I am looking for new classical music that uses mostly or only electronic instruments. But not slow stuff -- Eno, Luther Adams, etc. -- but with more energy. Electronic instruments offer possibilities that objects (classical instruments) don’t and I would like to listen to something that makes musical sense, not just thumping DJ electronic stuff. Any recommendations? many thanks in advance.
I use a fusion genre of orchestral and electronic elements by certain composers to test rigs. This genre can expose the shortcomings of some hifi rigs, i.e., it can be demanding when you start to hit reference levels.
Here are a couple of examples
Ludwig Goransson - 747 (From the motion picture, "Tenet")
This composer sound marvellous and poetic on my low cost system... 😋 His 12 albums are good... Green is the most celebrated... my favorite...
He is revered in Japan... A kind of zen quality...Minimalist powerfully natural and meditative quality.
And the first piece of "green" called "creek" capture a freshness of water and mint together...And for me is perceived as green color...
All the other pieces litterally spoke to my mind...
i like him ...😊
He is a poet who use electronica not a sound fetichist playing with meaningless sounds we will listen one time , but a true musician we will want to go back ...He wrote with the innocence of a child...A feat hard to beat...
If i analyse why i love this album so much even if i dont like much electronica usually it is because music can be heard for sure but for me i see music as dynamics and forms as a movie. But with this composer we can touch and taste music too ...
This music induce Cenesthesia and reinforce it ... This is another hard feat and task for a composer...
poets do the same when they are great.
in the "green" song we perceive the green color as a walking animal... It is stunningly beautiful... Then to color he add motion... Inspired genius as simple as a child indeed ...
In the piece "feet" we felt how much funny and sad or solitary at the same time our feet can be without shoes... Our feet indeed are living animal too ...
Gonna have to stretch a bit since most are not strictly "classical" music with electronic instruments, but I second the list by @acman3
Apex Twin is the arguably the grandaddy of modern electronic music, and an excellent place to start. he ranges from accessible/beautiful sombre ambient (Brian Eno), to lighthearted ambient techno, to insane club music, to scary nightmarish soundtracks, with a whole world of original thought between. Always interesting.
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Nils Frahm and Floating Points hit that cross section between Classical and electronic you were specifically asking for IMO
Four Tet is a personal favorite, not quite in the classical realm, but so excellent
I'd also recommend GAS (Wolfgang Voigt) and Daedalus (Alfred Darlington)
Not 100% electronic or classical, but might be of interest here: Colin Stetson. He is a genius saxophone player. Check out his reworking of Gorecki's Sorrow. his other work is great too.
I'm seeing many good recommendations, so far, but nothin listed is actually classical music.
Modern classical music in general, and modern classical that uses electronics more specifically, tends to be quite avant-garde, atonal, and pretty "thorny" sounding. Nothing like anything in the OP, or other posts.
But for the type of thing you are looking for, check out:
One of the first to create "classical music" with electronics tools or instruments and any other kind of sounds way over tonality/atonality and theorizing music as organized sounds is Edgar Varèse.. I disliked all his input...😁
His music is more disorganized sounds than organized indeed...
But he became famous name beside Bach... Enjoy if you think music is about taste only ... I think music is about consciousness levels and indeed Varese has his place in this consciousness levels scale ...I just think it is way under Bach ...😊 Sorry to be rude if Varese family read me...
I will not contest the fact that he was creative man as Andy Warhol was or Man Ray...
But so what i had some very creative neighbours in my city too ...😊
WE can be surprizing as an artist and lack content and lack transformative power to modify for the best the human soul...These artists are rarely remembered...
As think our friend : «I am popular because joy value more than anxieties»-- Groucho Marx 🤓
To be fair he wrote also this which is way more "orthodox" modern classical music but i dislike it too :
thank you to everyone who wrote. unfortuntely, most suggestions mentioned electronic music examples, not electronic new classical music -- I guess, my query was not precise enough.
Ash Fure and Francisco Lopez are two names I discovered since I posted here. try them.
Try "A little night music- Arual Apparations from Geographic North". Kind of a sampler of what you are looking for except maybe a little too normal. Thanks for the examples as I wasn’t getting your classical electronic example, although now it makes since.
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