January 24th, 2012 / 1:50 pm
 Snippets
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Most compelling and/or fucked up sounding contemporary classical compositions, anyone? I need some space.

50 Comments

  1. January 24th, 2012 / 2:01 pm Jimmy Chen—

      my top three are steve reich ‘music for 18 musicians’; keith jarrett ‘la scala’ [part 1], an ad libbed 44 min.; and arturo stalteri’s take on philip glass’s ‘circles’; also the books ‘the way out’ album seems sorta classical to me which i’m diggin big time right now

  2. January 24th, 2012 / 2:03 pm Chelsea Rector—

      “Vexations” Erik Satie; “Orchesterwerke” Anton Webern; “Amplicon” Runhild Gammelsaeter; “Frog” and “Frog +” Merzbow

  3. January 24th, 2012 / 2:08 pm Adam Robinson—

      I Am Sitting in a Room http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCgicEWD1Nc

  4. January 24th, 2012 / 2:08 pm Ian Douglas-Moore—

      helmut lachenmann, eliane radigue, robert ashley – ‘automatic writing’ or ‘the wolfman’, florian hecker

  5. January 24th, 2012 / 2:14 pm Darby Larson—

      i have been listening to stars of the lid a lot lately for droning

  6. January 24th, 2012 / 2:18 pm Robin Treadwell—

      michael gordon – rewriting beethoven’s seventh:

      http://soundcloud.com/redpoppymusic/sets/rewriting-beethovens-seventh

      christopher delaurenti – favorite intermissions

      “secretly recorded at orchestral concerts
      across the country, this collection of intermissions teems with unusual
      soundscapes, startling (and unintended) collective improvisations, and
      surprising, sometimes gritty sonic detail from the sacred space of the
      concert hall.”

  7. January 24th, 2012 / 2:38 pm Matt Margo—

      A Silver Mt. Zion’s He Has Left Us Alone but Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms…

      Arvo Pärt

      Vomir

      Taku Sugimoto Guitar Quartet

  8. January 24th, 2012 / 2:39 pm Matt Tyler—

      the caretaker’s empty bliss album?  i’m uncultured.

  9. January 24th, 2012 / 2:41 pm M. Kitchell—

      just wanna second eliane radigue

  10. January 24th, 2012 / 2:52 pm Eric Anderson—

      Blake, check out my “writing music” playlist on spotify. It is full of goodness. The more contemporary classical’ish stuff is in the later side of the playlist.  (Also, check out the “Glue Sniffing” playlist next time you are drunk.)

      – Eric Anderson 

  11. January 24th, 2012 / 2:54 pm alex crowley—

      Gorguts – Obscura

  12. January 24th, 2012 / 3:29 pm Brandon Shimoda—

      Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima

  13. January 24th, 2012 / 4:00 pm Shane Anderson—

      fucked up: michael maierhof (anything), iannis xenakis, (orchestral works)
      compelling: giacanto scelsi (the album ‘triphon’ is gorgeous but i like his piano works too), fausto romitelli (professor bad trip is god), morton feldman, luigi nono’s ‘promoteo’ …

  14. January 24th, 2012 / 4:02 pm reynard—

      i like hauschka & nico muhly when he doesn’t sing, hauschka’s new album is tits, i’ve been listening to this album called en avant by ferdinand richard, anything tom cora is involved with

      good luck downloading right now, it’s like the library is closed indefinitely so you’ve gotta climb a tree & through a broken window on the third floor just to sneak a stack of books

  15. January 24th, 2012 / 4:13 pm Rusty Shackleford—

      Kosugi’s “Catch Wave” is the jam.

  16. January 24th, 2012 / 4:35 pm Anthony Cifelli—

      the caretaker “Patience”
      tim hecker “Ravedeath 1972” or “Dropped Pianos”

  17. January 24th, 2012 / 5:49 pm Patrick Wensink—
  18. January 24th, 2012 / 5:56 pm Gregory Pokarney—
  19. January 24th, 2012 / 6:52 pm Anonymous—

      Cage’s Ryoanji–ominous as heck. I second Satie’s Vexations–especially 18-20 hours long.

  20. January 24th, 2012 / 7:17 pm Shyam Patel—

      And Canticum canticorum salomonis, esp. from 3:00-5:30 and 12:00-14:30

      and Anaklasis for strings and percussion

  21. January 24th, 2012 / 7:22 pm deadgod—

      Metal Machine Music is as dreary as some say.  Ambient 3:  Day of Radiance is Eno-Z listenin’.

  22. January 24th, 2012 / 8:10 pm Anonymous—
  23. January 24th, 2012 / 8:53 pm Michael O'Brien—

      John Zorn.

  24. January 24th, 2012 / 9:07 pm Scott Riley Irvine—

      Those two are good, but I prefer Hecker’s “Radio Amor.”

  25. January 24th, 2012 / 10:01 pm M. Kitchell—

      yo, peep dat iannis xennakis 

      also, john duncan’s audio work is in no way contemporary classical composition, but it’s a headspace that’s nice and dark 

  26. January 24th, 2012 / 10:42 pm Craig Ronald Marchinkoski—

      the butchershop quartet did the rite of spring (2004). for 2 guitars, bass, drums. out on galapagos4. the cd also came with a second disc. disc 2 is hip-hop cut-ups/remixes of the butchershop’s interpretation of the rite of spring. both discs are interesting. especially if you’re already into the rite of spring. 
      here are two songs from the 2nd (hip-hop) disc:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_1Bpe43D9Q

      to feel clean i enjoy john adams. uncomfortable and dirty on some xenakis. la monte young to freak on. and most things can be done by ligeti. 

  27. January 24th, 2012 / 11:23 pm Scott Riley Irvine—

      Rachel’s – Music for Egon Schiele

  28. January 25th, 2012 / 3:23 am postitbreakup—

      will someone please compile a playlist of all these or a page of youtube clips of them so i don’t have to google them all individually, i’m extremely busy watching netflix & drinking & hating myself, and have no time to google 20 fucking things that i wouldn’t rather spend obsessing over my hair or reading about the personality disorder i’ll likely never recover from, as if i even want to get better, right, mom?

  29. January 25th, 2012 / 3:28 am Laura Carter—

      Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire—sprechtstimme—sung speech. I think it’s about Napoleon or some sort of kingly figure. You have to have perfect pitch to sing it.

  30. January 25th, 2012 / 3:28 am Laura Carter—

      And it’s not contemporary, but it’s contemporary “enough.”

  31. January 25th, 2012 / 4:50 am Anonymous—

      Kingdom Shore – …and all the dogs to shark

  32. January 25th, 2012 / 5:03 am M. Kitchell—

      dang, what the hell, i guess i missed yr comment before i posted mine

      IANNIS XENAKIS 4LYFE

  33. January 25th, 2012 / 5:50 am Shane Anderson—

      hehe, yeah, xenakis is really amazing. especially the bigger later productions that involved choir boys with fire sticks on mountainsides spelling out words like ‘knowledge’ and singing. n u t s.

      for those of you in the bay area, my friend is doing this concert in the near future.
      http://events.sfgate.com/berkeley-ca/events/show/231577684-lte-friday-nights-bampfa-a-tribute-to-julius-eastman

      i haven’t listened to much eastman, but he combined house and minimalism (and the voice). what i did hear reminded me of rzewski (‘attica’ is another must!) and Luciano knows his shit so i would definitely recommend going…

  34. January 25th, 2012 / 5:51 am M. Kitchell—

      holy shit, eastman is AMAZING
      definitely requesting that day off work so i can go

  35. January 25th, 2012 / 5:52 am M. Kitchell—

      also shane:  download/borrow/buy the UNJUST MALAISE boxset asap, it’s fucking great

  36. January 25th, 2012 / 6:02 am Shane Anderson—

      ok sweet, will do, thanks…

      if you do go, say hello for me! luciano is the best.

  37. January 25th, 2012 / 7:10 am Winkhorst Altmann—

      Hi. From the top of my head… Parmegiani, John Wall, Schnittke… Lately I’ve been into Galina Ustvolskaya (http://ustvolskaya.org/eng/)

  38. January 25th, 2012 / 8:44 am David Blomenberg—

      The two piano concertos by Alfred Schnittke.  Or Allan Pettersson’s later symphonies.  those’ll do ya.

  39. January 25th, 2012 / 9:52 am Shira Lev—

      Deathprod – Imaginary Songs from Tristan da Cunha

  40. January 25th, 2012 / 11:00 am jesusangelgarcia—
  41. January 25th, 2012 / 12:59 pm Nicholas Schroeder—

      Nothing wrong with Nondor Nevai’s ‘The Wooden Machine Music’

  42. January 25th, 2012 / 1:51 pm Music Roundup | HTMLGIANT—

      […] Blake, this is for you: […]

  43. January 25th, 2012 / 2:32 pm Frank Tas—
  44. January 25th, 2012 / 4:25 pm eric—

      lustmord’s songs of gods and demons, ben frost’s anything, aaron martin’s worried about the fire, murcof’s la sangre iluminada

  45. January 25th, 2012 / 8:43 pm Janey Smith—
  46. January 25th, 2012 / 9:34 pm Laura Carter—

      Oh, yeah: I forgot how AWESOME George Crumb is. He is tops.

  47. January 26th, 2012 / 1:49 am Anonymous—
  48. January 26th, 2012 / 10:11 pm Michael Snyder—

      Great suggestions here. I highly recommend WNYC’s contemporary classical stream: Q2.
      You’ll never stop hearing the future of music. 

      Some of it’s fucked up, some of it’s beautiful. Some of it’s both.

      There’s an iPhone app as well.

  49. February 25th, 2012 / 8:15 pm Tom Willard—
  50. March 6th, 2012 / 8:08 am Ultra Vegina—

      Earn – A Following Shadow.
      (Distant plateaux of space for ya).