Avantgarde Album Recommendations
 

please, not just any!... i am looking for avantgarde experimental music that is either:

1. really pleasant to an ear, sounds of which one could actually enjoy listening to (like new zeland Thela for example)

2. or funny :) (like voice piece for soprano of yoko ono (or coco gordonmoore :) )

i am actually looking for ALBUMS, not songs only, please...near your recomendation please write down if it belogs to category of being PLEASANT, or category of being FUNNY :) the funny ones don't actually need to be pleasant as well ;)

thanks...

funny is difficult,
what springs to mind is John Zorn's Film Music to Cartoons i have no idea which one that is, its abit humurous as well as some of Mike Patton's work but it can also be viewed as annoying rather than funny. there is plenty of pleasant stuff out there... i have to agree with you on Thela!

Dean Roberts/White Winged Moth (Ex-Thela) is also very worthwhile if you haven't heard some of it yet.

Lawnboy over Rift ?!? Really??? Wow.:D

Ha. Well that's great and all.....but all hail Rift!!! I love Lawn Boy, but the studio album recordings of those songs just don't give the songs justice or "life" in comparison to how wicked they are on tour......I just think that Rift is on a whole other plane.

dunno how avant you wanna go

i personally love 'venice' by fennesz. beautiful washes of layered electronics and guitar. you can really space out to it.

or did you mean avant as in lightning bolt/locust etc?

if you like thela i'd recommend windy and carl, maybe their conciousness LP first. later period charalambides, e.g. joy shapes & live dead. maybe Biosphere would be something you'd like too.
here's a list:

yoshimi & yuka - flower with no colour
kuwayam-kijima w/carter thornton - shrine
chris watson - weather report
scorces/tom carter - beats for the beast
inca ore
jessica rylan/can't (not sure if this fits with your description so go to her website and listen to sound samples, www.irfp.net)
john fahey - hitomi
christina carter - living contact
also the finnish psych folk thing is full of easy on the ear but out there type stuff, e,g. Es, Islaja, Kemialliset Ystavat, Lau Nau.
Actually, the 6CD Invisible Pyramid /Elegy boxset would be worth investing in, and it's very reasonably priced, and very excellent, look here:
http://www.lastvisibledog.com/080.htm

as far as fennesz goes i'd choose endless summer over venice

endless summer is a good record, but i prefer venice. i find the compositions more interesting, and the textures more engrossing. endless summer is an amazing song tho, with really cool maipulation of acoustic guitar sounds.

I'm suprised nobody has posted Sigor Ros. It doesn't get that much Avant Garde then that.

Sigur Ros is awfully whiney music... it's bizarre people can stand it.

i love sigur ros, but theyre hardly on the forefront of the musical avant garde. i think as a rule, no band whose music is featured in a bbc commercial is avant. still, they are amazing, and theyre doing something different to a lot of current music.

No, seriously, avant-garde? Sigur 'tired idea in the mid-70's' Ros?

And Phish?

I wouldn't say something like Steve Reich's 18 musicians was terribly avant-garde, but it is pleasant and certainly closer to the founding notions of a radical aesthetic (which is a very blithe rendition of what avant is, but still) than Phish or Sigur Ros.

How about Toru Takemitsu? Berhard Gunther? I'd agree with Fennesz for some pleasant, simple stuff. Or Arvo Part. Part isn't necessarily that avant (more neo-eclessiastical to my ears) but he certainly is deeply pleasant and not at all abraisive.

Or even stuff like Miles Davis and John Coltrane - they're pretty pleasant while being fairly at the forefront of Jazz (well, they were a million years ago).

Well, I don't think you're really looking for "experimental". Avant-Garde has been a term so loosely flung around from everything but the kitchen sink. Maybe what you might be looking for is probably closer to minimalist/maximalist(reich/glass)? Maybe Eno. Cage's Piano compositions are really beautiful, some really incredible material.

If you want funny, get some DWARVES, old Dead Milkmen, or old DIDJITS. Some of that stuff is hilarious!!!

well, so far i liked Finnesz very much. thanks for the recomendation. gotta try some more of your recommendations, keep posting them, thanks. sigur ros certainly isnt avantgarde, its just another beautiful post rock band. but phish??? well, i didnt know much phish before, but i downloaded the stuff today, and its like saying elvis presley is avandgarde... even christina aguilera is more avantgarde than phish...hello???

Hey, you're from Laibach country. Get them, they're excellent. Very funny, if nothing else.

hehe, yes i am from "laibach country", but i am no great fan of them. i often see them around, but they make me sick :) are you a laibach fan? you mean i should get laibach? oh, dont worry, i know laibach, here its like every slovenian knows laibach at least by name, cuz they are the only band that realy did a big thing abroad.

Nah, I don't think you should really get Laibach. I like them a lot, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend them - they're more of a band to play people when you're having a drink with friends than a proper recommendation.

Perhaps, if you don't know them already, you should give Einsturzende Neubauten a bash? Their later stuff is quite lovely. Earliery stuff will probably give you a headache though. Try Silence is Sexy or Perpetuum Mobile. Again, not strictly avant, but certainly very good.

If you like Fennesz, I'd say to give Rafael Toral a try as well. Personal favourites are Sound Mind Sound Body, Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance, and Engine 03_04_02. He's also heavily involved in Phill Niblock's G2,44+/X2, which is another one I'd recommend.

id also reccommend gastr del sol, one of jim orourkes pre sy projects. it involves acoustic guitars over subtle electronic soundscapes.

also, id reccomend the fennesz collaboration with sakamoto entitled "sala santa cecilia"

Yeah, I never really considered Phish "avant garde." I was just commenting on their albums.

hey :) so far i tried many of your recommendations, i know some already, but of those i didn't know before, i liked Fennesz and Rafael Toral's Violence Of Discovery And Calm Of Acceptance, i am still in line to download some of his other stuff :) thanks guys, keep on posting, i need like 2 more gigabytes of such stuff :D