Damek.

Nothing like a wheeled swing around the park alone with one’s thoughts and music to inspire a braingasm. It’s been a while since I did any music posts - once upon a time I used to actually share music here, and I’m kinda thinking maybe I want to start doing that again.

Now, I like a wiiiiide variety of music: rock, house, musicals, trance, cabaret, trip-hop, sci-fi idm techno et al….

But this post is inspird by a recent post on the IDM-list, a discussion list I’ve been on for years (and which has been on the predictable but still sad decline lately. Someone linked to this lol-image about Aphex Twin. (And someone smart pointed out that the music pictured has nothing to do with Aphex but is actually a joke piece from somewhere else called Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz, an hilarious enough name on its own )

Well, if you’re type who hears a loop and can’t do much but focus on its repetetiveness …. well, I’m sorry you can’t enjoy some quality electronic music! But perhaps some of the following will be for you.

Whoever originally created the Aphex lol graphic was probably thinking of some of Aphex Twin’s busier tracks like “Cock/Ver 10″ or “Omgyjya Switch 7,” or even his older “Fingerbib.” See the media player below to hear these.

All three of which, incidentally, if you’re interested in “non-synthetic” music, have been transcribed, arranged for and performed by live instruments via Alarm Will Sound! Quite well, too. And they’ve done some of his simpler, more serene pieces as well. Though I’d love to see someone take a shot at something like his indecipherable “formula track,” haha. (Which really isn’t indecipherable, it’s rather simplistic in a way.) I’ve put all these in the media player, too:

And of course Aphex isn’t the only one to do music that sounds a little like that joke score sheet looks. Nor would I say his music is my favorite of that type.

Some other good stuff along these lines: Amon Tobin (for example, “Bloodstone” w/Kronos Quartet, or the more straightforward “Kokubo Sosho Battle;” and on an entirely different tip, Secede’s “Vega Libre: The Marvel” - all in the next media player below.)

A recent discovery of which I still don’t like all his music is Venetian Snares. He’s pretty straightforward breakcore, usually, which isn’t that exciting, but his Hungarian album Rossz csillag alatt született (”born under a bad sign”) transcends the style and is quite amazing, especially “Öngyilkos Vasárnap” (aka ‘Suicidal Sunday’) featuring Billy Holiday. A more typical track, and more in line with the “intricate cacophony” subject of this post, is “Hajnal” (dawn, also a female name, according to wikipedia). Try them here:

But, really, if this is opening your eyes, there’s a world of cacophonic loop electronic music out there, and I’ve barely scratched the surface, in my own listening, let alone in this post.

For shits ‘n’ giggles I’ll leave you with two diverse videos:

The almost endlessly mesmerizing yet barely at all fascinating: Autechre - Gantz Graf

And one of my favorites, the beautiful except in crappy YouTube format: Plaid - Eyen