What is "Experimental" ?

[BigBlock454]

What sort of bands do the members of this forum class as "experimental" ?

Are you talking about really way-out people; are you talking about free-jazz people such as Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Tony Oxley; what about Glenn Branca; what about bands such as The Residents, Faust, Wire, Sonic Youth, even say Captain Beefheart ?

Cheers,
Colin
Big Block 454

[KlingKlangBedlam]

I dunno,it's another vague music term. Every band experiments somewhere down the line or else they get boring and predictable, like AC/DC belting out the exact same song for 20 years, with the exact same notes and everything. I think some other label would do it good, esp. when half the music can be put under noise music.
Hell by these constructs and meanings, Neurosis could be experimental. It's just a vague term reserved for those who people like Isolation Tank feel would fit into both that and something the goth-industrial scene would like, rather than considering the term. Just like IDM. What's the alternative then to experimental,repititious?

[marcnyc]

Like you say, somebody experiments along the line, and there is no doubt  that a lot of the free-jazz cats or even the Sonic Youth, Wire and the other bands you mentioned are/were experimental... Experimental is a word that can be attached to any kind of music as soon as the person playing a certain type of music tries to experiment with other genres or even better with un-common/out-of-the-ordinary sounds...

[Chain D.L.K. (Marc)]

What we consider experimental music WITHIN the greay-area context (key word being "within") or within the context that Chain D.L.K. deals with, is usually really weird stuff, people who make music/sounds experimenting with "things" never done before, trying to find new ways to produce sounds, charting uncovered territories etc etc...

Take a look at the Experimental Music category in the Reviews section and read some of the record's reviews to understand what  kind of unhortodox stuff we label as "experimental"... Personally, when I say experimental, the Belgian label Staalplaat is the first things that comes to my mind, but there are a number of other labels and artists producing challending or interesting new things... In my experience I have come across so many things that could not have been otherwise classified, if not using the term experimental... for example, how would you otherwise call a record  made of the amplified sonics originated by a building or other structure and recorded with microphones to record earthquakes and other subsonic sources? or what would you call music made with the amplified sound of brainwaves? or an entire album where you think you hear keyboards, vocals, guitars, but all that has been used to create those sounds was a bass? or even a record where a pipe organ has been filled with combustible liquid and every note you play on its keyboard triggers an explosion pitched according to the size of the pipe where the explosion takes place in? or what about albums made of provoking silence? or even old hits re-created on an old computer, a self-written text-to-speech software and a truly shitty sound card?

I could go on and on about the weirdes things that crossed my path during the last 10 years... This just gives you a taste of how we use the term experimental here... Of course it is not an exclusive term, and like said before, it can be applied to different contexts, but it helps to consider the term "within" a context and to use it to describe things that are relatively experimental as opposed to absolutely experimental... Personally I consider the stuff I mentioned above really quite unique, but maybe in the future all the music we will hear will be made with brain waves as opposed to instruments, so what can I say? What is experimental now might not be experimental anymore in the future in the same way that some music of the past was experimental and is not considered experimental anymore today... After all, isn't everything relative, like the good old Eintstein said?

[BigBlock454]

I like the "pipe organ filled with combustible liquid" !

Of course, you'd only be able to play each note once, so you'd have to write the tune carefully.

The advent of sampling, cut'n'paste and so on makes strange sounds more available to the average person  -  but people still seem to use samplers to copy other people's sounds rather than creating unusual stuff themselves.

[Chain D.L.K. (Marc)]

I don't remember exactly how that organ worked or what his architecture was exactly, but it sure was an interesting concept...

Also you have to consider that some research/knowledge can make certain records a lot more interesting... I admit that without the label's info sheet explaining what that noises exactly are, in some cases I would have thought I was listening to noise without a point... but the explanation and the history behind it makes it really interesting and takes it to another level... this sometimes might also apply to certain ambient music (in reply to something I have read from you somewhere else on this forum)... When reviewing a record I always make sure to put as much of this information as I can in my reviews... So I guess what I am trying to say is that, like in life, we shouldn't stop at appearances and we should go beyond that, scratch the surface and see what there really is behind in an attempt to understand the work of an artist better...

Of course, although I do not have anything against the use of samplers or the practice of sampling other people's sounds (plagiarism, cut'n'paste, sample-based music etc have all created interesting results throughout the years) I can see your point and I do agree with you that creativity is an issue and that originality is hard to find... unfortunately I do not have an answer to the problem, except of course reminding that it is the final judgment of the listener and the listener's own responsability to seek quality that can make a difference.

[BigBlock454]

Interesting reply.  I have worked with people (usually artists rather than musicians) who have said that "the process is more important than the end result".

That's a valid statement, but a lot of people will only hear the end result without any knowledge of the process (e.g. the instruments or sounds used, the reasoning behind the use of those sounds)  -  in that case, the piece of music should be able to stand up by itself.

We wrote a series of pieces for an art installation, based on the Fibonacci series (a mathematical series that occurs in nature  -  pine cones, nautilus shells, flower petals).  The scale used, the length of the piece, when the climax occured  -  all according to the rules of Fibonacci.

However, the people visiting the installation weren't aware of this process (unless they actually read the brochure !)  -  the pieces had to stand up by themselves.

 

[marcnyc]

what can I say? I find myself agreeing with you more than I agree with my girlfriend ;-)

[Jazzaloha]

So would electro-acoustic improvisation fall under this category? I'm thinking of musicians like Otomo Yoshihide (and other so-called, "Onkyo-Ha" musicians from Japan), Voice Crack, Kevin Drum, AMM, etc.

[KlingKlangBedlam]

I always wondered if old school Download could be considered experimental. It's techno but it's so sliced and diced up and put through so many weird time shifts that it's no longer in the techno range anymore.
The band I think created experimental to me was Van Der Graffe Generator for those who remember tehm. Pink Floyd could also be considered an embryo of it,using alot of strange ideas for the day and time.

A little history note for you: Einsterzande Neubauten directly influenced Depeche Mode, and you can tell by the percussion in their days up until Exciter where they opted for a drum machine. As strange as it seems, Martin Gore is and was a huge fan of experimental percussion and rhythm of bands such as Einsterzande. Also of course influenced were bands like Frontline Assembly and Skinny Puppy, of course the godfathers of the modern industrial scene. So alot came out from the experimental noise scene and maybe more things are yet to come from it. I'm wanting to incorperate it into one of my music projects as well. I plan on using hard march rhythms and tribal percussion,ethereal vocals, and industrial noise patterns, kinda like a dancier Neubauten with ethereal vocals. Sound experimental at all? i'm just curious.

[BigBlock454]

Van der Graaf Generator - a huge favourite of mine from my school days  -  I listened to "Pawn Hearts" every day for about two years.

I actually own a 1959 Hagstrom Deluxe guitar (with pearloid fretboard) that used to belong to Peter Hammill, the singer from Van der Graaf  -  some of his solo albums were certainly experimental.

Early Pink Floyd  -  "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and "Saucerful of Secrets".  The track "Interstellar Overdrive" is apparently the nearest recording to what they sounded like live at the time.  Syd Barrett's guitar playing was great  -  very English, with little blues influence  -  unlike most English players of the time, such as Clapton, who were desperate to sound like authentic bluesmen.

Barrett's solo albums "The Madcap Laughs" and "Barrett" are worth investigating.

A very early user of drum machines was Arthur Brown (remember "Fire" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown ?).
His band Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come featured a drum machine both on record (the album "Journey") and live in the early 1970s.  And he used to set fire to his head !

Eno used drum machines on some of his early solo albums, again in the early 1970s  -  "Another Green World" springs to mind.

[Mauri]

for me experimenting, concerning music, is to use instruments and melody into an unconventional way.  This could also involve only the construction/structure of the track, not only the kind of instruments you could use.

[KlingKlangBedlam]

Two good examples of that are Sonic Youth and King Crimson,very basic drum-guitar-bass setup, but very unorthodox as far as style. I'm weird but I say Readiohead to me could be considered experimental, as well as Tool. Hearing Tool's time changes while playing is something I haven't heard since King Crimson. They are very unorthodox to say the least.
By the way isn't Neubauten still going today?

[marcnyc]

Tool are great and they challende the structure of rock music with every song the play...

Neubauten is still around... After their latest record they have been playing... Just recently I have read Blixa was doing a couple of shows... I still haven't had the pleasure of listening to "Ende Neu" but that is one hell of an experimental band and they definitely did push the envelope of defining experimental!

[Mauri]

Nubauten have got their official website up and they were raising funds to do their new album with the help of their fans.
They are also about to form a club where by paying the subscription you get free downloads.
Live and rare stuff.