The Avant Garde Project is an effort to make available some of my favorite pieces of experimental music from the late 20th century. The extremist intellectual climate of that time gave birth to some of the wildest and most challenging sound combinations that human artistry has ever conceived. The pieces selected for this project were released on LP but have never been released on CD, and so they are effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. Using an analog rig and pre-amplification that is near state-of-the-art, I am able to extract the sound from the grooves with almost none of the surface noise and tracking distortion normally associated with LPs. 

I am hoping you will find this material as fascinating and beautiful as I do. My hard disk is small, and so I am seriously limited as to how many torrents I can host at one time. If you find any value in your downloads, I ask you please to seed them yourself for as long as possible, so they will continue to be available to other people. Some or all of the first five AGP torrents are still being seeded through the generosity of other downloaders, so check them out if you haven't already. A mininova.com search for "avant garde project" will direct you to them.

==========================

The sixth AGP torrent contains Morton Subotnick's series "The Double Life of Amphibians". This series includes four of the fourteen works that Subotnick wrote for "ghost" electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The "ghost" electronics make no sound on their own, but alter the amplitude, frequency, and location of any sounds produced as the electronic score is playing. In his works for this technology, Subotnick explored the effects of these manipulations on a variety of instrumental combinations, from single instruments to chamber ensembles. The rather simple electronic manipulations in the "ghost" electronics nevertheless produce an interesting range of timbres, depending on the tone color of the instruments being manipulated. 

While Subotnick is known chiefly as a composer for electronics, his instrumental writing in these works is interesting and innovative even in those passages where the electronic manipulation is minimal. "The Double Life of Amphibians" is in three parts, the first part consisting of two compositions. A description of the structure of the series is included in a text file with the torrent. 

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 - Axolotl (cello and "ghost" electronics)  [17:19]
02 - Ascent Into Air (ten instruments and "ghost" electronics)  [24:04]
03 - The Last Dream of the Beast (soprano, two celli, electronics, and "ghost" electronics)  [14:46]
04 - A Fluttering of Wings (string quartet and "ghost" electronics)  [19:13]

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 paltry).