What is the OLDEST record you can think of that still sound FUTURISTIC?

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As it says on the tin.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Friday, 26 August 2005 09:54 (twenty years ago)

Telstar.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Friday, 26 August 2005 10:39 (twenty years ago)

That's the end of that thread then.

― tolstoy (tolstoy), Friday, 26 August 2005 11:04 (twenty years ago)

There is something from before 1950 I want to mention but can't remember what it's called. Maybe later.

Otherwise, Stockhausen etc.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Friday, 26 August 2005 11:18 (twenty years ago)

Thomas Tallis - "Spem In Alium", 1567

― Löser, Friday, 26 August 2005 12:08 (twenty years ago)

Any Thelonious Monk.

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Friday, 26 August 2005 12:31 (twenty years ago)

Telstar.

To me that record just summons up vintage Fantastic Four comics and "Space: 1999" and "city of the future!" type displays in old 60's movies. It's trippy, and adventurous, and exciting, but not really futuristic...retro-futuristic, sure.

I can't really come up with anything older than "Planet Rock".

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Friday, 26 August 2005 12:55 (twenty years ago)

Lots of 20th century classical I guess can still sound like something from a possible future. Everything from Bartok to Webern to Schoenberg to Messiaen. A lot of it still sounds quite shocking & fresh.

― o. nate (onate), Friday, 26 August 2005 12:57 (twenty years ago)

Palestrina's choral stuff. Or any good polyphonic choral stuff. Latin = alien tongues.

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 26 August 2005 13:19 (twenty years ago)

From 1965: Pierre Henry - "Psyche Rock"

― LeRooLeRoo (Seb), Friday, 26 August 2005 13:49 (twenty years ago)

i am sitting in a room. who's that by? well that.

― piscesboy, Friday, 26 August 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

alvin lucier

― and I can walk out into the world, singing with my people (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 26 August 2005 13:55 (twenty years ago)

I was wondering about this the other day after hearing Raymond Scott's "Cindy Electronium", which was recorded in 1959.

― Ian Riese-Moraine: a casualty of social estrangement. (Eastern Mantra), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

And yes, it sounds like it could've been made right now, or maybe even 20-50 years from now.

― Ian Riese-Moraine: a casualty of social estrangement. (Eastern Mantra), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

dont think planet rock doesnt sound futuristic anymore given "goodies" and songs of that electro-crunk nature

― artdamages (artdamages), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:27 (twenty years ago)

Not as old as the other stuff people are listing, but Gary Neuman's Cars qualifies.

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

Joe Chambers, 'The Almoravid'

Music for 18 Musicians

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:38 (twenty years ago)

Rite of Spring? Sounds modern, anyway...

― The Original Jimmy Mod: Kind Warrior (The Famous Jimmy Mod), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:44 (twenty years ago)

Donna Summer "I Feel Love"

― Beta (abeta), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:45 (twenty years ago)

some Sun Ra album

― CMB, Friday, 26 August 2005 14:48 (twenty years ago)

Oskar Sala's Trautonium stuff sounds pretty futuristic.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

On the Corner

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 26 August 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

Why are people posting songs newer than Telstar?

― pappawheelie II, Friday, 26 August 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)

Song of the Second Moon (Tom Dissevelt/Kid Baltan, 1957)

― zeus, Friday, 26 August 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

anything by bill monroe

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 26 August 2005 15:10 (twenty years ago)

the forbidden planet s/t

― Ward Fowler (Ward Fowler), Friday, 26 August 2005 17:09 (twenty years ago)

edgar varese - ionisation

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 26 August 2005 17:11 (twenty years ago)

i mean, not the record, but it was composed in 1930

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 26 August 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

Gil Melle - New Faces, New Sounds (Blue Note 1952)

― todd (todd), Friday, 26 August 2005 20:46 (twenty years ago)

silver apples

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Friday, 26 August 2005 21:00 (twenty years ago)

I've just been working on a classic space disco mix. Some of the tracks still sound futuristic.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Friday, 26 August 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

bluegrass is so much more futuristic than goofy synth noises.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 26 August 2005 21:17 (twenty years ago)

Space - Magic Fly, i would say...

Possibly the Delia Derbyshire-arranged original 'Dr Who' theme, if something earlier (or maybe other DD pieces, which are just as much so).

― Tom May (Tom May), Friday, 26 August 2005 22:35 (twenty years ago)

Ornette Coleman albums still fee like that ...

― Chris O., Friday, 26 August 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

I don't know when the first Theremin was recorded, but maybe that. I saw in the doc about him that he sold out Carnegie Hall in the late 20s. It seems he woulda been recorded at some point not too long after that.

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 26 August 2005 23:31 (twenty years ago)

telstar and vintage FF comics still seem futuristic to me!

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 26 August 2005 23:39 (twenty years ago)

Does everyone define futuristic as bleeps, bloops, and theremins?

― PB, Friday, 26 August 2005 23:43 (twenty years ago)

I think Vahid wins with "Ionisation," but the first thing I thought of was Cage's "Williams Mix."

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 27 August 2005 00:19 (twenty years ago)

Sir Thomas Doelbe the Elder, "Shee Hath Blynded Me Weth Scyense"

― Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 27 August 2005 00:24 (twenty years ago)

ok spencer, what's on it...

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Saturday, 27 August 2005 00:55 (twenty years ago)

telstar? joe meek or tornados?

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 27 August 2005 00:58 (twenty years ago)

John Cage, Imaginary Landscape No.1, 1939

― blunt (blunt), Saturday, 27 August 2005 01:06 (twenty years ago)

Toni Fisher's "The Big Hurt" from 1959/60?

― JAXON (jaxon), Saturday, 27 August 2005 01:28 (twenty years ago)

dont think planet rock doesnt sound futuristic anymore given "goodies" and songs of that electro-crunk nature
-- artdamages (chris.tha()[email protected]), August 26th, 2005 8:27 AM. (artdamages)

Does everyone define futuristic as bleeps, bloops, and theremins?
-- PB (non...), August 27th, 2005 5:43 PM.

ok, couple of "interesting" points here.

first of all, i have trouble parsing that first post, but i think maybe hamrin is asking if something can still be called "futuristic" if its main relevance is to the present?

second, i think PB is right in pointing out that our accepted set of signifiers for "the future" are sort of arbitrary, and, in the first place, basically were signifying concerns of the modern age (this is standard lit crit take on sci fi) ... at the dawn of the computer age / space age, you had a music obsessed w/ electricity that tried to speak as "music of the future" but was really just music revolving around the obsessions of the present...

on the other hand, it's as equally (if not more) arbitrary to equate anything else w/ the future - there may be a bagpipe craze 20 years from now but that doesn't make today's bagpipe albums sound futuristic.

i guess this is my roundabout way of saying i think "ionisation" sounds futuristic because it sounds like the record photek could be making today or next year, or something dizzee + wiley could be trading verses over (is that cheesy?) ... in art crit, there's this idea that the historical avant-garde renews itself by revivifying current practices - in other words, the avant-garde of the past returns to us from the future as current artists take inspiration (literally, take - reach back and grab) from old methods to make an exhausted current art magically new again.

― vahid (vahid), Saturday, 27 August 2005 02:31 (twenty years ago)

"Cornet Chop Suey"

― Burr (Burr), Saturday, 27 August 2005 03:06 (twenty years ago)

http://www.jacquedee63.com/intheyear2525.html

60's - Zager and Evans - In the Year 2525
70's - carpenters calling occupants of interplanetary craft.
this freaks me out :
1 blondie singing about a "pocket computer in " picture this "
2 stones "2000 man" singing about a computer.covered by kiss .

― zager and evans, Saturday, 27 August 2005 04:07 (twenty years ago)

http://www.jacquedee63.com/intheyear2525.html

60's - Zager and Evans - In the Year 2525
In the year 6565
You won't need no husband, won't need no wife
You'll pick your son, pick your daughter too
From the bottom of a long glass tube

― zager and evans, Saturday, 27 August 2005 04:09 (twenty years ago)

http://www.dustygroove.com/images/products/m/meek_joemee_ihearanew_101b.jpg

― Voodoo Child, Saturday, 27 August 2005 04:11 (twenty years ago)

Ian: Raymond Scott was the first one I thought of when I saw this. Fuck, I need to get around to ripping his albums that I have sitting around somewhere... (That's the best thing about filesharing: someone else has already ripped the vinyl you've got...)
Suicide's eponymous still sounds like it could have been recorded today, but that's not what I think of for futuristic...
Xenakis's Concret PH still sounds like the future to me...

― js (honestengine), Saturday, 27 August 2005 04:12 (twenty years ago)

Joe Chambers, 'The Almoravid'

jordan i love this record. but...futuristic?

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Saturday, 27 August 2005 06:01 (twenty years ago)

maggot brain - funkadelic - it exist outside of time

― flavanoid, Saturday, 27 August 2005 18:24 (twenty years ago)

The first, unadorned bars of Pachelbel's Canon

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Saturday, 27 August 2005 18:28 (twenty years ago)

Actually, no, it's less futuristic than just plain contemporary.

― joseph cotten (joseph cotten), Saturday, 27 August 2005 18:33 (twenty years ago)

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