The Avant Garde Project is an effort to make available some of my favorite pieces of 
experimental music from the late 20th century. 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. The extremist social and political climate of that time gave birth 
to some of the wildest and most challenging sound combinations yet produced by human artistry. 
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 
absurdly 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. At the moment, I have no idea how 
much interest there will be in this material. I am prepared to produce a number of these torrents if 
the early ones actually get downloaded. So if you like this stuff, tell your friends and family about 
the project!

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

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

The first AGP torrent features the compositions of Josef Anton Riedl. A few tracks are entirely 
electronic but most are electroacoustic, involving sounds produced by a number of sources. In a 
few tracks, recordings are made as performers produce sounds by manipulating paper, glass, 
water, etc., and then another layer of sound is added as the same performers respond to the 
previously recorded sounds. The acoustic recordings are astonishing in their clarity and intimacy, 
and the timbres produced by these objects are often quite unexpected.

The first track comes from volume 8 of Zeitgenössische Musik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland 
(Bestellnummer DMR 1022-1024). It was recorded by Saarländischen Rundfunks in 1982 and 
features Lorenzo Ferrero, Stefan Gabanyi, Johannes Göhl, Michael Hirsch, Robyn Schulkowsky, 
Florian Tielebier-Langenscheidt. The group was conducted by Josef Anton Riedl. The remaining 
tracks make up Wergo release WER 60066. The performers include Simone Rist and Nicolaus A. 
Huber (track 2), Mike Lewis and Michael W. Ranta (track 4), and Johannes Göhl (track 9). The 
included text file is a transcription of the liner notes from both releases, and contains biographical 
material on the composer as well as descriptions of individual compositions.

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 - Glas-Spiele (1974-77, excerpt)
02 - Polygonum (1968)
03 - Nr. 3 (1966-67)
04 - Paper Music (1968/70)
05 - Nr. 4/I (1968-69)
06 - Studien für Elektronische Klänge II (1959-62)
07 - Studien für Elektronische Klänge I (1959-62)
08 - Studien für Elektronische Klänge IV (1959-62)
09 - Vielleicht-Duo (1963/70)