Avant-garde music
Related: art music - avant-garde - contemporary music - experimental music - music
Brian Eno on avant-garde music
Avant-garde music is a sort of research music. You're glad someone's done it but you don't necessarily want to listen to it.
It's similar to the way I'm very happy people have gone to the North Pole. It extends my concept of the planet to know it exists, but I don't want to live there, or even go there actually. But it's a boundary condition. -- Brian EnoAvant-jazz
Avant-jazz (also known as avant-garde jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines elements of avant-garde art music and composition with elements of traditional jazz. Avant-jazz overlaps with free jazz, but differs in that free jazz is generally performed with fewer, or no predetermined structure or composition. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-jazz [Oct 2005]
Notable avant-jazz musicians
John Coltrane -
Evan Parker -
Sun Ra -
Pharoah Sanders -
Archie Shepp -
John Zorn --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-jazz [Oct 2005]
Avant-rock
Avant-rock is a style of rock music which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique. It has similarities to mid-20th century progressive rock, no wave, and modern classical composition. Some groups in this genre include Glenn Branca, The Contortions, DNA, Naked City, Theoretical Girls. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-rock [Oct 2005]Luna Park -- Avant Garde Voices 1912-1973
Sub Rosa (Belgium), 20th Century
A treasure trove of early experimental recordings -- a wealth of tracks from key early forces in dada, surrealist, and other avant garde movements of the 20th century! The package really dips back into the vaults -- and brings forth rare tracks from 1912 onward, most of which were recorded quite early, years before the use of magnetic tape. A good part of the material focuses on unusual use of the voice -- either in the style of recording, performance, or nature of the material -- and there's a strong link between many recordings and literary trends of the time. Titles include "Pistol Poem" by Brion Gysin, "The Creative Act" by Marcel Duchamp, "Pour Compte" by Tristan Tzara, "Poeme Pour Phono" by Camille Bryen, "Ursonate" by Kurt Schwitters, "Phantastiche Gebette" by Richard Huelsenbeck, "Le Pont Mirabeau" by Guillaume Apollinaire, "Une Aventure Extraordinare" by Vladimir Mayakovski, "If I Told Him" by Gertrude Stein, "Son Corps Leger" by Gherasim Luca, and "That Melancholy" by EE Cummings. --http://www.dustygroove.com/outsoundcd.htm#393129 [Nov 2005]
Renewed Interest in Avant Garde Music
Thirty years later, two new pop-based labels are pushing the avant-garde. The ultra-hip Asphodel label has released Xenakis' Kraanerg, featuring DJ Spooky, while Thurston Moore's cooler than-thou Ecstatic Peace! label has put out a vintage 1978 performance of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Kontakte. Never before has the avant garde been so sexy or so seductively packaged. It's too early to say how the records are selling, but Asphodel told me that Kraanerg was already showing up on the North American college charts. [...]