The Avant Garde Project is a series of 20th-century classical-experimental-electroacoustic torrents digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. This is wild stuff, so check it out if you've never heard this sort of music before. The analog rig used to extract the sound from the grooves is near state-of-the-art, producing almost none of the tracking distortion or surface noise normally associated with LPs. 

Most AGP torrents are still available through the generosity of other downloaders, and if you like what you hear, please seed them yourself for as long as you can. AGP1-14 appear to have been deleted from the Pirate Bay database, but they should still be available through www.mininova.org. A search for "avant garde project" will turn them up. Ignore the seeders/leechers statistics, as they often show no seeders when in fact there are some. For the time being, a new AGP torrent is being seeded around midnight each Friday night (GMT), and is advertised on the I Hate Music Forum. If you have any problems downloading AGP1-14 from mininova, please let me know through that forum.

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In recognition of the resilience and commitment of our Swedish hosts following the ham-handed attempt to take them down, AGP 16 features three electroacoustic works created at electronic studios in Sweden, between 1967 and 1975. The first, by Ragnar Grippe, is one of my favorite electroacoustic works, combining acoustic and electronic sounds in a rich and detailed mix. The second combines electronically manipulated piano sounds with an intimate but rather hissy recording of Mats Persson on piano. The third is a tape-loop composition composed by Bo Anders Persson in 1967 that is reminiscent of Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out", written in the two previous years. As such, it is the earliest European response I know of to the then-emerging American minimalism. The other side of the Wergo LP from which this work came, "Was??" by Folke Rabe, is currently available on CD. The included text file contains notes from both of the LPs that these recordings came from. The notes to Proteinimperialism are in German, and since I don't read German myself are an unedited output of my OCR program.

Equipment used for A/D conversion: Lyra Helikon phono cartridge, Linn LP12/Lingo turntable, Linn Ittok tonearm, Audioquest LeoPard tonearm cable, PS Audio PS2 preamplifier, Kimber PBJ interconnect, M-Audio Audiophile USB A/D converter. 

01 - Ragnar Grippe, Musique Douze [13:53]
02 - Bengt Emil Johnson, Disappearances [8:46]
03 - Bo Anders Persson, Proteinimperialism [24:45]

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, these recordings are currently out of print. If you know otherwise, please let me know ASAP, as I do not wish to deprive any artists of their much-deserved royalties (however small).