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Experimental music, modular synth, 21st Century, field recording, new electronic, and ambient - tracks, artists, and instruments you have discovered

Mutant Trumpet and electronics with generative visuals. Always nice to see experimentation in classical instruments.

benneill.com

Mutantrumpet History

benneill.com benneill.com

The Mutant Trumpeter

Ben Neill is using a schizophrenic trumpet to create art music for the people. A regular face in New York's experimental music scene, trumpeter Ben Neill has worked with sound sculptors of the past and future, including John Cage, Robert Moog, DJ Spooky, and minimalist La Monte Young. As music...
www.wired.com www.wired.com

podcasts.apple.com

Episode 404 - Ben Neil's Mutant Trumpet: Bridging Traditional Brass and Cutting-Edge Technology

Podcast Episode · When Words Fail...Music Speaks · 03/26/2025 · 1h 4m
podcasts.apple.com podcasts.apple.com

 
Somafunk said:
This is a night put on in Glasgow for all synth lovers, whether that be modular or solid state based.
Click to expand...

I saw an add for a show similar to this at a record store right next to my place a couple years ago, $10 charge. I walked over and was literally the only person in the audience besides the guy who worked at the store. Good show tho lol.
 
Daniela Mars contrabass flute. I'm more familiar with the double reed long instruments like bassoon. I'm surprised this instrument exists and can get sound from that amount of breath. It has a great sound.

Channel

www.youtube.com

Daniela Mars

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

Example

 
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I searched and I did not find a recommended-by-ASR opera recordings topic.

Philip Glass is a well known minimalist composer. He is prolific. I saw his ensemble performing the soundtrack of movie
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) live in 2025 with the film in the background.

We have a few local 20th-21st century classical music performing groups. I was fortunate to hear a performance of Philip Glass' 1000 Airplanes on the Roof. It was staged at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum under the tail of Howard Hughes Spruce Goose.


The piece originally was performed with Linda Ronstat as the narrator in an airplane hanger in 1988. It toured after with a show of projected images. There are a small number of recordings from that era. After the tour, the score devolved into disrepair with different hand-annotated variations. Restoring scores is hard work.

The Third Angle Music ensemble reconstructed the score and recreated an electronic wind instrument used at the time.


The performance I saw was released last Friday on streaming and physical media.

I have to say the recording and release is sub-par. It is compressed and no echo. They did not plan for a release in recording it and they did not know at the time if they could get the rights to release it as a mechanical.

The recording is certainly not what the audience experience was, and that is my specialty and passion, making a recording as close as possible to live.

I don't know what the original tracks sound like and I have had to try to fix substandard tracks.


But I would still say it is worth a listen and hope others perform and record it.


The story line, by David Henry Hwang, is open to interpretation. My interpretation is that a schizophrenic 20-something, the narrator, a coffee shop barista, develops a crush on a customer, asks her out, goes for a walk with her, then falls into a psychotic hallucination involving UFOs. They finally wake up in an asylum wondering what was real. Wild.

Performance

www.thirdangle.org

1000 Airplanes on the Roof — Third Angle New Music

www.thirdangle.org www.thirdangle.org

Trailer

 
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Great thread, so many cool recordings. I would like to add some videos by Laptop Ensemble Novi Sad, combining analog, digital and visual stuff in a live performances.


With famous Synthi 100

 
Multicore said:
Interesting. I have a strong affinity for Pinhas as he and I share a main influence. Merzbow I've heard a lot but not the two together.
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I'm a big fan of Richard Pinhas, whom I've followed since his early days with the French band Heldon.
He has collaborated with the science fiction writer Norman Spinrad.
Richard Pinhas isn't just a guitarist; he also holds a doctorate in philosophy!
 
whereisbrian said:
I'm a big fan of Richard Pinhas, whom I've followed since his early days with the French band Heldon.
He has collaborated with the science fiction writer Norman Spinrad.
Richard Pinhas isn't just a guitarist; he also holds a doctorate in philosophy!
Click to expand...
Heldon was good too. At times. A bit variable in quality but right up my street in aesthetic.

Ok I don't have a street aesthetically. I love it all.
 
Artists Sam Barker and Kay Sievers, build midi-controlled bowed string instruments entitled Discrete Ensemble. It is touring around art galleries in the UK now.

Barker is a resident DJ at Berghain and Sievers builds instruments

www.voltek-labs.net

Voltek Labs

Homepage of Sam Barker.
www.voltek-labs.net www.voltek-labs.net

Interview with Barker

 
Ignoramus question for those in the know:

Is the whole modular synth thing sort of akin to the vinyl revival?
And the obsession with "analogue sound"

ie. Objectively there is no advantage to modular synthesisers. Presumably their sound can be perfectly emulated these days?
But they are kinda cool tech, in a nerdy, hassle - no object kind of way.

...Like building a computer for floppy discs or punch cards or whatever.
 
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Chr1 said:
Is the whole modular synth thing sort of akin to the vinyl revival?
And the obsession with "analogue sound"
Click to expand...
To some extent, I think so, yes.

Chr1 said:
ie. Objectively there is no advantage to modular synthesisers. Presumably their sound can be perfectly emulated these days?
Click to expand...
Yes. I used a Nord Micro Modular over twenty years ago and it has the digital advantages of being able to edit, save and recall patches without hours of wiring, config and settings and all the errors that introduces. See my post #9 above for a link to a text by Bob Ostertag.

Another advantage: perfectly precise control and stabiluty, although one can add controlled instability and drift if needed.

Also: portability, cost, ...

Chr1 said:
But they are kinda cool tech, in a nerdy, hassle - no object kind of way.


...Like building a computer for floppy discs or punch cards or whatever.
Click to expand...

Community: Take a look at the Euro Rack scene
Nostalgia
Doing it the right/hard way
Pride of ownership
Object of affection/lust
Showing off on social media

Flip it around, with emulation all you have really is software and data files, both infinitely reproducible at zero cost, and there really is something tragic about that.

As with vinyl revival, I'm unsure how many are primarily motivated by genuine belief that it sounds better. I mean that might be a convenient excuse, a bit like playing golf is good exercise.

So yeah, a lot of correspondences, as I see it.
 
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Indeed. Software is kinda boring.
Whereas there's definitely something cool and tactile about the actual hardware... patchcords, circuits and dials etc.

I can definitely see the appeal.

Edit : Got fond memories of playing around with a pals Roland TB303 in the 90s. I was clueless as to it's full functionality, but damn it was fun to twiddle.
(He ended up getting a couple of things released on Laurent Garniers FCom label.)
 
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Chr1 said:
Indeed. Software is kinda boring.
Whereas there's definitely something cool and tactile about the actual hardware... patchcords, circuits and dials etc.

I can definitely see the appeal.
Click to expand...
Per Vicky Pollard, "Yer but no but yer but no but yer but..."

Take a browse through Neil Fellowes excellent collection of photos from Node's February 27, 2015 events at the Royal College of Music. Click the image to go to Flicker for the rest.

https://flic.kr/p/rbfUAx

I choose this because Node is the most successful project deploying loads of vintage gear that I know. Musically they outdid Virgin era Tangerine Dream, which I adore, and they did it the right/hard way. The recording of that concert is in streaming, for the 1995 album and EP single Terminus look in my YouTube.

Personally, I'd rather use software instruments because just do not have that much gear love in me. Looking after that equipment, which includes regular exercise and vet visits, i.e. using it, requires a huge amount of love. I don't have it in me. I'm glad somebody does.

Five years ago I sold my Roland GR-300 and G-303 that I bought new in 1984 or thereabouts. The Boss SY-1000 is a better instrument that does almost everything the old one did just as well. I want my instruments to be more convenient.

We did a podcast episode on Node Terminus.
 
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