Best of Experimental and IDM

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 6:45 am

YOUTUBE IN EVERY THREAD

Buckethead. I absolutely love what Buckethead does with music. He's the best experimental guitarist out there, without a doubt. He also is extremely musically talented in general, but he's better known for making unusual riffs. Some examples:

From the DVD "Young Buckethead" - a jam session where at the age of 16 he showcases a wide variety of his skills. He also plays a little of the Halloween theme song (bass and lead simultaneously). Many of these riffs were "improved" and developed into some songs he's released the past few years, for instance the riff from 5 minutes until the end eventually became a song.

I think around 1:40 he's briefly playing some classical tune with distortion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4q3p_o8A6g

A song that starts off fairly typical and a little repetitive, but eventually develops into the music we usually hear from Buckethead. The song is called "Night of the Slunk". His shredding during the solo is the best I've heard since Yngwie frankly! It's also worth mentioning that Buckethead is a one-man band - he also produces the backing music himself (drums, keyboards, bass guitar, etc).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGt4J9oBKKo

One of my favorite songs of his, "Soothsayer". This is a more recent song and he sometimes has live people play the backing music now, as you can see. The song starts off a little slow, but I find it beautiful.

Another thing to note is that he improvises some parts of nearly every song live, so they never sound the exact same as the album's version. I always love when guitarists do that live!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpr498vngFQ

Alright, last one I'll show of Buckethead. This is one of his live-only tracks - mostly improvisation. It starts off like a metal version of some horror movie theme song and then for the last minute is just pure shredding!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW_ZTq5IAqE

This is going to be an enormous post because of the quantity of quality videos for these, so I'm going to make another response here for the next installment, which will concentrate on IDM.

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:08 am

I don't want to make the whole post about Buckethead, so moving on now to a different kind of experimental music, IDM. IDM stands for Intelligent Dance Music. I won't give the full history on it (check for a lot more detail), but I want to give a little background. The artists who usually are labelled as IDM, like Aphex Twin (Richard D James), Squarepusher, and Venetian Snares do not like the label because they all basically agree it has the connotation that other electronic music is "not intelligent". However, this label arose largely because it's a drastic change from the extremely simple and repetitive dance music you hear in many clubs. IDM is best known for it's extremely unusual samples and extremely technical music (in terms of rhythms, time signatures, etc).

Before getting into the videos I want to emphasize that IDM groups tend to make high quality music videos that are totally in sync with the music, so YouTube don't do these groups justice. If you like what you see, I HIGHLY recommend finding higher quality versions (PM or IM me, buy some DVDs, or torrent search them).

Aphex Twin is the most popular group in this genre. My brother is the one who initially got me into IDM by showing me Aphex.

"4" has very peaceful ambient-ish music juxtaposed with some sick drum tracks - especially the snare rolls. This is a perfect example of Aphex Twin's 'sound'. Many people consider this one of the greatest Aphex tracks. The video has some beautiful imagery as well. The last 30 seconds pays homage to music from a certain video game...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5EGUPP0uN0

"Rubber Johnny" is a little disturbing and the music doesn't actually start until a little after 2 minutes into it. The video director Chris Cunningham likes to add a bit to the music with intros and short clips spliced within the track.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l48HTZUHfeQ

For many IDM tracks exceptional fan videos are made. One such example is with the track "Vordhosbn". Not too much to say about this one other than remark on the excellent syncing as usual.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ta4io_qrKzo

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Next installment will be a few more IDM...

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:30 am

Squarepusher is best known for mixing in jazz, funk and blues samples (many times created by Tom Jenkinson, the artist's actual name, as you'll see) within the "typical" IDM sound. Too bad they haven't produced many music videos and the live videos aren't great quality.

The track "Coopers Town" is a perfect example of the Squarepusher sound. Notice how he actually is playing the bass guitar along with the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq-BPomrsxo

As I mentioned earlier, it's common for IDM fans to produce their own music videos for some tracks. This one is fan-produced for the track "Go Plastic". This track is a little on their more intense side, but nothing too crazy (wait until you hear Venetian Snares).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RonM2AUS2Y

Another fan video. This one contains some disturbing imagery, but the song itself is quite peaceful. The track is called "I Wish You Could Talk"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCqz58Fq-Cw

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Remember what I said about Venetian Snares? They definitely are on the more intense and chaotic end of the IDM spectrum.

Venetian Snares music sometimes is too much for me to handle with their noisy samples and crazy snares. Their videos tend to be extremely disturbing as well.

"Find Candace" is probably their most popular track. I want to emphasize again that there is a lot of disturbing imagery here. The video is extremely well produced (youtube kills the quality again) and I love how it syncs with the music. The first 3 minutes are very intense, then there's a calm for a couple minutes with some pretty imagery. Then it returns to mayhem, and IMO, the best part of the video is after that calm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiROxYD16Go

"Szamar Madar" is one of their softer tracks. This one is very short, far more peaceful, and doesn't contain any disturbing imagery. Again, the syncing at times is outstanding - my personal favorites are with the raindrops and the lightning bolts, you'll see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rjyVF6a4xo

And back on the disturbing and extremely intense side... "Mutant Cunt Sniffer"! The music and video progressively get more and more intense. Listening to the song itself tends to irritate me because of how chaotic and noisy it is, but the video matches it too perfectly and hey, it has lotsa zombies in it! Love the video more than the song here, although this still is a good example of Venetian Snares sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQbH_FOQR1o

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Next installment... back to other forms of experimental music....

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 7:52 am

If you ever wondered what my screenname was based off of, or thought it had something to do with Plan 9 From Outer Space, this should clear it up. Here's the best and most popular "mathcore" band out there, Dillinger Escape Plan. They play very unusual rhythms and are extremely technical WRT time signatures, tempo changes, etc, similar to IDM). They've even done an instrumental cover of Aphex Twin's track "Come To Daddy"!

"Panasonic Youth" is an excellent example of their mathcore sound.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGNb-YT5ECA

They also produce some less technical music, such as with the track "Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqzAK0a8kaw

The last two videos were from some of their newer albums. Their older albums were more intense and heavier on the hardcore side.

"43% Burnt" is the first song I ever heard by Dillinger, and many fans consider this their best song ever. I like the song of course, but it's not their best.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv8b6RPbnAc

A fan video - guy does some sick combos in Tony Hawk and uses "Clip The Apex" for the background music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcZ67pFG4g

I really want to show how they've developed with their newest album "Ire Works" but none of the Youtube videos do it justice, so I'm going to make one and post the link shortly after.

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:10 am

I'm uploading the video to YouTube right now. It's tracks 4-7 off their newest album "Ire Works" in order.

04: "Sick on Sunday" has some Venetian Snares influence definitely.

05: "When Acting as a Particle" is just cool ambient music.

06: "Nong Eye Gong" is back to their mathcore elements.

07: "When Acting as a Wave" is purely instrumental and a great demonstration of their technical skills. Although it sounds like the music is 'skipping' at times, it's not. They are playing it like that on purpose for effect. It's probably my favorite track off the album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUpTEtv_5m8

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:44 am

Fall of Troy is a 3-man experimental modern rock band. The guitarist plays rhythm, lead, and vocalist as well simultaneously - to say the least, he's extremely talented. The music is by no means simple to play either.

"FCP Remix" is their most popular track and also is a track on Guitar Hero 3. So many cool riffs...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbAtMjCZtUU

"Cut Down All The Trees" is the single from their newest album Manipulator. Not my favorite of theirs, but decent song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3qOa2K1-VY

To appreciate the guitarist more, I recommend checking out this live video of the track "I Just Got This Symphony Goin"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo1f1sfXpuE

My favorite track off the newest album, "Semi-fiction", as demonstrated through a GH2 custom video (lulz not official video). It's my favorite precisely because of 2:20 - 3:10 break/solo. LOVE IT! 3:40 - 4:00 also is a cool riff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol8-_aa46uA

by **Dumb Snowman** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 8:51 am

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 9:58 am

I can't imagine it'd be easy to replicate on a guitar. Plus, he was 16 and only jamming at the time. I'm sure he can play it 100x better now. He still does the Halloween theme live sometimes, and he does it flawlessly now (unlike in the jam session where he made a couple mistakes).

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:13 am

I mentioned Yngwie's shredding earlier... and hey we're talking about Bouree now, so here's a perfect clip of Yngwie Malmsteen. He does some shredding, then his version of Bouree, then more shredding.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CvKqxNea9iA

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 11:21 am

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:00 pm

by **Dumb Snowman** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:25 pm

by **EscapePlan9** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 2:45 pm

So it's said that Buckethead received some lessons from Paul GIlbert at a young age. After listening to this clip of Gilby, that sounds plausible:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC60XNiS-MQ

by **Dumb Snowman** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:53 pm

by **EscapePlan9** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:15 am

Ah yea, just read that in Wiki the other day. The thing with Buckethead is he just wants to play what he wants to play, ya know? Ozzy wanted him to play on stage with him once, but he had one request - for him to not wear the bucket on his head. So Buckethead puts on a martian hat instead. Ozzy felt this was ridiculous and didn't let him play on stage. WTF OZZY??? Who cares how he looks when he plays?? It's his trademark style and he's gonna stick with it.

Best of Experimental and IDM

Best of Experimental and IDM

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