Favourite electroacoustic works/works featuring electronics?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Orphée 53 is pretty damn good!

[some guy]

I've been kinda busy lately, and right at the moment is only a very brief break in the busy-ness, but I always feel I should try to respond to requests like this.

The other problem is that I listen largely to works that use electricity somehow, so this is a bit like asking me for my favorite works.

Impossible.

The other other problem is that the way I learned about electroacoustic music was first by simply buying every LP that had the word "electronic" in its title--electronic being the preferred umbrella term in the US in the 60s and 70s. Second, I started going to concerts with electroacoustic music, then festivals--meeting dozens of people who are not only very talented musicians but really charming people, too.

And it's hard to rank your friends.

So I want to play, but all I can do is throw my hands in the air and give up.

I hope more people join in, though. I hope more people listen to more electroacoustic music. More than just the usual suspects, too. Amacher, Bokanawski, Bruemmer, Calon, Dhomont, Dumitrescu, Eckert, eRikm, Ferreyra, Groult, Hanson, Harrison, Jeck, KK Null, Marchetti, Marchetti, Noetinger, Parmegiani, Rowe, Stollery, Truax, Wishart, Yoshihide, Z'ev. There may be more....

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Some guy, could you perhaps point me in the direction of a few works from a couple of those composers you mention? I'd be interested in exploring more music, but the sheer amount of music in existence makes me wonder where to start! I'm grateful we have places like GMG where we can share our thoughts and recommendations though

[some guy]

I know that a lot of stuff by these people has found its way onto youtube, but I don't know what.

And I don't want to recommend a bunch of stuff that can only be found on perhaps hard to locate CDs.

But "oh well."

Pieces by Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria Avram are available on their Edition Modern label. I haven't talked to them in a long time, so I don't know how much they've put out recently. And in recent years, their proficiency in English has dropped pretty dramatically. I have never had any sort of proficiency in Romanian.

But there's a sweet CD on Musique-Action '98 with pieces by Dumitrescu, Avram, Cutler, and one of my favorite pieces by Tim Hodgkinson. You can easy get that, in virtual or actual form, at the ReR site, which is a treasure chest of cool music. (Also the Emprientes Digitales site has a lot of the people I mentioned and so many more.) I'm afraid I'm not very good at narrowing. And you wanted somewhere to start.

Well, my sense would be that you could start anywhere. And youtube is free and easy to surf.

I know that Brümmer's Speed is on youtube. That's a nice piece. Pretty sure I remember seeing some Amacher there, too. There's one or two really high quality videos on Vimeo with Andrea Neumann. There's a bunch of stuff on Soundcloud and Bandcamp, too, which are nightmares to surf but have a ton of cool stuff if you already know what you want to hear. Not sure how many of the names I've already mentioned are on Bandcamp. I know that Lionel Marchetti has put everything of his on Bandcamp, and is adding to it daily it seems. Also a Portland, OR guy named Doug Theriault has a lot of stuff on Bandcamp. I like his Orange a lot, and Image Not Available, but seriously, there's so much good stuff, PLUS, there's the whole "you might not like the things I like" thing, too.

Otherwise, I love Bokanowski's L'etoile Absinthe quite a lot. This is available by itself on a three inch Metamkine CD (part of their 30 CD Cinema pour l'oreille series) or on a five inch CD coupled with its companion piece, Chant ombre.

There. That should really be enough to get you started.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Thanks a lot, some guy! I'll check these ones out initially and see where it leads me

[some guy]

I'm sure Richard Barrett's a very nice young man, but if you want really cool electroacoustic music, you want Natasha Barrett (no relation). Also, the Natasha you want is the Brit living in Oslo Natasha, not the America newscaster.

To make Google cough up the right one, you have to put Natasha Barrett composer.

But really, as I've already said, there is so much more.

Emmanuelle Gibello's about as inventive as it's possible to imagine. Elsa Justel and Christine Groult are probably as unknown as it's possible to imagine. Both really strong, fine composers.

Yeah. Lotta nice stuff out there. Try to find Jonathan Berger's Meteora if you can. That's a real thriller.

(I like Richard Barrett, too, just by the way. )

[amw]

I've been seriously neglecting electronic music lately and feel kind of bad about it, like I'm turning into one of those stodgy old ladies who complains about Stravinsky being just too modern for her. Seems like I listen to nothing but Bach and Beethoven now. But anyway.

These are the ones I can remember listening to lately that really struck a chord somewhere

Luc Ferrari - Presque Rien
Luc Ferrari - Danses organiques
Yannis Kyriakides - The Thing Like Us
Richard Barrett - life-form
Natasha Barrett - Industrial Revelations
Denis Smalley - Tides
Francisco López - La Selva
Olivia Block - Pure Gaze
Roland Kayn - Tektra
Roland Kayn - Simultan
Vanessa Rossetto - Dogs in English Porcelain
Vanessa Rossetto - Whoreson in the Wilderness
Benedict Mason - felt | ebb | thus | brink | here | array | telling

There's a lot of stuff that I feel I should know but don't, or feel I should like better and don't. Oh well