New name on me - any good?

Yasunao Tone

boards of canada
fennesz
kode9
ltj bukem
chris clark
tim hecker
deaf center
loscil
burial
carbon based lifeforms

Max Matthews created MUSIC I, the first music software ever, which in turn allowed synthesis of electronic sounds on computers instead of the available synthesizers-like technology at that time (around 1956, if I am not wrong). Pretty much the first instrument simulator software ever. Try finding his article 'The Digital Computer as a Music Instrument' if you can, 'cause it's well worth your time regardless of your approach to music making.

Obviously he is a genius.

he did a version of A Bicycle Built For Two that is pretty incredible, and only about 20 seconds long if i remember corectly.

Cool, I shall hunt that down at some point. I'm quite a fan of the earlier (academic) stuff, which is why the alleged 'high-brow' 'electronica' comes across to me as pleasant enough but a bit soporific.

Anyway.

And you can find some of his music on the early electronic music gurus compilations. I'll upload some of these if anyone is interested.

i dunno batreleaser you pretty much got it honestly.

glad you didn't list venetian snares by the way. 100% overrated hack. though i like a couple of his albums...

I listened to half of one of them, couldn't really be bothered. I got the sense from listening to the songs that I'd much rather have whole pieces rather than shorter versions.

Have you ever checked out the label Creel Pone?

http://www.orkstorm.com/creelpone/

Hunting down a lot of this stuff is either impossible or dries up your funds. I listen pretty much to any early electronic music all the time and never find it tiring because what a lot of what these people did was quite amazing considering that not only thye were the players but a lot of the time also the inventors or developers of these machines.

Yes.

This thread can't be complate without a mention for Donald Buchla, one of the most important inventors of synthesizers and electronic music software.

Yeah, seen.

I have a theory that the best musicians do what they do in spite of their instrument's limitations (actually, the truth of the matter is that there's no such thing as the 'perfect instrument', they're all flawed somehow). With the first 20-30 years of electronic instruments people either made the best of a bad lot (early hip-hop/ tapeloopers/ your TGs and Cabs) or invented an instrument to articulate their thoughts (your Buchlas and the like) or explored but didn't transpose new ideas to new instruments (Oliveros/ Cage/ Stockhausen etc). When you get to the realm of standardised instruments (the moog/ 'commercial' synthesisers) people tend to stick to set formats, which can be wonderful (techno, HHC, DnB) or fiddle about with inappropriate structures (I'm thinking of dire indie with synths).

i havnt seen kid606 mentioned, hes had some great records.

i didnt wanna mention composers like stockuahsen, thats like listing the best point guards in history of the nba, then going, "michael jordan".

i think a lot of people would be surprised that im into electronic hip hop beats too, like te first dj shadow album.

Two classics mid-90s records:

i don't really count dj shadow as electronic (at least his earlier stuff) as there are no electronic sounds, i know samplers count are technically electronic, but then so are guitar pedals. otherwise i'd have mentioned endtroducing.

Future Sound of London
Bola
Carl Craig
Autechre
Burial
Move D
Kirk Degiorgio a.k.a. As One
The Orb
LCD Soundsystem
Underworld

Kid 606 has a few good tracks and that's about it.