin etc in the general music section too so people from there would most likely find music here too. I would imagine there are a few also in the dance/electronic forum who could cross over to here if they knew more about it.

In terms of how we could get more traffic/momentum here, I would suggest the following to start with...

Lets select every couple of weeks/months a particular element of experimental music. So say we went first for IDM, start a thread that deals with IDM and discuss the best albums, producers, history, youtube links, recommendations, new/unknown/myspace producers etc.... make sure to really cover a lot of aspects that can be contributed to ongoing. It should end up almost like a blog that can be built upon all the time... I mention IDM purely because it's one of my favourites but we can deal with lots of genres of experimental and build a good resource for people to read and contribute to. The question here though is, is IDM actually experimental?!

I think when dealing with more unusual or diverse genres of music you really have to delve further to keep interest and also to get the message across about the particular style of music or artist.

Tired after that post :pac:

owlwink

The Young Man Chorus seem quite random.

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=5gMWS-QcEw4

cornbb

Felixdhc wrote: »

Not this thread, shame on you! :pac: Seriously though, that Echospace album I waffled on about is essential listening - that one album has me hunting down lots more like it now from other artists and labels; and also has me buying vinyl again... expensive habit to get back into! I did actually buy Steve Reich (Phases) as a result of here alright.

I think different people would definitely have differing opinions as to what could be deemed experimental. I had never even looked at this section of boards until one day I happened to see a recent post on the boards front page which was in the Autechre thread - that got my interest so I then started posting here. I often see posts relating to Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin etc in the general music section too so people from there would most likely find music here too. I would imagine there are a few also in the dance/electronic forum who could cross over to here if they knew more about it.

In terms of how we could get more traffic/momentum here, I would suggest the following to start with...

Lets select every couple of weeks/months a particular element of experimental music. So say we went first for IDM, start a thread that deals with IDM and discuss the best albums, producers, history, youtube links, recommendations, new/unknown/myspace producers etc.... make sure to really cover a lot of aspects that can be contributed to ongoing. It should end up almost like a blog that can be built upon all the time... I mention IDM purely because it's one of my favourites but we can deal with lots of genres of experimental and build a good resource for people to read and contribute to. The question here though is, is IDM actually experimental?!

I think when dealing with more unusual or diverse genres of music you really have to delve further to keep interest and also to get the message across about the particular style of music or artist.

Tired after that post :pac:

Regarding whether or not IDM is experimental, I think it is not inherently experimental but tends to produce more experimental music than most genres. If you know what I mean. I think the advent of IDM in itself was a great leap for music, it threw a whole load of new techniques and ideas out there. These drew inspiration from both mainstream electronic music and from an impressive stable of 20th century "art" music - from minimalism to musique concréte and everything in between. So IDM certainly has roots in bone-fide avant garde music. But new techniques and ideas are only experimental for as long as they are new. So while IDM still produces great new experimental ideas, it is not necessarily all experimental.

As for the idea of starting threads on certain genres and using them as a springboard for finding new music, I'm all for it. Its important to remember that all of the content on these forums is user-driven, however, so the forum will only continue to thrive for as long as people contribute. I started these "Work of the Month" threads to nudge things along, I think that they have helped to a certain extent but things will only continue to move along while people contribute new and diverse ideas. The bottom line is, if you want to see a discussion on any aspect of experimental music, start one! I have a feeling there are a good few regular lurkers on the forum, so that message is especially directed towards you guys :pac:

Listening to some of Echospace's stuff on their MySpace* page and I'm liking it, reminds me of Basic Channel...

*Someone put MySpace out of its misery please, I hate that goddamn website so much...