experimental music Archive

  • The streets of Los Angeles played host last year to an audacious experiment in mobile opera called 'Hopscotch.' The recording will be released on January 13, and a concert will take place on Friday, January 20 (7:30 pm) at the University of Southern California’s Newman Recital Hall.

    LA’s ‘Hopscotch’ – Experimental Opera of the Freeways

    Posted on December 28, 2016 | 1 Comment
    The streets of Los Angeles played host last year to an audacious experiment in mobile opera called 'Hopscotch.' The recording will be released on January 13, and a concert will take place on Friday, January 20 (7:30 pm) at the University of Southern California’s Newman Recital Hall.

    Continue Reading...

  • Harry Partch, leader of the Geo-Fauvist (wild-earth) composers, and 20th Century pioneer in working systematically with microtonal scales, also built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions. Watch the documentary The Outsider, The Story of Harry Partch.

    Sound of the Earth in Microtones: Harry Partch

    Posted on July 18, 2015 | 2 Comments
    Harry Partch, leader of the Geo-Fauvist (wild-earth) composers, and 20th Century pioneer in working systematically with microtonal scales, also built custom-made instruments in these tunings on which to play his compositions. Watch the documentary The Outsider, The Story of Harry Partch.

    Continue Reading...

  • The first band ever to be called "industrial," Throbbing Gristle's confrontational live performances and use of disturbing imagery, mixed with pre-recorded tape samples and special effects, created a distorted sound performance, quite ground-breaking in its time. Spinoff bands Psychic TV and Chris and Cosey continued to shock and beautify into the 1980s.

    Throbbing Gristle’s Industrial Emotions Broke Noisy Ground

    Posted on March 7, 2015 | 2 Comments
    The first band ever to be called "industrial," Throbbing Gristle's confrontational live performances and use of disturbing imagery, mixed with pre-recorded tape samples and special effects, created a distorted sound performance, quite ground-breaking in its time. Spinoff bands Psychic TV and Chris and Cosey continued to shock and beautify into the 1980s.

    Continue Reading...

  • Austrian media artist Bartholomäus Traubeck has custom-built a record player that is able to "play" cross-sectional slices of tree trunks. The result is his art piece "Years," an audio recording of tree rings being read by a computer and turned into music, much like a record player's needle reads the grooves on an LP.

    Music of the Tree Rings: Sound of a Wild Forest

    Posted on May 4, 2014 | 3 Comments
    Austrian media artist Bartholomäus Traubeck has custom-built a record player that is able to "play" cross-sectional slices of tree trunks. The result is his art piece "Years," an audio recording of tree rings being read by a computer and turned into music, much like a record player's needle reads the grooves on an LP.

    Continue Reading...

  • Dithyrambalina will look like a house, but sound like a musical instrument. A growing group of local and national sound artists are experimenting with interactive instruments that can be built into its walls and floorboards allowing visitors and musicians to bring the house to life through their touch. In 2011 they debuted prototypes in a temporary installation called THE MUSIC BOX, A Shantytown Sound Laboratory, and now look to build the first five structures.

    New Orleans: Shantytown Soundings at The Music Box

    Posted on November 28, 2012 | No Comments
    Dithyrambalina will look like a house, but sound like a musical instrument. A growing group of local and national sound artists are experimenting with interactive instruments that can be built into its walls and floorboards allowing visitors and musicians to bring the house to life through their touch. In 2011 they debuted prototypes in a temporary installation called THE MUSIC BOX, A Shantytown Sound Laboratory, and now look to build the first five structures.

    Continue Reading...

  • Composer, dishwasher, hobo, fruit picker, sailor, microtonal theorist, instrument builder, writer, visual artist, philosopher, musicologist, iconoclast teacher Harry Partch was one of the first 20th Century composers to work with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit (43-tone) just intonation.

    Harry Partch: Genesis of a Musical Outsider

    Posted on June 17, 2012 | 5 Comments
    Composer, dishwasher, hobo, fruit picker, sailor, microtonal theorist, instrument builder, writer, visual artist, philosopher, musicologist, iconoclast teacher Harry Partch was one of the first 20th Century composers to work with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom-made instruments that he built himself, tuned in 11-limit (43-tone) just intonation.

    Continue Reading...

  • Eagle Rock's Welcome Inn transformed into a micro-concert grand finale for Los Angeles's Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival on Sunday, January 29th. The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound produced this free, six-hour event.

    Sound Motel: Experimental Musings in Los Angeles

    Posted on January 31, 2012 | 1 Comment
    Eagle Rock's Welcome Inn transformed into a micro-concert grand finale for Los Angeles's Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival on Sunday, January 29th. The Society for the Activation of Social Space through Art and Sound produced this free, six-hour event.

    Continue Reading...