Avant Garde music you will love

Avant Garde

style / mood

Editor's Picks (see more)

GUSTAVO AGUILAR: Unsettled On An Old Sense Of Place
The trend in avant garde, improvised music these days is often guided by a sense of a “busting apart,” of pieces being flung outward from a dissolved or imperceptible center, of small shards of ideas with no home or center to come back to; like thoughts without the mind to think them, like a mind without a body: an overall, disconnected impression. This is not the case with Gustavo Aguilar. As conveyed by his title, “Unsettled On an Old Sense of Place,” while these shards of sound explore daring and limitless territory, there is an overwhelming yearning in these gestures for their center. While that center is felt to varying degrees, the paths that these shards travel to the core, like faint trails of smoke, are not tangible, but are perceptible. Without being horizontal enough to touch on the “soundscape” description, Aguilar’s sense of musical development is not lost on one who is listening for form and who is hoping to be taken some place, rather than simply bombarded with random noise munchies. Despite the lack of meter or a bar line. Inspired by experiences from his childhood, these pieces are experienced like moving collages, not unlike a kaleidoscope of definitive, vivid fragments, playfully intertwining, rising, falling and transforming.
CD price: $12.97 / MP3 price: $11.00
OLA HERASYMENKO OLIYNYK: Three Concertos for Bandura
A CD of historic significance, it is the first ever to feature original music for the concert bandura and symphony orchestra. Highlighting the work of contemporary Ukrainian composer, Yuriy Oliynyk, with bandura soloist, Herasymenko Oliynyk, this disc features remarkably inventive and expressive writing for this folk instrument. Bridging traditional applications with a defnitive, "American" contemporary tone, these three memorable works, named the "American," "Romantic," and "Trypillian" concertos, are a brave and fascinating cross-cultural musical accomplishment. With nuanced and colorful orchestration, delivered with outstanding musicianship by the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra and the Lviv Virtuosos Orchestra, the efforts of both the soloist and the composer were recently awarded with honorable citations by the Ukrainian government in Kyiv for special contribution to Ukrainian culture abroad. This important release is a very notable project that will certainly awaken more musical ideas and conversation in the hearts and minds of academics, composers, performers and audiences.
CD price: $12.97 / MP3 price: $12.97
CORNELIUS: Sensuous
Remember when you were driving to your lame part-time college job when over the college radio station they announced that they loved Cornelius’ new release “Fantastma” so much that they were playing from start to finish and you fell ass over tea kettle in love with the record and even showed up late to work because you sat in your car listening to it? No? I guess it was just me… and I can't believe it was 10 years ago. Unique even in his competitively multifaceted home base of Tokyo, this “Japanese Beck” has released a string albums in the US that have been well-received by critics, and built up a cult-like American following. He’s remixed everyone from Bloc Party to James Brown, but his own music is incredibly textural and unpredictable. This latest record is a little more sophisticated than the one I fell in love with in 1997, and it features intensely deep explorations of rhythm, buffed by occasional sparse melodies or crazy sounds, and marked by his trademark patchwork of samples. Between the songs out of left field and pretty songs, it’s clear that Keigo Oyamada is a genius and his music is nothing if not visionary.
CD price: $12.97
JOSHUA PIERCE, WITH JOHNNY REINHARD & MIKE ELLIS: play John Cage, Charles Ives, Ivan Wyshnegradsky Live at the DOM / Alternativa Festival
Featuring the music of John Cage, Charles Ives and Ivan Wyshnegradsky, critically acclaimed pianist, Joshua Pierce, joined by Johnny Reinhard on bassoon (tracks 23, 24) and Mike Ellis on saxophone (track 24), brilliantly communicate these sharp and brittle pieces which fully engage the senses with striking instrumental color and stupefying imagination. The Cage sonatas for prepared piano are especially mesmerizing, often turning the sound of the instrument into something more of a strangled gamelan ensemble, a broken, metallic wind-up music box or steel pan duo gone awry. The voice and musicality that Pierce milks from these works is astonishing and while he is greatly respected and admired for his skill and artistry, even more telling is his ability to "stay out of the way of the music" and let the original inspiration shine through. For contemporary classical collectors, this is a disc that belongs in every library.
CD price: $12.97
CLARINETIST MICHELE ZUKOVSKY: Brahms - Mozart Clarinet Quintets
Principal clarinetist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Michele Zukovsky performs these favorite clarinet works of Brahms and Mozart with dazzling conviction and artistry. With a remarkable balance between power and subtlety, passion and elegance, her playing not only mesmerizes with its incredible agility and ease but with a command that perfectly captures these works in their full dynamic and emotional range. Backed by string quartet and orchestra, these quintets are sure to delight and inspire.
CD price: $15.97 / MP3 price: $9.99

Top Sellers (see more)

LUCIA MICARELLI: Interlude
Contemporary violin music, influenced by classical and jazz, with a focus on lyricism and emotional honesty.
CD price: $12.97 / MP3 price: $12.97
HEAVENLY LULLABIES: Heavenly Lullabies
Beautiful Traditional and Classical Lullabies Dedicated to the Orphans of 9/11
CD price: $15.00
THE HOODOO CATS: It's Hoodoo Time
Born from the "Mixed Media Music of the South," featuring guest appearances by piano virtuoso Johnnie Johnson along with Texas bluesman W. C. Clark, these cats blend swing, rockabilly,blues and funky soul to create a unique sound.
CD price: $7.00 / MP3 price: $4.00
BCM INTERNATIONAL: Men of Industry
BCM International is a consortium of four composers. While diverse in background and stylistic approach, we share a desire to enrich the repertoire with music unbound by traditional thought or idiomatic cliché.
CD price: $15.00
UNWOMAN: Knowledge Scars
Dark electronic with unique vocals and cello. This album has an experimental edge and occasional unconventional rhythm / meter.
CD price: $10.00 / MP3 price: $9.99
13 DREAMS: Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus: Redux
Scorching Rock, Melodic Ballads, Part Sci-Fi/Horror. Grammy Award Preliminary. 13 Dreams expansive remake of Spirit's Masterpiece.Steve Fossen formerly of Heart on Nature's Way. 8 page color collectors book.
CD price: $13.95
2 FOOT YARD: Borrowed Arms
Shatters the boundaries between art song and pop song merged with the intimacy of chamber music.
CD price: $15.00
JUKE BARITONE: Juke Baritone
Gypsy Punk Cabaret and Pirate Blues Mayhem.Think about Tom Waits with a hangover at a Screamin' Jay Hawkins gig in New Orleans, playing music by Muddy Waters, Danny Elfman and Mike Patton.then you're getting close to a hint of Juke Baritone & The Swamp Do
CD price: $15.97
BURNT SUGAR THE ARKESTRA CHAMBER CONDUCTED BY BUTCH MORRIS: The Rites
Experimental classical and electronic muses meet with a touch of weird, avant garde jazz.
CD price: $15.99 / MP3 price: $15.99
SUNSHONE STILL: Dead Letters
Contemplative and Dusty Art-Country
CD price: $7.99 / MP3 price: $7.99