Is it me or has exp. music become kind of antiquated?

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Sure, there's a few great artists/genres out there, but in most cases I can't help but hear a rehash of the same stuff Throbbing Gristle and Nurse With Wound were doing 20 years ago, with the exception of "the drone", whatever you want to call that SBH of the Man sound (but even that gets redundant, and you can totally reference something as arbitrary as Crash Worship with that band), and maybe some of the glitchy electronic artists.

― js, Friday, 23 April 2004 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

In related news, Amoeba Records in Hollywood has condensed their "Unusually Experimental" section (put half the CDs on the floor) to make room for an expanded (and always crowded) Death Metal/Black Metal section.

― morris pavilion (samjeff), Friday, 23 April 2004 16:35 (twenty-two years ago)

ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE TO THREAD

― Acid! Polizei! (ex machina), Friday, 23 April 2004 16:36 (twenty-two years ago)

AMT gets a pass, sure (I actually lump them in with the drone, even though they're really exp. psych, etc.), and they totally kick ass, but you can't say they don't get redundant themselves. I couldn't keep up (nor did I want to) after that 3CD set with the same UFO cover....

― js, Friday, 23 April 2004 16:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Probably techniques once considered experimental have become so mainstream that the only way to go is backward. Maybe.

― Donna Brown (Donna Brown), Friday, 23 April 2004 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

some experimental music actually benefits from seeming anitquated in my opinion: Nurse With Wound for example

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't necessarily mind antiquated, nor do I mind the likes of Fennesz referencing NWW and what not. What surprises me though is that in the wake of this redundancy, exp. artists tend to still avoid cross referencing more accessible sounds to further the experimentation, even though there has been much success with it, i.e. NWW/Sterelab, Jim O'Rourke's stuff, even Vladislav Delay doing a house record. Is that puritanical posturing or stoner laziness?

― js, Friday, 23 April 2004 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

"The conventional is now experimental. It is in no way noble."

― hstencil, Friday, 23 April 2004 17:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Try:
Nautical Almanac
Runzelstirn & Gurgelstock/Schimpfluch-Gruppe/all ofshoots & extended families, i.e., Chocolate Monk
Ralf Wehowsky
Jeph Jerman
Yeast Culture
Deepkiss 720
Evil Moisture
Angst Hase Pfeffer Nase
Brian Ruryk
tENTATIVELY, A cONVENIENCE
Glands Of External Secretion

Sometimes people producing music/what-have-you lose sight of their own ideas and ambitions and aim for a popular sound, a sure thing--even in xpr. circles.

― Stephen Boyle (SBoyle), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:11 (twenty-two years ago)

"Being futuristic these days means
Being futuristic on your own terms
Being futuristic means loving worms
Saving your sperms
Wearing your pubes in a perm
You're not a whizzkid, you're just futuristic
You're just like everyone else, you lie to yourself.
Futuristic ain't shit to me
It ain't shit to me, ain't shit to me."

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah but mentioning the likes of Chilly G. is exactly what I'm talking about. How can he diss exp. music leanings when he's rehashing stuff from 20 years ago? I think the comment on backward being the only direction to go in has legs, as everyone in mainstream music seems to already be on that dick.

― js, Friday, 23 April 2004 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

also, this may be one of those deals where familiarity breeds jadedness

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Like the good book says, "That which has been is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:26 (twenty-two years ago)

who said "everything changes but the avant garde"?

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:29 (twenty-two years ago)

a rehash of the same stuff Throbbing Gristle and Nurse With Wound were doing 20 years ago

Oh, you mean like the same stuff Kraftwerk was doing 30 years ago? And Morton Subotnick was doing 40 years ago? If the sound of sandpaper on glass doesn't do it for you any more, then I guess all this marginal music starts to seem...marginal.

― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Is it me or have exp. music listeners become kind of antiquated?

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:41 (twenty-two years ago)

If John Cage were alive today he'd be collaborating with Timbaland.

― Mark (MarkR), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:47 (twenty-two years ago)

My new experimental music is outside the range of human hearing! It makes dogs cry and makes everything vibrate silently!

― Acid! Polizei! (ex machina), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:48 (twenty-two years ago)

If John Cage were alive today he'd be collaborating with Timbaland.

oh you have gotta be joking.

― hstencil, Friday, 23 April 2004 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Why would Timbaland want to work with John Cage?

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

The idea of "experimental" as a genre is really ridiculous to begin with.

― David Allen (David Allen), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm still thinking about a Cage/Timbaland collaboration. Would they be trying to make funky prepared piano pieces? A silent club banger?

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Aleatoric jeep music?

― Matthew Perpetua (Matthew Perpetua), Friday, 23 April 2004 17:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah but then where do you stick it? I know this stuff is all relative these days, so is there even a point to an "experimental section" at the local record store? It seems to me the artists tagged "experimental" can barely justify that label. Octavius is more experimental than most of the artists in those sections, just by virtue of the fact that he hooked on to a more accessible sound (hip-hop) and went with it, yet he gets dropped in the plain old "hip-hop section", while the guy running sandpaper over glass goes straight to the X-bin.....

― js, Friday, 23 April 2004 18:02 (twenty-two years ago)

If John Cage were alive today he'd be collaborating with Timbaland.

Should one of us tell Mark that DJ Spooky stole his handle?

― Clarke B. (Clarke B.), Friday, 23 April 2004 19:50 (twenty-two years ago)

mentioning the likes of Chilly G. is exactly what I'm talking about. How can he diss exp. music leanings when he's rehashing stuff from 20 years ago

Yeah, the point that Chilly G was making is that the Future is a historically situated phenomenon. An old-fashioned one, even, like Modernism being a product of (roughly) the 1900s-30s.

Although people are still using terms like Experimental or Avant-Garde to reference particular types of music, and I'm sure most of us would come to a general consensus about what sort of music that was, the words don't carry the same charge that they would have done 100 years ago. It's getting harder to "Make It New", not just because of what's gone before but because of the increasing exposure to what's gone before. I assume that Stravinsky, for example, is a lot better known and a lot less threatening to contemporary audiences than he was when Rite of Spring kicked off riots in Paris.

Does this matter? I don't think so. I would guess that Newness is infinitely possible, but perhaps now less in terms of structure or ideas than in the textures of sound made possible by computers, and in the increasing cross-fertilization of Popular and Experimental. (Tho' even then, Stravinsky and others were appropriating Jazz right at the beginning.) And since the order in which one first experiences different musics affects the way that you understand them, every individual will have their own avant-garde.

I'm not nailing this as clearly as I'd like to, but I hope it makes some sense.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Friday, 23 April 2004 20:07 (twenty-two years ago)

js, you are repeating other people's ideas

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Friday, 23 April 2004 20:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Repeating other people's ideas in this thread, or in general? I don't really see it in this thread, and I hardly think that there are many wholly original ideas discussed in this arena outside of novelty issues. At least I'm not asking for desert island favorites. I brought up exp. music being antiquated because I wonder why the guy running sandpaper against glass over a hum isn't trying to breed it with accessible or different sounds (and thus put a little weight behind that "experimental" tag), but instead sits in a hole dug many years ago, especially when those accessible artists are beating them to the punch by bringing their sound over to the exp. side. I know all music today addresses the question of whether or not anything can be original anymore, but I myself think there is some room in the exp. area, if those guys would just drop the sandpaper and pick up a guitar or something.....

― js, Friday, 23 April 2004 20:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah yeah, I appreciate your question and everything, but the way you've phrased it seems redundant in the face of postmodernism. My perspective -- and I know this isn't helpful at all -- is that I don't care what you call running sandpaper against glass over a hum as long as it sounds cool. I do happen to like a lot of records labeled 'experimental,' but labels to me are only good for sorting out recommendations.

― Sonny A. (Keiko), Friday, 23 April 2004 21:35 (twenty-two years ago)

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