What's the weirdest music you've ever heard?

[Dj TAB]

-I've got a whole pile of my grandads records, some collected from afar shores whilst he was in the navy....

There's russian folk stuff, greek folk and bazouki stuff and some really bizarre foreign interpretations of classical music too

I've also got his box of 78's and am looking forward to finding out whats on them....

Isao Tomita is also very wierd as well. he did a concert called live at linz and throughout the whole performance had a helicopter hovering above the crowd from which a massive fifth surround-sound-style speaker was suspended so you end up with beatiful electro-interpretation of classical music with the gentle whir of a hovering helicopter - brilliant!

 

[perplexis]

Walter Ruttman's Wochenende is totally weird. It's from 1930 (it might even be a wire recording) of sounds from a German town (kids playing, cash registers, dogs...) all chopped up into an 11-minute long distillation of what a typical weekend sounds like. Not so much music, but it definitely isn't documentary. Not sure what to call it.
I second Xennakis. But also loads of the Concrete dudes made some crazy shit. Pierre Henry's Messe Pour Le Temps Present and Apocalypse de Jean (more thie second one really) are mad intense stuff... music, noise, mess, words... mashup basically! Edgar Varese would be another one.
But the weirdest music. Hard to call. Watching Survival Research Laboratories stuff is maybe it, but that's because of the visual element- robotic things, smashing stuff, power tools and explosions is something else.

 

[ice-is-forming]

the residents.

 

[Dubversion]

I dunno that whale song thing is bizarre if you ask me....

see, to me that's wacky, not weird..

 

[ViolentPanda]

Peter Maxwell Davies - Eight Songs For A Mad King

I quite liked that in an "interesting but slightly scary" way.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Mr scruff has always seemed a bit weird to moi

Mr Scruff?

Nah, he's just cuddly fun!

 

[adsr]

Gamelan still sounds completely alien to me, I love a load of it, but I always wonder whether the way I hear it wrongly or at least differently from someone Indonesian. The groove of the drums is often very unpredictable too.

I'm Indonesian and gamelan used to give me nightmares when I stayed in Bali. The tunes are constantly dealing with life/death, good/evil balancing out so you never get any distinctively 'major' songs, just terrifying build up.

Plus during dances (i.e ones performed in villages, not for tourists) the dancers are often tranced up and it gets a bit strange. I believe the sinister clanging helps.

 

[killer b]

mr scruff, despite being significantly better, is about as weird as lemon jelly...

 

[Orang Utan]

They're both crap! Not weird, just rubbish.

 

[xenon]

Dunno about wierdest. But some stuff I downloaded off Epitonic.com, from their dronology section, almost made me shit myself. It sounded basically like someone rythemicly banging a metal tray on metal stair rods. At the time of listening on headphones, I was stoned and dropping off to sleep and thought some psycho had broken into the building.

 

[LDR]

Whale 'N Bass

 

[MysteryGuest]

Pierre Henry's Messe Pour Le Temps Present and Apocalypse de Jean (more thie second one really) are mad intense stuff... music, noise, mess, words... mashup basically!

Yeah Pierre Henry & Pierre Schaeffer started it all in the late 40s so they had a lot of practice. I've got a CD by P Henry with a 48 minute long composition from 1963 based on the sounds of a squeaky door.


Right now as I'm typing this I'm burning a CD of another utter bastard example of the genre, namely Jacques Lejeune's 'Parages', also composed in the 70s. Like the Chion it was released on French government funded (iirc this is) label INA.GRM. Like the Chion it's very dramatic and moody, but it's more spacey than the Chion. I've got a stash of INA.GRM vinyl releases that are all brilliant French experimental stuff but it's the Lejeune and Chion that are the real spinetinglers.

e2a:

Chion had this idea of 'Cinema pour l'oreille' - cinema for the ear - which is what this stuff (and the Lejeune) is, very much so. It's great headphone music, very visual somehow. Chion has written a lot of books for the cinema, including one on David Lynch that was translated into English a few years back.

 

[fishfinger]

the residents.

They're not weird, just misunderstood

 

[dweller]

Pierre Henry - Le Voyage
based on the Tibetan Book of the dead, thats
a weird one on headphones!!

 

[Mation]

Not so much weird as disturbing - "Doom. A Sigh." on the Kronos Quartet album Black Angels. It features a two women sort of mumbling their grief for dead friends and relatives.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Sonic Youth's first, Confusion is Sex, is pretty out there.

 

[poului]

 

[killer b]

i've a clock DVA album here which i plan to go home & scare the baby with...

 

[Orang Utan]

MysteryGuest's field recording of the frequency vibrations of his hair

 

[Dubversion]

MysteryGuest's field recording of the frequency vibrations of his hair

even better is milesy's 'ghost' recordings of where his hair used to be.

that's fucking spooky

 

[milesy]

oasis - "definitely maybe"

 

[chico enrico]

I think any records by Vagina Dentata Organ would be a good place to start.

also look up 'Whores of leith'

and lots of very very strange japanese stuff....you want a recording of an old man masturbating? simple - check out the Gerogerigegege!

whitehouse 'baby' is pretty strange/unsettling.

Tiny Tim for sheet WTF-ness.

jesus, where does one start????

(NB: I'd hardly say kronos Quartet is 'weird' and Pierre Henry & Pierre Schaeffer stuff is just amazing!)

 

[Dubversion]

I think any records by Vagina Dentata Organ would be a good place to start.

i've got their album - forgot the name - with the Jim Jones samples all over it..

 

[poului]

(NB: I'd hardly say kronos Quartet is 'weird'

Not usually but that piece (by George Crumb) is most unsettling (and has a cool CD cover).

 

[Louis MacNeice]

Conlon Nancarrow - Studies for Player Piano or Lost Works Last Works

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[MysteryGuest]

Pierre Henry - Le Voyage
based on the Tibetan Book of the dead, thats
a weird one on headphones!!

That is really fucking ace that one - I haven't had a copy for years... it's on my 'to get' list right now funnily enough.

 

[MysteryGuest]

I bought a record that was a 'recording of milesy's soul', but when I got it home it was blank on both sides.


I presume it was some kind of 'art jape'.

 

[dweller]

comus - first utterance is pretty weird,
listening to Drip Drip in the right "mood" can
be a very freaky experience