Strategies Against Architecture - The Avant Garde/Experimental Album Club
 

Welcome to the The Avant Garde/Experimental Album Club! Since this part of the forum has been slow, this might be a good way to revive it. I'm happy there are already people interested, but anyone can join at any time. The idea is similar to other clubs here especially to tore's The Prog & Fusion Album Club. I like the idea of every chosen album having its own thread. That means we are going to suggest albums for listening in this thread and then we're going to vote for one. When suggesting an album it would be nice to include some album art along with a name, year (it's not necessary, but I like it) and a bit of info (or at least a link to allmusic, rate your music or something similar). That way we will know what we vote for.

The next question would be: What makes some album avant-garde or experimental? Let's just say, any composer, musician or a band that you would write about in this part of the forum count. We're not going to be strict about tagging. This way, we have a very broad field to choose from, everything from so called high art avant-garde music to experimental genres of popular music. It just has to go out of comfort, established zone and be off-center.

For the first round, we can start suggesting albums these two days. Then, I'll add poll here and we'll vote over weekend. We will have a week for listening to chosen album. Plenty of time for it to sink in. After that I'll open the discussion thread. And then we can do this weekly. If that's all right with you, I can later edit these rules to be more readable.

Let's begin! :)

This week listening:

Discussion Threads:

Great idea.

I'm going to suggest this

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l9...nH/94312-2.jpg
Phew - S/T

I've mentioned this a couple of times in the past and I'm mentioning it again because it's such a great album. Phew is the alias of a Japanese performance artist and former lead singer of Japanese no wave band Aunt Sally Hiromi Moritani. This is her debut album from 1981 which saw her teaming up with Holger Czukay & Jaki Liebezeit of Can & also with legendary Krautrock producer Conny Plank.
Well worth a listen.

Urban, that's an excellent suggestion I picked up from one of your posts. Great album :thumb:


My suggestion:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA300_.jpg

Glenn Branca - The Ascension (1981)

The second album by (I'm sure you know him) Branca, avant-garde composer famous for his guitar symphonies, crazy tunings, droning sounds etc. He was heavily involved in New York No Wave scene in the second part of the 70s and had an enormous influence on later New York no wave/noise bands like Sonic Youth and Swans (members of these bands played in his guitar choirs).

I will check out both those and suggest one of my own when I'm back at my desktop.
And I really love the Cage quote you opened with.

Another one is Arthur Russel's album Another Thought. It was released in 1994, and is considered to be one of his best album. When Russel was slowly dying of AIDs, he decided to lean a bit on artistic sign (for what I know, he had previously had a very "poppy" sound to his music, but I'm not entirely sure). He uses a cello and often adds a bit of distortion to it to give it an interesting feel. If you listen to how he plays, it is very strange and definitely has an avant-garde sound with atypical pauses and note sequences. Although, his voice is very "folky" to me when he sings. Anyways, I wouldn't consider it the greatest avant-garde/experimental album ever recorded, but I do think it deserves a bit of merit.

http://brainwashed.com/brain/images/...er_thought.jpg

my suggestion......


Flux Information Sciences - Private/Public

Flux Information Sciences challenges the listener....with creative chaotic artistic terrorism by combining the 'no wave' sound with assaults of bombastic noise.....they are however as playful as they are menacing...this album was released on Michael Gira's Young God Records who said [they are]"Life-threatening and entertaining"....the rumor according to the Young Gods press release is that this album was recorded in front of a live audience of people who were forced to be naked and blindfolded....

edit....figured i'd add the press release

http://younggodrecords.com/Releases/Detail.asp?C=300

I guess my nomination would be...

http://static.boomkat.com/images/103147/333.jpg

Alva Noto—Transform (2001)
Alva Noto is one of several stage names for German musician and visual artist Carsten Nicolai. Wikipedia actually has a pretty good description of his music, so I'll defer to that: Nicolai transforms sound by looping oscillators and tone generators. He does not use sequencers, but edits his work to give his compositions rhythmic structures. Clicks and glitches are not used as ornamental additions to the compositions but make up the essential rhythmic and harmonic elements of the work. He frequently samples electronic information transmission sounds such as fax tones, modem sounds and telephone pops and clicks are sampled and organised.

hmmmmm....this is going to be fun :)

Definitely! Flux Information Sciences sounds really interesting. :)

This is great! So many interesting suggestions. I would like all of these albums to have a chance to be heard and discussed. So after we pick one for next week, all of the other albums will again be in the next poll. If it turns out that we have a lot of albums, we can stop with suggestions for a while (not now I mean), so that every album has its turn for discussing. What does everybody think?

Dankrsta, I've always wondered this, so I'll go ahead and ask. What does your avatar picture depict?

Sounds good to me. I can see this thread being one of my favorites. Plus, this will allow me to become exposed to more avant garde music.

i'm down....so far everything listed sounds wonderful....even VU and Nico....although i'm sure i've heard it well over 100 times :)....still could be fun to listen to and dissect for everyone....and hear your thoughts on it

Sounds good to me. I'm interested in everything that's been posted so far!

Also, we can always talk here about all these rules, about suggestions, whether to stop them for a while or not. And I mean it only if we really have a lot of albums.

For now, everybody who wants to join can suggest an album, but it's not mandatory. You can be involved by just voting or discussing.


It's a scene from Jean Cocteau's early surrealist film The Blood of a Poet. I think it's from around 1930. Very good film, not very long, but beautiful to look at and full of symbolism about art and a struggling artist.

So how does this whole thing work anyway? I've never participated in any of the other clubs. Do we basically just pick an album, all listen to it within a certain span of time and then just come here to discuss it? Or is there more to it than that?

i think thats the basic idea....spend a day or two getting nominations, make a poll, vote, top album gets listened to and talked about....repeat

by the way dankrsta....nice name for the club :thumb:

Yeah that's basically it. We're now suggesting albums. In Saturday I will add a poll and we'll have two days (weekend) for voting. I hope that's enough time, but if not I can prolong it. My idea is that we start listening to the selected album at the start of the week, so that after 7 days I can open a discussion thread for it. In the meantime there will be more suggestions (maybe) and more time for voting.

Heh, it just popped in my head. I didn't even have to think twice :)

http://i.imgur.com/cFfc5.jpg

Harry Partch - Delusion of Fury

This is a bit of a standard, but I'll suggest it anyway. It really showcases his unique, originally crafted instruments and the vagrancy theme throughout is actually very thought provoking.

Good call Conan. I actually almost nominated that one myself.

I too am truly excited about this club. My plate will be full of homework! :D

I want to nominate something more recent, sort of.

At first I wanted to nominate a Mr. Bungle or some other Mike Patton project right off, but I do feel we'll head that way someday naturally.

I want to nominate something overlooked.

I think this will be the time and place to nominate Nuclear Rabbit's first release Vicuna. It's available in all the usual internet places and on their website/the bassist's website (jeanbaudin) so despite being generally unheard of, they're not nobodies. They left a noticeable mark on California, at least, as well as attaining a worldwide audience (ya know, here and there).

I think it would be best described as a red-headed stepchild of Mr. Bungle. A kind of experimental thing. Really great lyrics when you catch them. The band knows what they're doing with their instruments. Their range of sounds is impressive. Hear it to understand. They are unique. Lyrics, photos, etc. at nuclearrabbit.co.uk as well (fansite)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MrUHzkuYVb...0/NRVicuna.jpg

^That sounds very interesting Mrd00d :)

@Conan - great choice. And don't worry about standards. Many people haven't heard it, so to them it won't be a standard, in reputation and certainly not in music :)

I will go for this:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_t6OSJJKEA-...0/c5h8s057.jpg
Einsturzende Neubaten - Kollaps.
Early industrial is quite rightly attributed to bands like Throbbing Gristle amongst others but this album really gives definition to the term industrial and by it's very nature is highly experimental.

Electric drills, power tools and all manner of electric tomfoolery are present on their debut yet it is relatively well defined and cohesive and although it lacks finesse at times, it certainly makes up for it in invention.

Even if you end up not liking it, one cannot deny the originality and verve of it.

^Excellent :) Going by the name of the club, Einsturzende Neubaten just has to be in it.

i've always thought Kollaps is the best example of what their name means.....

heh...musically and name of the album :)

Well, Einsturzende Neubaten, Kollaps and Strategies Against Architecture all mean the same thing. It's all about destruction, and with a hint of rebuilding. I just like the sound of the word 'strategies' :). In this context it implies a thoughtful destruction.

I feel sad. I don't know any of these guys... or like any of them (except Partch). >_>

that would be the whole point right?

to hear new things and discuss them

I really like that Partch guy. I looked up his music and thought "It sounds a TINY bit like Cage," but after doing a bit of research I found that Partch actually hated Cage and what he stood for. While I am against animosity (especially against John Cage), I do think he's an interesting and great musician. I'd really like to learn more about him.

Ok, the poll is there. You can start voting.

Links to all suggested albums with info

I vote Phew

I also voted Phew. :stupid:

Well, if we do end up doing Phew (which I have absolutely no problem with), do we have anyone who can translate it into English. Maybe there already is an English translation - who knows?

^That album has such a great music that the last thing you're going to pay attention to are the words. But, if it helps you, the song titles are in English, although she sings in Japanese (unless it's some semi improvised language a la Damo Suzuki, I wouldn't know really).

I vote Flux Information Sciences.

Also voted Phew - from the looks of it, it'll sound awesome.

Yeah, Phew looked the most interesting for me.

Voted Glenn Branca
EDIT: I'd like to listen to that Flux Information Sciences album, but... I can't find anywhere to listen to the entire thing.