Enjoyable Experimental Music
Experimental music is often hard to listen to, and enjoyable music if often un-creative. This is a collection of albums I've found to be creative and groundbreaking, yet listenable. |
| 1 |  | Brian Eno
Another Green World
One of the greatest albums ever made, each song creates a lush, complex aural universe.
Standout Tracks:
"Golden Hours"
"I'll Come Running"
"Everything Merges With The Night" |
| 2 |  | Eno, Moebius and Roedelius
After the Heat
A lesser-known album by Brian Eno, still a classic. Eno has made a number of albums with krautrock musicians. This is the best.
Standout Tracks:
"Belldog"
"Tzima N'Arki"
"Broken Head" |
| 3 |  | Red Krayola
The Parable of Arable Land
Wild, primitive electronic hippie music! The album is not exactly enjoyable front to back, but many of the tracks are.
Standout Tracks:
"Transparent Radiation"
"Hurricane Fighter Plane"
"Pink Stainless Tail" |
| 4 |  | Robert Turman
Way Down
This album is rough and mechanical without being harsh or cruel. The perfect soundtrack for walking through a power plant. Though Turman may be more well-known for his work on NON (with a questionable character), his solo albums are more fun to listen to.
Standout Tracks:
"Way Down"
"Lotek"
"Clean Living" |
| 5 |  | The Residents
Fingerprince
While I appreciate most of the Residents' albums, this is the only one I'd gladly listen to. It has all of the atmospheric strangeness of their other albums, while also having a beat. It's a great deal of fun.
Standout Tracks:
"Boo Who?"
"Home Age Conversation"
"Six Things to a Cycle" |
| 6 |  | Throbbing Gristle
20 Jazz Funk Greats
Here, TG took mercy on their listeners for about 3 tracks out of the album. Mixed in with their usual brutality are a few pulsing, icy-cold dance tunes.
Standout Tracks:
"Hot On the Heels of Love"
"Convincing People"
"Walkabout" |
| 7 |  | Psychic TV
Allegory And Self
This is what top radio hits sound like in some forgotten, dumpster dimension. Love it.
Standout Tracks:
"Baby's Gone Away"
"Just Like Arcadia"
"Godstar" |
| 8 |  | Swell Maps
Jane From Occupied Europe
This is what post-punk should sound like. Obscurity around the borders, with coherence and steady vibes at the core.
Standout tracks:
"Big Empty Field"
"The Helicopter Spies"
"Collision With a Frogman" |
| 9 |  | Wire
154
154 has that clean sound that new wave music added to post-punk, minus the sentimentality and posturing. It's definitely on a continuum with Wire's earlier work, but funkier.
Standout Tracks:
"I Should Have Known Better"
"Blessed State"
"Map Ref 41 Degrees N 93 Degrees W" |
| 10 |  | The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground & Nico
Arguably the most influential album in the history of alternative and experimental music, The Velvet Underground & Nico could easily spawn a new genre with each of its songs.
Standout Tracks:
"Heroin"
"All Tomorrow's Parties"
"I'll be Your Mirror" |
| 11 |  | Yasuaki Shimizu
Kakashi
An incredibly effective amalgam of jazz, industrial, dub reggae, and other styles I can't identify, Kakashi is truly a unique experience. Many of the songs have a steady beat, making the album accessible to even the less experimentally-inclined.
Standout Tracks:
"Umi No Ue Hara"
"Semitori No Hi"
"Kakashi" |
| 12 |  | Moondog
Elpmas
I'd always enjoyed Moondog's instrumentals more than his vocals, and Elpmas is mostly instrumental. The music is precisely sequenced, It's a powerful experience: imagine quantum computer-driven machines creating music in a variety of natural settings. Don't write this off as another ambient album.
Standout Tracks:
"Marimba Mambo 2: Seascape of the Whales"
"Fujiyama 1"
"Cosmic Meditation" |
| 13 |  | Miles Davis
Get Up with It
Get Up With It can be challenging to listen to, but if you can get past the interminable noodling sessions, there are some really great off-beat bluesy and psych tracks here.
Standout Tracks:
"Honky Tonk"
"Red China Blues"
"Maiysha" |
| 14 |  | Miles Davis
In a Silent Way
In a Silent Way is Miles Davis's most coherent, and least repetitive "experimental" album. Some would probably be hesitant to call it experimental, but I'd still label it such because it consists of two long tracks with subparts. Both songs on this album are incredibly elegant but complex and will reveal new secrets each time you listen to them.
Standout Tracks:
Both |
| 15 | | German Oak
Down in the Bunker
German Oak sound like they recorded in the depths of catacombs. This is spooky stuff, in the best kind of way. It can be surprisingly groovy at times.
Standout Tracks:
"Python vs. Tiger"
"Bear Song"
"Happy Stripes" |
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