Found sound/collage/musique concrete: places to start?

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I've got a whole lot of boomboxes and short (10 minute) cassettes, so I want to start recording and layering sounds/melodies/drones. I don't really know where to start with this stuff; the closest stuff I've really heard is Angst Hase Pfeffer Nase, Prurient and a lot of harsh cut-up noise. I'd prefer to work on the more pretty/psychedelic side of things--Olivia Tremor Control's more abstract work (Black Swan Network, esp.) comes to mind, as does a lot of drone rock (Bardo Pond, Dead C, etc.)

― Ian Johnson, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 15:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Top of my head:

"The Tired Sounds of" -- Stars of the Lid (one of my fave records of all time)
"Labradford"(3rd album) -- Labradford
Anything by Mirror
C-Schulz & Hajsch
"1992" -- Hajsch
"Insulation" -- Oren Ambarchi
Half of Nurse with Wound's discography

― w selman, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 16:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Ghedalia Tazartes
Faust (esp. Faust Tapes)
Mixed Band Philanthropist

― Jimmy Page, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:30 (twenty-two years ago)

Big second on Stars of the Lid, although I think I like "The Ballasted Orchestra" better. It's like being in a scene from 2001. For 74 minutes. On heavy downers.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 17:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Fly Pan Am - ST
Shalabi Effect - ST

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 30 April 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

just make it up as you go.Experiment. that's half the fun anyway. you can make cool sounds out of anything. you don't need fly pan am to tell you what to do. then someday someone will ask:what sound collage/musique concrete albums should i buy? and someone will say: dude, you have to get a copy of Ian Johnson's Ten Minutes Into Infinity, it's genius!

― scott seward, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

seconding the above, just use your pause button while recording and start randomly cutting things together off the radio. it'll probably sound great.

― milton, Wednesday, 30 April 2003 18:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, that's how I started. And look at me now! HAHAHA! Hmmm...

Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Henri - good stuff from 1960's.

― colin s barrow (colin s barrow), Thursday, 1 May 2003 00:54 (twenty-two years ago)

The place to start with musique concrete is Edgar Varese. He pretty much invented/named it, and he was a huge influence on Frank Zappa, among others. Zappa's catalogue is full of examples, but Lumpy Gravy might be a good starter for that aspect of his sound.

― John Bullabaugh (John Bullabaugh), Thursday, 1 May 2003 01:10 (twenty-two years ago)

actually, varese rejected the term music concrete, it was coined by pierre schaeffer. but "poeme electronique" is a classic (and probably much better as listening than anything schaffer did) and definitely worth hearing.

i can't really think of any recommendations to add (other than you might want to check out sunroof/the hototogisu, the taj mahal travellers _august 1974_, organum, agog, nurse with wound's "a missing sense"). that c-schulz & hajsch cd is really quite good.

but yeah, i agree with scott seward - just start doing stuff and don't worry about taking cues from anyone else. please!

― your null fame (yournullfame), Thursday, 1 May 2003 04:45 (twenty-two years ago)

ok, ok, thought of a couple:

ashtray navigations - those are pearls that were his eyes, four raga moods, blues for black afternoon/blues for nervous system (split w/universal indians), plaster projection instruction record, a mayflower garland, etc. sort of like if you melted a taj mahal travellers album on top of an old musique concrete collection; grainy, echoey psychedelic droning and noise, obscurity of sounds. phil todd was also part of anna planeta, who recorded entirely in an abandoned school if i recall, using battery powered instruments. and a warm palindrome, who were just great.

small cruel party - the subtle body 7". sort of like ash nav, but more autistic - rain sounds and a weird keening drone that might be an instrument, might be a shortwave radio.

― your null fame (yournullfame), Thursday, 1 May 2003 05:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Varese has no connection with musique concrete whatsoever but we'll let it pass. I recommend Nurse With Wound's "Sylvie and Babs" as an ingenious example of sound collage, I laughed out loud when I first heard it tho it is really no more innovative than a Strokes album. Bits of Holger Czukay albums are genius but the invention of samplers meant that anyone could attempt to do what Holger had been doing with tape, scissors and glue for years.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 1 May 2003 16:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Yes, but even Mixerman has to get out the blade every now and then.

― dleone (dleone), Thursday, 1 May 2003 16:16 (twenty-two years ago)

>Bits of Holger Czukay albums are genius but the invention of samplers meant that anyone could attempt to do what Holger had been doing with tape, scissors and glue for years.

except almost no one manages to make records as good as his run from 79-87... something about the sheer amount of time it takes to edit that way educates you very quickly as to which splices are actually worth making...

― milton, Thursday, 1 May 2003 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)

why does varese have no connection with musique concrete?
i mean,i'm not disagreeing or anything,i know very little about this type of music,but it has always been my understanding that
a)varese started experimenting with sounds not made by a musical instrument ("found sound")
and
b)that musique concrete referred to a type of music which used sounds of the type described above

so where did i go wrong?

― robin (robin), Thursday, 1 May 2003 18:18 (twenty-two years ago)

pierre schaffer is the person who devised the exact term musique concrete, dating from the late 40's early 50's. his book 'A la recherche d'une musique concrete' compiles all his papers and it's a bit of a manifesto.

varese was a completely seperate individual working along lines that sometimes interesected but his own goals diverged from schaffer's manifesto in many signifigant ways. his tape pieces were an extension of his pieces for orchestra. he used the term 'organized sound'.

they shared a lot of working methods so it's whatever you want to call it really... listening to the varese pieces you get more of an authorial sense to the sounds chosen, in 'deserts' the feedback sounds are so physical you can nearly imagine him in the studio violently shoving a microphone down the howling speakercone. there's a bit more remove in the schaffer pieces.

― milton, Thursday, 1 May 2003 18:38 (twenty-two years ago)

oh ok,cheers milton

― robin (robin), Thursday, 1 May 2003 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

apologies if I go on too long. I'm a horrible writer to boot. this list is such a temptation to just sound off and make an idiot of yourself... fun though.

― milton, Thursday, 1 May 2003 18:55 (twenty-two years ago)

not at all,no apologies necessary

― robin (robin), Thursday, 1 May 2003 19:39 (twenty-two years ago)

has anyone heard larry austin's new realization of john cage's 'williams mix'? is it worth buying?

― milton, Thursday, 1 May 2003 20:11 (twenty-two years ago)

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