# Post-Genre Music



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

For a long time, one of the most marketable aspects of an artist’s music has been their genre. This classification not only helps highlight the artist’s target audience, but also aids in their placement within the music world. And while many artists don’t usually stick to one genre throughout their careers, very few have taken the creative risk of disregarding genres altogether.

This isn’t just about experimental artists, or artists who have tried different sounds. This is about the artists who have managed to present so many diverse sonic sounds grouped together. Post-genre music is music that is not only difficult to pinpoint, but almost impossible to describe. The artist becomes the genre itself.

This thread is for music recommendation that do not easily fit into one of the genre-based threads on TC.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*NO HAY BANDA ~ I had a dream about this place*

By titling their debut album_ *I had a dream about this place*_, the Montreal-based ensemble *NO HAY* *BANDA *seem to be evoking the hazy strangeness that lingering memories of dreams can invoke, the feeling that outside forces are subtly guiding your nighttime ramblings.

A collection of pieces by a relatively young, relatively Canadian cohort of composers whose work tends towards the electronic, the interdisciplinary, and the avant-garde, _I had a dream about this place_ aims to showcase the artistic niche that have made NO HAY BANDA a mainstay within the North American experimental scene. (read more)

I had a dream about this place


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*UNKLE*
Whether it’s a song from the old mashup days with DJ Shadow, or a soundtrack on a major feature film, *James Lavelle* has left his mark on many of today’s music listeners.

Very few artists have also managed to headline rock festivals, electronic festivals, and hip hop festivals alike, but Lavelle’s creative mashups of many cross-genres influences have made his projects appealing to a wide variety of audiences.

His latest three-part album, The Road, is almost impossible to pin down into one, or even ten, genres.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> For a long time, one of the most marketable aspects of an artist’s music has been their genre. This classification not only helps highlight the artist’s target audience, but also aids in their placement within the music world. And while many artists don’t usually stick to one genre throughout their careers, very few have taken the creative risk of disregarding genres altogether.
> 
> This isn’t just about experimental artists, or artists who have tried different sounds. This is about the artists who have managed to present so many diverse sonic sounds grouped together. Post-genre music is music that is not only difficult to pinpoint, but almost impossible to describe. The artist becomes the genre itself.
> 
> This thread is for music recommendation that do not easily fit into one of the genre-based threads on TC.


By applying the label "post-genre" to such artists you are implicitly giving them a genre - namely, their genre is "post-genre".


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

When I make music, I try to be as "post-capitalist" as I can. It's probably not possible today, with just how deeply rooted the authority of $$$ in our lives and establishments, but I try nonetheless.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Suzi Analogue's “STAY READY/UR DREAMZ”*

“When streaming took over, I was a little disappointed,” admits Miami based multidisciplinary sound artist Suzi Analogue, speaking to Neil Kulkarni in _The Wire_ 466. “I came up in the cassette tape era and I have always loved physical music. For _Infinite Zonez I_ wanted a physical iteration of my _Zonez 1–4_ series of mixtapes, so I sifted through 44 tracks and with the help of Matthew from Disciples we found the ones that would sound great on vinyl.”

_Infinite Zonez_ is a retrospective collection of pre-pandemic tracks by Analogue, who is also the founder of experimental electronic label Never Normal. In her _Wire_ interview the producer outlines her artistic concept of zones – informed by geographical locations and their inhabitants, technology and energy – and how this underpins her practice.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Twin Color - Fight Part I*
Label: InFiné
Release: Extended Play No 1
Date: December 2nd, 2022
Mastered By: Lorenzo Targhetta
Artwork By: The Geilfus Brothers






We can start talking about the gloriously entangled futurist nostalgia appearing on *Twin Color*‘s debut _Extended Play No 1_, and then, maybe, we can start guessing about the origin of this project and the man behind it, or I can simply come out and tell you that it’s actually *Fernando Corona*, whom you already should know as *Murcof*. Yes, it’s Murcof, folks, and he’s back, with his take on time-warping retro-forward leaning music, which is somewhat like post-[insert your favourite style of “synth wave” in here], or really, sitting in a genre of its own – reminds me of when Richard Chartier first cautiously explored his now monumental Pinkcourtesyphone project. (continue)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*GRACE Ø : Céleste: Bhairavi Purple*






Grace Lee, a New York-bred interdisciplinary artist, spent her formative years in South Korea, raised by her mother’s family, an 11th generation of healers, alchemists, botanists, and sages dating back to Korea’s Goryeo period. She graduated from the renowned Professional Performing Arts School of New York City and The Juilliard School and took her first steps in music under the mentorship of Giovanni James, The Twilite Tone, and Illmind. In 2010, she formed Liaison Femme, a collective of female DJs, producers, and creatives.

Her work on GRACE, her debut album of “psychedelic hip-hop,” began in 2011 in collaboration with Illmind, and it was initially called God Save The Arts. It will be a five-volume series, inspired by sacred geometry, mysticism, shamanism, sufism, and the human potential movement. She describes it as “medicinal music,” in that its mission is to “harmonize and unify humanity.”

The debut single, “Céleste : Bhairavi Purple,” comes in two parts: the seven-minute original plus an extended 16-minute piece. (more)


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

The description makes me think of John Zorn or Mr Bungle / Fantomas


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Desensitized: Chaos In Premonition*
Spotted Peccary

One of the more interesting things about the music *Deborah Martin *and *Dean De Benedictis* create under the Desensitized name involves seeing how the distinctive identity of each artist plays into the collaboration. Without wishing to treat the project too reductively, it could be characterized as a convergence of his focus on electronic gear (digital and analog synthesizers) and hers on natural instruments (clay ocarinas, flutes, Tibetan bowls, Taos drums, Guatemalan rain stick, Apache deer claw shaker, etc.). Certainly the lines are blurrier than that, yet the musical result does suggest a rapprochement of sorts between their respective realms. The music that results isn't an oil-and-water proposition but rather a satisfying fusion that reconciles the acoustic with the digital and the ancient with the future, something the press release captures in the words, “From asynchronous perspectives comes sonic synchronicity.”


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Reverso: Harmonic Alchemy*
Outnote Records

Reverso's fourth release finds the trio taking its classical-jazz fusion to an even higher level of refinement. On their first album under the name, American trombonist Ryan Keberle, Franco-German pianist Frank Woeste, and French cellist Vincent Courtois drew for inspiration from Maurice Ravel, on their second the composers of ‘Les Six.' Building on those releases plus a live album recorded at Le Triton in Paris, the hour-long _Harmonic Alchemy_ perpetuates the French theme by focusing on Gabriel Fauré.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Bill Orcutt—Music For Four Guitars*






A multitracked electric guitar masterpiece, Bill Orcutt’s Music For Four Guitars offers a richly layered trip. As with everything Orcutt does, there’s a wild intensity at work, but the interlinked compositions here could also work as meditation soundtracks. Orcutt continues to surprise.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*SVARTE GREINER – DEVOLVING TRUST*






Svarte Greiner – the ill-lit persona of Erik K Skodvin – has provided another suitably dark recording with Devolving Trust, the latest episode in his appropriately-named series, ‘zen music for disturbed souls’. In Devolving Trust (Miasmah Recordings), he walks listeners into the darkness, where the creaking, damp sounds slowly begin to take on an irregular, crumpled shape of their own making, and are somehow amplified with a whole new importance. (James Catchpole)


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Genres are an entirely artificial construct, usually applied in retrospect to try to pigeonhole something. The examples you list are all what I would call "cross-genre" rather than "post-genre," since they're combinations of existing genres rather than anything new.

Years ago, many artists struck out in uncharted territory and were thus "genre-free" but today repeating what they did is now a genre unto itself.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I am using the term "post-genre" to describe the music/recording of an artist whose work does not fall neatly into one of the established genre threads. It is not a philosophical construct, but simply a thread to post examples of music which do not fit anywhere else.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

They don't fit into ONE genre but they're all well grounded in two or more established genres.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

So? 

The point of this thread is to focus on those artists who do not fit into ONE genre, and are committed to exploring their creativity outside the standard genre classifications. 

What is your point?


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

No point. Carry on.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Clarice Jensen : Esthesis*






*Clarice Jensen* is a Brooklyn-based composer and cellist whom I first met back in New York when she performed with many of my favourite artists at Le Poisson Rouge. As the artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), Jensen had the opportunity (and I would even say “an honour”) to work with and play alongside such composers as Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter, and Stars of the Lid. But it wasn’t until her debut solo album about four years ago – For This From That Will Be Filled (Miasmah, 2018) – that she started to shine as a composer. In 2020 she got picked up by the celebrated 130701 imprint, and in October of 2022, we were gifted with her third full-length, Esthesis. Albeit her favourite instrument is still present on the album, the cello is just one of the voices explored by the concept structured around “the emotional and harmonic spectrum and the phenomenon of chromesthesia – a condition whereby sound involuntarily evokes an experience of colour, shape and movement.” (read more)


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

When I read "post genre" I thought of some artists who are in a class by themselves, have never been imitated, do not fall into any known classifications, and are instantly recognizable because nobody else sounds like them.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Nice post. Keep them coming. This is what the thread is about.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Ken Butler


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Harry Partch


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*The Transcendence Orchestra : DREAMS, WAKING THOUGHTS AND INCIDENTS*






For the unfamiliar, The Transcendence Orchestra is the duo of British Murder Boy and tQ fave Anthony Child (aka Surgeon) and Daniel Bean. Their music they make – rooted in modular synthesis and “location recordings” – resists easy categorisation, especially on their latest. It’s definitely psychedelic, but a bit too prickly for most ambient tags to stick, a bit too gnarled for new age, a bit too grotty to properly fit in with the modern classical crowd. Given this nebulous state of affairs, our boys naturally found a happy home with Editions Mego prior to the tragic death of its founder Peter Rehberg, releasing three ‘proper’ studio LPs through the label. For this album, their fourth in five years, they’ve opted to go it alone via their Old Technology label, which I think makes sense. This record, their best by some margin, feels like the start of a new leg in the band’s journey. (read more)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Oren Ambarchi & Eli Keszler – Alps*


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https://soundcloud.com/dancing-wayang-records%2Falps-extract

ALPS by Oren Ambarchi & Eli Keszler is a seemingly inevitable collaboration of two musicians kicking against limits and genre definitions, recorded and presented with a similar disregard for anything but quality. Two side-long pieces that mix improv, noise, rock, and drone, ALPS is never an easy listen but always a compelling one.


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