A source for news on music that is challenging, interesting, different, progressive, introspective, or just plain weird

Tag: Avant-garde

  • Newsbits

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    Collin Thomas has some free MP3s of a recent improv performance at his site. Avant Garde on Film has a number of visual images put to the music of Scelsi. Gang of Tolstoy has some interesting works out in a “savant-garde” style. Calle Debauche has a new CD out of instrumental art rock similar in…

  • The Necks on Tour

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    The Necks (via last.fm) Upcoming tour dates from The Necks: Known as one of the great cult bands of Australia, The Necks conjure music that defies description in orthodox terms. Not entirely avant-garde, nor minimalist, nor ambient, nor jazz, the music of The Necks is regularly described as, simply, unique. Together for over twenty years,…

  • Avant Post New Music Venue in NY

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    Avant Post is opening its doors for weird music. Here’s the scoop from Tonino Miano: It’s called TEMPLE M (555W 141st street (& Broadway) New York, NY 10031. Me and violist Frantz Loriot are running a monthly series (first sunday of the month) dedicated to avant garde / improv. Each performance is followed by an…

  • Surface Noise at the Uptown and the Ivy Room

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    From East Bay Express, an article about an avant music series: “I was surprised that they had an experimental night here — an actual place with a bar,” said Oakland’s Reid May, whose curiosity got the best of him. None of the other avant-garde concerts he’s attended, though they account for about a fifth of…

  • Cecil Taylor at University of Vermont

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    From University of Vermont: Visionary avant garde pianist Cecil Taylor, one of the most innovative figures in the free jazz movement, will spend four days in residency at UVM April 14-17, rehearsing student musicians, performing with them, and delivering a talk about his life and music. Taylor will also perform at the Flynn Theater on…

  • Hathut Sales at the Jazz Loft

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    Morton Feldman (via last.fm) Hathut is having a HUGE sale at the Jazz Loft, basically, at $3.50 per CD, to celebrate their 35 years in business. In 1975, Werner X. Uehlinger founded HatHutRecords simply in order to document the artistry of a musician he heard through a chance encounter-saxophonist / trumpeter Joe McPhee. Today, over…

  • Vinny Golia Sextet, Slumgum, and Axis Trio in LA

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    Mr. T’s Bowl in LA will be the scene for an event: Vinny Golia Sextet, Slumgum, and Axis Trio FREE! April 15th, 9pm Mr T’s Bowl 5621 1/2 Figueroa St., Highland Park A triple bill featuring LA jazz legend, Vinny Golia! A virtuoso improviser on dozens of woodwind instruments, Vinny has been a featured performer…

  • For Jeff Albert, gigs make the man

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    Image of Jeff Albert OffBeat profiles Jeff Albert. In 1986, jazz critic Stanley Crouch wrote, “the vast majority of those who were considered avant-garde twenty years ago represented the first generation in the history of the art who were incapable of meeting the technical standards set by their predecessors.” Perhaps that was the case in…

  • The Avant-Garde Network

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    The Avant-Garde Network is a new, and hopefully growing, social network for people into the weird sort of music we discuss here.

  • Cornish College musicians re-create historic John Cage, Lou Harrison performances

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    Lou Harrison (via last.fm) An article reviews the performance and discusses a bit of the Cage / Harrison history. In the years between their first collaboration and their 1992 Seattle appearance, Cage and Harrison had risen from obscurity to become titans of the American avant-garde. Harrison’s forays into music of non-Western cultures helped fuel the…

  • A Duo With Phantom Contributors

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    I Heart Lung (via last.fm) A recent I Heart Lung performance is reviewed. I Heart Lung, a guitar-and-drums duo from Southern California, makes music of calm comportment and shadowy effect. Its style combines minimalist repetition, free-jazz epiphany, noise-rock fervor and drone-music mystique: an avant-garde connoisseur’s blend, unsteadily but endlessly percolating. That may sound esoteric and…

  • Meredith Monk’s Big Week

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    Ms. Monk has a big event tomorrow. A small army of performers, including 25 dancers and nearly 100 choristers, will occupy the spiral ramp of the Guggenheim Museum in New York on Thursday. The ad hoc troupe will assemble to perform “Songs of Ascension,” a ritualistic work by avant-garde composer and choreographer Meredith Monk, who…

  • Avantgarde Festival in Germany

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    August 28-30 of this year will feature a German avantgarde festival focusing on Krautrock and similar musics. Related articles by Zemanta Noise on the edge of wright – Tonight (netnewmusic.net)

  • Experimenting with Kayo Dot

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    Image via Wikipedia Toby Driver from Kayo Dot is interviewed. No doubt, you may have a bit of difficulty determining whether Kayo Dot’s latest album The Blue Lambency Downward is the soundtrack to a bizarre avant-garde masterpiece, or just a flurry of chaotic, sonic incomprehensibility. Did this Boston-born experimental project compose it for the end…

  • Musique Machine Reviews

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    From Musique Machine: Sturmpercht – A wilde Zeit A wilde Zeit is not the new album from Sturmpercht the masters and inventors of alpine- folk form; but it’s a fairly wonderful and consistent collection of odd’s and ends by the band which comes in near the 80 minute mark & offers up 18 varied tracks.…

  • February at Lampo Reviewed

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    Chicago‘s Lampo is rapidly becoming a model of how to bring modern avant-garde to a dedicated audience. Our friend and contributor Mike Eisenberg reviews three recent Lampo shows. In February I saw three really excellent sound artist shows (can call them electro-acoustic, but I’ve been using that term alot lately so wanted to call them…

  • Classical Music Meets the Avant Garde

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    And if you’re around Milwaukee tonight, check out experimental music by Ryan Carter. Strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and laptops. Yes, laptops. Classical music is getting an electronic upgrade thanks to a myriad of ‘laptop orchestras‘ popping up across the globe, increasing interest and knowledge in musical technology and a desire to make a break from…

  • Peter Brotzmann Tentet Interviewed

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    At least, half of the Tentet are represented in this 2005 interview. There may not be a more creative group of artists anywhere within the boundaries of any art form than those within the Peter Brotzmann Tentet. These are individuals that comprehensively understand their responsibility to art and it is only through this level of…

  • Tuning In to Experimental Music

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    An article discusses the Washington DC experimetnal music scene. With regular shows at Velvet Lounge, the Sonic Circuits Festival and the long-standing Electric Possible showcase series, it’s now fair to call Washington’s experimental music scene a bona fide scene. If you haven’t heard what the local avant-garde is doing with music, there are a couple…

  • John Zorn Book Review

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    Image by Laertes via Flickr PopMatters reviews a new book on Zorn. Where does one start in analyzing the career of John Zorn? The avant-garde composer and saxophone player is among music’s most daring and productive artists, yet very few serious studies of his work have been attempted. Dissecting his work is like peeling back…

  • Plumbing the Exquisite Psychic Depths of Robert Ashley

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    Composer Ashley is profiled. In the mid-’70s, Michigan-born composer Robert Ashley discovered a rare commodity in the art world: a niche. Lamenting that his homeland lacked the rich operatic tradition of Europe, he sought to invent a distinctly American art form, mixing dense sound environments and amorphous narration to create something he called “opera-for-television” (with…

  • S.N.O.W. – Sound Noise and Other Waves

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    Free Albums Galore delivers another recommended offering. For the most part, the musical project S.N.O.W. is a quiet affair. Sound artists Federico Mosconi and Mauro Graziani creates sculptures of tones and noise. They describe the music as “sonic representations of experience and dream, expression of a moment, through life memories and towards an imaginary future”…

  • Indie labels deliver the goods: 2008 in Review

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    The Denver Post provides yet another best of list. I didn’t have to strain to come up with 10 winning jazz discs from 2008. Actually, I had to edit down from at least 25 — that must mean it was a terrific year for the music, chiefly due to artists making uncompromising, heartfelt sounds on…

  • Total Music Meeting 2008

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    Image via Wikipedia This year’s edition of the venerable Total Music Meeting is reviewed. English bassist John Edward’s instrument is by no means pristine. Scuffs and scratches sully the top of its belly and the veneer is worn down on its left edge like a badge of improvisational fortitude. He stood on the stage in…