The Avant Garde Project is a series of 20th-century classical-experimental-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.

AGP1-27 are now available for direct download in the archive at www.avantgardeproject.org
AGP28-29 are available at http://thepiratebay.org/user/loudav

Ignore the seeders/leechers statistics, as they often show no seeders when in fact there are some. For the time being, a new AGP torrent is being seeded around midnight each Friday night (GMT), and is advertised on the I Hate Music Forum.

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AGP30 is the first of three dedicated to electronic and electroacoustic compositions by Ilhan Mimaroglu. I would have transcribed these some time ago, but I had assumed most or all of them were available on CD. Mimaroglu was one of the most creative composers working at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, starting in 1964. His purely electronic works sometimes feature the dry, nasally tonal palette typical of Columbia-Princeton compositions, while his works deriving from acoustic sound sources such as clarinet or rubber band tend to be richer and more appealing. But even when when the timbres are less beguiling than in some European electronic compositions of the period, Mimaroglu unfailingly has an excellent sense of rhythm and structure.

This first Mimaroglu installment covers the period from 1964-69. It is drawn from four LPs, all on American pressings with low to moderate levels of pressing noise. One track (Prelude No. 8) has been excluded because it is on a CD of Mimaroglu's works that is currently available. The others are all out of print. The torrent includes a text file containing the liner notes from three of the six LPs from which AGP30-32 were transcribed. The other three LPs had either no liner notes or notes that added nothing in particular to the liner notes in the text file.

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 - Bowery Bum, 1964 [2:49]
02 - Le Tombeau d'Edgar Poe, 1964 [7:14]
03 – Intermezzo, 1964 [3:05]
04 – Agony, 1964 [9:24]
05 – Anacolutha, 1965 [8:55]
06 - White Cockatoo, 1965 [4:24]
07 - Prelude for Magnetic Tape I, 1966-67 [2:52]
08 - Prelude for Magnetic Tape II, 1966-67 [2:23]
09 - Prelude for Magnetic Tape XI, 1966-67 [3:07]
10 - Prelude for Magnetic Tape IX, 1966-67 [2:18]
11 - Prelude for Magnetic Tape VI, 1966-67 [2:17]
12 - Prelude for Magnetic Tape XII, 1966-67 [2:34]
13 - Piano Music for Performer and Composer, 1967 [7:49]
14 – Wings of the Delirious Demon, 1969 [14:54]

Tracks 01-03: Finnadar SR 9012 (B- pressing)
Track 04: Turnabout TV 34046S (B pressing)
Tracks 05, 06, 14: Finnadar SR 9001 (B+ pressing)
Tracks 07-13: Turnabout TV 34177 (B pressing)

NOTE: To the best of my knowledge, these recordings are currently out of print. 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.