Electronic Music Then & Now

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Today I was listening to the Sub Rosa compilation An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music, a collection which tries to do something similar to that Ohm box and the Early Modulations comp, that is, place the "experimental" electronic music of today in an historical context by linking it with the music made by John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer, Iannis Xenakis, etc. All three of these are included, as are tracks by Sonic Youth, Ryoji Ikeda, Phillip Jeck & DJ Spooky.

It got me thinking about how the connection between Musique Concrete/ academic music/ etc. of the past and the abstract/experimental electronic music today seems very forced. I've never heard the contemporary set going on about the forbearers, being inspired by the records, etc. In some ways the electronic music of the 40s, 50s and 60s seems like a dead end; the music was difficult and challenging at the time & remains so now, and it ultimately had little impact on musicians or listeners. (Actually, I know stuff by the minimalists [Riley Young Glass] had a huge impact, I'm thinking of the denser, noisier material by the French guys, David Tudor, etc.) I have a recording of some of Cage's cartridge pieces from the early 60s, and it's easily as Extreme & "out there" as Merzbow, but it doesn't seem like anyone cares that Cage did it first.

It seems like the experimental electronic music today grew out of the ambient chill room rave thing and was probably DJ driven, just like dance music. Alex Patterson was spinning Eno & maybe some new age, & then he ran out of good ambient records, so he started making his own, kind of in the way that disco transformed into house. And the ambient music mutated, grew more noisy, etc. as it developed. Maybe the connection with the "gurus" was forged after the fact, and abstract electronic music of today has a much shorter history that owes more to Giorgio Moroder than Luigi Russolo.

What do you think? And how about a recommending some good early electronic music tracks while you're at it?

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 00:38 (twenty-three years ago)

You know thanks to Graham we don't have to type in funny little "new answers" things to get the discussion going.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 00:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah so anyway...

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 12:48 (twenty-three years ago)

mark, i have tried to do a top 10 of electronic music pre-74 THREE times now, and every time the browser fucks up. i think this thread is cursed.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 13:20 (twenty-three years ago)

It's cursed all right.

― Mark (MarkR), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 20:37 (twenty-three years ago)

let's try again...

top 10 musique electronique pre-1974...uh...ique. (assuming tape works, etc. count):

10. pierre schaeffer & pierre henry - "symphonie pour un homme seul" (it sounds like a visual-less street fighter game!)
9. Alvin Lucier - "I am Sitting In A Room" (freaked me out as a high school music student.)
8. Raymond Scott - "Nursery Rhyme" (idm.)
7. Les Paul - "Lover" (1947!)
6. John Cage - "Williams Mix" (dense.)
5. Herbie Hancock - "Raindance" (fonky. especially like how the intervals between the poings and zaps fired from gleesons electronics become the rhythm of the funk moreso than the live band.)
4. John Cale - "Sun Blindness Music" (kinda getting into iffy areas here, but it's so beautiful.)
3. Iannis Xenakis - "Bohor" (noisy.)
2. Steve Reich - "Come Out"/"It's Gonna Rain" (prescient.)
1. Richard Maxfield - "Sine Music (A Swarm of Butterflies Encountered Over The Ocean)" (peerless.)

― jess (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 20:51 (twenty-three years ago)

No Subotnik, eh? I still think "Silver Apples of the Moon" is a grate piece. I probably also would have put Max Matthews' "Bicycle Built for Two" in the top bunch, just cause.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 28 August 2002 21:31 (twenty-three years ago)

What about the theme from "Doctor Who" ?

― tacit, Thursday, 29 August 2002 12:03 (twenty-three years ago)

bringing this one to tha top, what with the new stockhausen thread...

hello there jess, as much as i love maxfield i don't think i can put him in at 1... and "sine music" over "amazing grace"? explain please!

no varese? (cf last glorious punk minute of poem electronique) and no dockstader? he is flashy, and maybe a couple of years later, but what a leap! his problem i think is that he still sounds so fresh that no one wants to put him in with curios anymore.

also reich: truly prescient or did his innate catchiness put him ahead of more worthy innovators? I'd like to rip into my fave bete noir, the reich-sampling UNKLE remix of tortoise but that's for another time.

― bob zemko (bob), Friday, 30 August 2002 19:14 (twenty-three years ago)

and no parmegiani!!!!!! waaaaaagh!!!!!

― bob zemko (bob), Friday, 30 August 2002 19:16 (twenty-three years ago)

come out

come out to show them

― mark p (Mark P), Friday, 30 August 2002 22:37 (twenty-three years ago)

Mark, I think you are on the money real hard. In fact, in a cranky mood, I'd go so far as to say that this whole "historical lineage to the musique concrete ancestors" thing is a cop-out invented by blowhards like DJ Sp**ky so they can play philosophico-historical crossword puzzles with their own tepid jonx. The age-old Validating the Vulgar game using the age-old tactic of comparison to High Art.

That said, a lot of that music is jaw-droppingly intense and great to listen to on its own; I think listening to it as "important influences on today's cutting-edge electronica" actually drains a lot of the enjoyment from the pieces - you're striving so hard to hear connections between Parmegiani & Xenakis and Aphex Twin & DJ Sp**ky that you miss the visceral, imaginative, whimsical, and downright frightening qualities of a lot of these pieces. Props to Jess for his mention of "Bohor," one of my very favorites.

― Clarke B. (emily), Friday, 30 August 2002 23:34 (twenty-three years ago)

"Come Out to Shown Them" along with "Violin Phase" genuinely blew my mind in junior high. I know I've said this before, possibly here, but "Come Out to Show Them" played at high volume got more of a rise out of my mom than any rock I ever listened to at home, not that getting my mom upset was my music-listening goal. (In retrospect I was of course being inconsiderate by playing my stereo so loud that it bothered her. My kara in terms of noisey apartments has been heavy.)

I know I heard a lot of other electronic stuff back then, by less known composers, but mostly it's kind of a blur. I'd like to look back into it eventually. (I should at least pick up some Stockhausen who I know I liked at times, though it's hard to remember the details now.)

Oh yeah, "I Am Sitting in a Room"--I remember calling up a radio station (one that actually played it on occasion) to request that one time. The DJ, who had even produced a series of shows about electronic music, was reluctant to play it and said something like, "It's so inaudible."

I think I remember Richard Maxfield, but am somewhat suspicious of myself since I can remember nothing of what he sounded like.

I remember liking Gordon Mumma's "Megaton for William Burroughs," though it probably helped that it had a catchy title.

― DeRayMi, Friday, 30 August 2002 23:37 (twenty-three years ago)

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