Music that is spookily ahead of its time

In the Eno case, we're possibly just talking about instrumental textures which became easy to attain and rather fashionable 15 years later, but with Les'n'Mary, they were overdubbing and messing with tape-speeds much like the electronic composers of the period, but like (I suspect) few others in (lightly jazzy) pop. Psychedelia in glorious mono, and at 78rpm.

I go with Herbie Hancock's Raindance from Sextant. Play that to people and then go ... that was 1973 they just won't believe it.

Raymond Scott's Soothing Sounds are fantastic. Though they don't sound like they would be made now or any other time either.

At school, and throughout my childhood, I'd hear and sing songs that I assumed formed a part of our heritage as a species. Old, battered folk-songs handed down to us from our ancestry. Then they ALL turned out to have come from The Beatles...

The Neu thing is a bit odd. I wouldn't argue that they sounded particularly ahead of their time, but that their antecendents (ie Stereolab) sound like Neu were influenced by them, rather than vice versa. To my ears Neu do sound much more modern than Stereolab, but no more contemporary than you'd expect.

On the 'Lost Trident Sessions' album that was released a couple of years ago, they do this fast syncopated funk section that sounds exactly like what musicians to do imitate drum n' bass now, except it was in 1973.

Some Buddy Holly recordings sound a few years ahead of their time. His version of 'Slippin and Slidin' could be 1966 Who. Parts of Skip Spence's Oar sound spookily like 90s lo-fi.

My nominations for now: Talk Talk's Spirit Of Eden, Madonna's "Secret Garden"

Hm. The 'Dr Who' theme tune.

Ach, I know it sounds retro-futuristic now, but wtf.

Lifetones - Good Side [Dub/New Wave/Psychedelic Pop](1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdLk9YIfbm0

I could tell you this was released in 2016 and you would believe it.

Solo project from This Heat's vocalist/guitarist who also sounded ahead of their time.

Listen to the Reece bass and the drum sound on Ralph Lundsten's 'Horrorscope' (1979).

https://youtu.be/WACqp1iXkGY

Some remixes of Aksuk Maboul's 'Saure Gurke' around but here's the original from 1977.

https://youtu.be/bLW2zPUawS4

Also this:
Mariah - Shinzo No Tobira (1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRgLhEGEetc

Don't really know what genre to put this in... Japanese New Wave? Sounds like Grimes - Genesis.

Those are some good suggestions!

Also mentioned upthread but Raymond Scott's Cindy Electronium is mindblowing for a 50's track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SHJ6CcML80

what is this sorcery!?

The Monks - Oh, How To Do Now too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBqXXmPqyoA

They sound 60's of course but sounds like a more modern band copying the style.

Bernard Parmegiani's 'Capture Éphémère' (1969). Yoo sort of expect it from the GRM crew, but still.

https://youtu.be/0TcLzIm7rWY

Also CAN - MUSHROOM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dHYSXsJX6A

The first time I heard it I thought it was an indie band from the 90's. Has that sort of slacker sound that was very popular in the mid 90s, only thing that dates it is the synth sounds.

Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons - Beggin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQgmyQFFQjo

Another one where the style of music dates it but this has always sounded like it comes from the future to me. Can someone with a better ear tell me why?

still such a big fave of mine. don invents acid house. plus, first song about george best?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1ACr2EHSjo

also best documentary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPlvX0lgfao

i mean it's a GREAT documentary. and also best. about best. actually there may be better ones, but it's very entertaining.

Igor Wakhévitch - Rituel De Guerre Des Esprits De La Terre (1973)

https://youtu.be/lNcTePruv3Y

Lizzy Mercier Descloux "Hard-boiled Babe" - from 1979, beat sounds v contemporary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpWl_IsPneI

^this was a remix included as a bonus track on the 2003 reissue of Press Color, as someone in the comment section points out. I don't think the original version was ever released.

^this was a remix included as a bonus track on the 2003 reissue of Press Color, as someone in the comment section points out. I don't think the original version was ever released.

― small doug yule carnival club (unregistered),

That is an excellent song! Descloux has several songs that could count, the whole punk-funk movement sounds like it's coming from another time. It feels like a timeless genre.

from the comment section: I looked it up on Discogs. It's not really a traditional remix, but it's not a 1979 original either. It was recorded in 1979 but the mixing and overdubs were done in 2003. Check it out, this is track B9: "B8 and B9 recorded "N.Y.C 1979 & Overdubs & Mix 2003 at South Factory".

There's definitely some trickery in there, there's just no way that mix is from 1979.

There's of course also this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8jOhqOsouM

Cro-magnon - Caledonia

Proto-industrial folk black metal

John Giorno - Give it to me, baby

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDpK9fyeVBI

It's kind of disturbing. Many tape manipulations from the 60's still sound way ahead of their time for me..

i still have a hard time believing this was recorded in '67

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku87A2hOQU4

i was pretty baked when i first heard the swamp rats but i was thought they were like a band from Cleveland circa 1975 or something

Louie Louie in general is a song that feels out of its time. The Sonics version also sounds like it could have been released 10 years later.

german proto dream pop from mid 70s

Das Licht

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTasQTdZCpM

Der Mensch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8XXBCf5LHw

so is "i feel love" too obvious? that song _still_ sounds like it's from the future.

👻

also: beethoven's "grosse fuge" is about 100 years ahead of its time.

...> youtube?

There's a Beethoven piano piece that has short section at the end of each verse that is pure ragtime - can't remember what it was beyond being in the A-flat major, but while searching also turned up Sonata #32, his last piano sonata, whose second movement anticipated 1950s boogie-woogie way back in 1822. It's distinctly Beethoven boogie-woogie, but boogie-woogie nonetheless. Go to 15:50 in this youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIRkBvDCb54

great revive. that Raymond Scott piece in particular is insane.

holy shit at "das licht" that's incredible

citing early electronic stuff is almost too easy, but nevertheless

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jetzY-W78gg

Whoa! that Beethoven incidental ragtime moment is very underrated! I had never heard about it and it's very impressive.

This slice of 60s texan psych sounds to me like wire and a whole kind of herky-jerky 'new wave' rhythm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwzTSX6e4jU

I was just searching thru Delia Derbyshire too, trying to find something that actually sounded modern rather than soundtrack music to scary '50s/'60s movies. Maybe this one from 1965:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jetzY-W78gg

Oh oops, you already posted that

ok, how about Tom Dissevelt from 1957?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW-n6GWFAvI

great revive idd, with all the discussion on youtube embeds in rolling threads and spotify lists... well, clearly a thread like this benefits from the vast archive youtube has become

10 Ragas to a Disco Beat is the only thing that comes to my mind, even though it's widely known I'll go ahead and embed because it's still fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB4RYBpwV0A

Leiyla Visitations by Halim El-Dabh are from 1959. As an example is Visitation 4 (mp3 link here) which when played to an uninformed subject resulted in suggestions of early 80s industrial, maybe Bianchi or Lustmord.

"zizwih" and "theme from noah" are perhaps more immediately accessible and comprehensible in terms of later musical forms, but i'd say delia's best works are "blue veils and golden sands" and "the delian mode". ("tutankhamun's egypt" is also highly underrated.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyUkmxy5VMI

those and "Love Without Sound" (with White Noise)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6pTdzt7BiI

I was gonna post Beethoven piano sonata 32 but someone beat me to it

T. Rex's tracks "Monolith" and "Mambo Sun" both have a hazy sound around a loopish back beat that to me doesn't sound all that unlike some triphop from the 90s.

MX-80 Sound invent Slint in 1981:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHWEQL1cQ7o

1978

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wDnFbcocfE

Manuel Gottsching's "Quiet Nervousness" and Rammellzee's "Beat Bop," both mentioned at least once upthread. And "Number 33," Jan & Lorraine (1969), which sounds like some weird post-punk B-side from 1981.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DF2ns-u8U8

Would The Millennium's Prelude be considered ahead of it's time or merely the sort of thing that would get sampled in the future?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09QgHBEs6l0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y9wSWuxZp4

If you ignore the Ravel melody, Kebekelektrik's "Bolero" (from 1977) sounds like minimal techno from the 00s.

white stripes

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― karla jay vespers, domingo 7 de febrero de 2016 8:51 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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Doxa Sinistra - The Other Stranger. Wonky 606 + 303 beat from 1985.

https://youtu.be/vT6YCUSX930

Mind you, Eurythmics - Monkey Monkey is from 1982.

https://youtu.be/m6zhSXSiOpg

Some great showings for Delia but 'The Dreams' (1964) with Barry Burmange deserves a mention for being teh awesome.

https://youtu.be/WCF_mHKBH3k

Simply Saucer - Mole Machine (1974).

https://youtu.be/G7k94-HJO5k

blast- damned flame (1973)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llaDswZVdLY

> Also CAN - MUSHROOM
> The first time I heard it I thought it was an indie band from the 90's.

the mary chain were covering it in '86

This kind of thing is catnip for me.

Never knew whether to think this song was ahead of its time, or just completely out of time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJtvFWc7FDE

Love the lyric "In 1980, we seem so crazy". . . yes, indeed, even for that generally crazy fecund year of exploration and try-anything.

Anne Joyal - Eveil (1976)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmxGNZ3MBh8

add some more reverb and this could almost be an outtake from the Cocteau Twins' Victorialand

Wow, that Anne Joyal track is gorgeous.

Brigitte Fontaine & Areski Belkacem - "Patriarcat" (1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-oyVndrmfw

Robotic feminist synth funk, well ahead of its time

And I always thought this Siouxsie track held a heavy influence on early-2000s to now types of electropop (could have readily been covered by Adult or The Knife, etc.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfCfc0TqN_c

And yeah, that Fontaine/Areski track is a standout.

A couple classics for interpolation/sampling in a more or less "pop" context:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF2_1Jfgo4I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAu1wBYuCJQ

That Anne Joyal needs a reissue--seems like maybe something Lion or Drag City could pick up, or Light in the Attic.

The Fontaine/Areski track pairs in my mind with the Emmanuelle Parrenin track "Topaze," which sounds nothing like the rest of the album it's from either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLeAqReD2XI

I posted this to the other thread, but it fits here too... Some Finnish IDM from 1968:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktPopMt6Zh0

i had never seen this IHOP commercial until today.

http://goodness.greatergood.com/ihop-ad-1969/

that is some next level stuff.

Okay so this isn't that far ahead in time, but I've often wondered what inspired Kid Rock to use autotune for Only God Knows Why given that Cher's Believe wouldn't be released till several months after this album. Was he just trying to go for Peter Frampton type sound? Is this even using autotune?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DQup4hd1_o

I'm gonna have that weird IHOP song stuck I'm my head all day now.

Not kidding-- but I actually think "Cotton Eyed Joe" by Rednex was ahead of its time, and would have been an even more massive hit now.

But Rednex didn't even start the "country + Eurodance" mini fad of the mid-90s! The Grid was the first, and 2 Cowboys' Everybody Gonfi Gon preceded "Cotton Eye Joe" too. Rednex were just following a trend.

I don't agree that it sounds ahead of its time but eurodans+country should definitely make a slight modern comeback.

I think "Timber" kinda filled that gap

What's that late 70s/early 80s disco record that sounds like microhouse

Kikrokos - life is a jungle? (6 min in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x0d8nJlEnw

it's funny how so many commenters on that IHOP commercial insist that it sounds weirder than they remember and that there must be something wrong with the playback, as if they're not willing to admit that they were exposed to such crazy shit when they were growing up. imho it sounds very much of its time (in a goofy Raymond Scott/Perry-Kingsley vein) but it would fit right in on a Focus Group album

Holger Hiller's sampling experiments predate glitch pop by a solid decade. As Is (my fave of his) still sounds visionary, it could've been issued by Morr Music in the early aughts and nobody would have blinked

This angry calypso/jazz/punk number from Harry Belafonte in 'Odds Against Tomorrow' (1959)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFd3u8mCb_U

Sorry, that's the wrong clip, and can't find the right one.

This Mannfred Mann song is the title track from their 1966 EP where it already sounded futuristic. But theremin band Lothar and the Hand People took it to a new level two years later - From the clashing machinery keeping the beat to the detached deadpan vocals to the dissonant guitars and synths, this could easily have been the work of Gary Numan or any of his early-80s new-wave synth pop disciples, or even current-millenium acts like, say, Modest Mouse. But this was released way back in 1968!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDUFaRiUwsk

oh wow, I get a big Albert Marceour/Zolo vibe from that