DUDE, partch is my second favorite composer (behing stockhausen and xenakis, no surprise there), i was introduced to him through this weasel walter blastitude article:
http://www.blastitude.com/17/CLASSICALGAS.htm
he has lots of interesting thing to say about 20th century avant garde music, well he says lots of interesting things about all good music, but especially this and like, wierd 70s prog rock (i.e. magma)