The Avant Garde Project is a series of 20th-century classical, experimental, and electroacoustic torrents digitized from LPs whose music has in most cases never been released on CD, and so is effectively inaccessible to the vast majority of music listeners today. This is wild stuff, so check it out if you've never heard this sort of music before. The analog rig used to extract the sound from the grooves is near state-of-the-art, producing almost none of the tracking distortion or surface noise normally associated with LPs.

AGP1-154 are now available for direct download in the archive at www.avantgardeproject.org
AGP155-159 and other AGP installments are also available at http://thepiratebay.org/user/loudav

NOTE: Since this week's installment is so lengthy, the AGP will be taking a well-deserved week off. Look for AGP161 on December 4th.

---------- ---------- ---------- ======

AGP160 is the third installment featuring the work of the legendary pioneering minimalist composer La Monte Young. This one features his acknowledged masterwork, The Well Tuned Piano, on 5 CDs. I have to admit that I've been preoccupied with other things the past couple of weeks, so I've only begun to be mesmerized by this unique work. But I can say that it makes the work of other minimalists seem, well, maximalist in comparison. 

I was only given the data files, so I have no scans of the liner notes. I have appended below everything I was readily able to find out about this release. For more information on La Monte Young, see the Wikipedia article on him, or visit his website at:

http://www.melafoundation.org/lmy.htm

La Monte Young - The Well-Tuned Piano 81 X 25 6:17:50 - 11:18:59 PM NYC
Label: Gramavision
Catalog#: 18-8701-1
Format: 5 x CD Box Set
Country: US
Released: 1987
Genre: Classical
Style: Contemporary

Tracklist
CD 1 	  	The Well-Tuned Piano Part 1 	59:17 	
CD 2 	  	The Well-Tuned Piano Part 2 	1:00:33 	
CD 3 	  	The Well-Tuned Piano Part 3 	1:01:14 	
CD 4 	  	The Well-Tuned Piano Part 4 	1:00:47 	
CD 5 	  	The Well-Tuned Piano Part 5 	59:58 	

Composed By, Producer, Piano - La Monte Young
Producer - David Farneth , Marian Zazeela

Performed by La Monte Young in a setting of The Magenta Lights by Marian Zazeela. Recorded live at the last 6 Harrison Street Dream House concert of The Well Tuned Piano, New York City, October 1981, presented by DIA Foundation.

A brief discussion of the tuning can be found here: http://www.kylegann.com/wtp.html
A goodly selection of quotes from reviews of the work can be found here: http://www.melafoundation.org/quotwtp.htm
If you prefer mp3s, I'm pretty sure you can find them here: http://direct-waves.blogspot.com/2007/02/la-monte-young-well-tuned-piano.html

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, these recordings are not currently available commercially. If you know otherwise, please let me know ASAP, as I do not wish any artists to be deprived of the royalties that they so richly deserve.