Welcome to the year-end edition of Best Experimental Music on Bandcamp, in which we’ve picked 12 of our favorites from 2024. The vast range of experimental music you can find on the site seemed to increase exponentially this year, in all types of styles, from all types of places, and by all types of people. Seeking out gems every month was an endless and endlessly enjoyable journey. Presented in alphabetical order by artist, our selections include solo trombone explosions, cello improvisations to accompany house-fire videos, noise made with balloons, and a triumphant live document from a masterful guitar quartet.
Andrea Belfi & Jules Reidy
dessus oben alto up
Vinyl LP
Italian drummer Andrea Belfi and Australian guitarist Jules Reidy both currently live in Germany and recently met at a studio in Berlin arts institution Callie’s to generate four tracks of careful rhythm-and-texture conversations. The mood on dessus oben alto up is reflective and patient; each cut slowly wakes up, with Belfi’s forward-moving drum rolls and Reidy’s glimmering chords gradually emitting more and more light. Things can get hectic, too, as on the cascading “alto,†which rushes forward with energized sounds.†The highlight is closer “up,†15 minutes of pulsing sound that’s like a therapeutic massage that you hope never ends.
Maria Bertel
Monophonic
Compact Disc (CD)
Danish trombonist Maria Bertel holds nothing back on Monophonic, a brutal and exhilarating album of gut-busting power drones. Bertel uses only her trombone, amplifying and distorting it until it feels like you’re living inside the wind tunnel of breath she sends through the instrument. At times, as on the rumbling “Rotundity,†Bertel’s sound is subterranean, as if she’s using her trombone to drill into the earth. But even more often, Monophonic is on the attack, with Bertel tearing at the sound spectrum and shooting off sparks as gleefully as any rock guitar god.
Body Meπa
Prayer in Dub
Vinyl LP, Compact Disc (CD)
The second album by New York quartet Body Meπa charges out of the gate with the penetrating drum rolls of Greg Fox, soon joined by Melvin Gibbs’s ascending bass and guitarist Sasha Frere-Jones and Grey McMurray’s shimmering wall of guitar. It’s a dazzling way to start a record, and this well-pedigreed collective keeps that momentum going on Prayer in Dub, rolling forward with many sounds and tempos, such as the twisty guitar chaos of “Deborah†and the Dirty Three-esque ascendance of “Scout.†There’s an airy, free-flowing quality to Prayer in Dub that suggests the spacey jams of Tortoise, but Body Meπa’s music has so many original ideas that only these four could’ve made it.
Leila Bordreuil
1991, Summer, Huntington Garage Fire
Cassette
Last August, during a cookout in her Brooklyn backyard, cellist Leila Bordreuil performed improvisations in response to a video playing next to her. On screen were scenes of an early ’90s fire in the garage of her partner’s family (filmed for insurance purposes). Hanson Records owner Aaaron Dilloway was blown away by the sound Bordreuil made, and on the resulting cassette, you can hear why. Bordreuil gradually increases the volume and intensity of her noises (made with cello and electronics) until her instruments seem as inflamed as the images near her. The rest of the tape offers eerie, meditative studio tracks, filled with patient playing and loops that could echo forever.
Lia Kohl
Normal Sounds
Vinyl LP
Chicago-based cellist and sound artist Lia Kohl is upfront about her sources, naming each track on Normal Sounds after the, well, normal sounds she uses. So the mesmerizing “Airport Fridge, Self Checkout†contains echoes of a humming refrigerator, but it also has chimes, percussion, and synth patterns, all weaved into an impressionistic portrait of something unspecified. For Kohl, these mundane audio events are launching points to respond to and expand upon, like new collaborators in place of other musicians. In a few places, she actually does include humans: “Car Horns†mixes sweeping strings with Patrick Shiroishi’s saxophone strains, while “Car Alarm, Turn Signal†takes full advantage of Ka Baird’s flute playing.
Alma Laprida
Pitch Dark and Trembling
Cassette
Argentinian artist Alma Laprida likes using novel instrumentation, and on Pitch Dark and Trembling she focuses on a two-stringed European tool called the tromba marina, improvising through an array of effects pedals, and creating subterranean waves that frequently crest and retreat in disorienting patterns. On opener “A Thick Event†she forges a heavy sonic undertow, as if the music is both pulling you in and spitting you out, while on “Trembling†the addition of a metallic rhythm evokes an encroaching army. It’s impressive that Laprida can consistently restrict herself to one instrument yet still generate such a wide world of sound.
Nick Millevoi
Moon Pulses
Cassette
Following last year’s Digital Reaction, which featured many collaborators, Philadelphia guitarist Nick Millevoi came up with a simpler idea. He decided to play just one guitar, creating one melody track and one rhythm track, in service of “something that could leave a listener transfixed by texture.†Moon Pulses hits that mark, with six pieces that seem to float in and out of each other’s orbits. Each “pulse†has a distinct character—some are fully meditative, while others coat busy notes under clouds of reverb—but the entirety works best when taken all in one sitting, offering an audio environment that’s as complex as a planetary ecosystem.
Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet
Four Guitars Live
2 x Vinyl LP
The 2022 album Music for Four Guitars was a Bill Orcutt tour-de-force. The guitarist composed short, hypnotic pieces for four guitarists and then played all the parts himself. Orcutt extended the magic by forming a group to perform the songs, recruiting three of the best experimental guitarists around: Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, and Shane Parish. One of their concerts, at Le Guess Who? in Utrecht in November of 2023, was recorded in full and released as this double album (with an encore added from a Denmark show a few days later). The quartet pumps blood into Orcutt’s pieces to make them three dimensional, with guitar loops ringing around each other like kids playing hide and seek. The result is a record as important as the original it’s based on and maybe even more exciting.
Manja Ristić, Joana Guerra & Verónica Cerrotta
Slani pejzaži
Cassette
Manja Ristić lives in Serbia, Joana Guerra in Portugal, and Verónica Cerrotta in Brazil. I’m not sure if their new tape, Slani pejzaži, was recorded in person or remotely, nor is it clear what instruments they used. But that fits with the mystery of the two tracks here, which build atmospheres as much as they create wordless dialogue. Tones drift in and out, voices emerge and retreat, and tactile sounds present themselves with just enough clarity to let you imagine what their sources might be. The best of the two pieces, “O vento retoma o seu lugar inicial†(The wind returns to its original place), lives up to its name in dazzling ways as the trio cross each other’s paths with so much motion and texture, it feels like you could live in the world they’ve conjured.
Li Song, Zhao Cong & Zhu Wenbo
3 lines and balloons
Cassette
The title of this live-recorded collaboration between Li Song, Zhao Cong, and Zhu Wenbo is literal. During a South China tour in September of 2023, the trio performed one set of what Wenbo calls the “3 lines†feedback system, which uses “transducers, elastic ropes, and other objects (foil, paper…)†Performed in an alley outside a venue, the resulting first track is replete with high, squeaky tones, punctuated by the random knocks and spurts of unidentified objects. The second piece uses amplified balloons devised by Cong, which the three attack and manipulate to make rattling, rumbling noise. Both tracks feel both minimalist and confrontational, as Song, Cong, and Wenbo play thoughtfully and wildly at the same time.
michaela turcerová
alene et
Vinyl LP
Born in Slovakia and currently living in Copenhagen, saxophonist Michaela Turcerová is obsessed with small, close-up sounds. For her solo debut, alene et, she close-miked her horn to an extreme; you can hear the clicking and clacking of her keys as if they’re moving right in front of your face. She augments this exuberant clatter with found objects and toys, but the primary thrust of alene et is Turcerová wrangling whatever she can out of her sax. Tracks such as “stamps from childhood I†and “in flux ä†are energizing barrages, sometimes approaching avant-garde dance music. Most of Turcerová’s rapid fires are doled out in short bursts, but the totality of alene et is cohesive, even when it’s wonderfully corrosive.
Jacob Wick Ensemble
Something in Your Eyes
Compact Disc (CD)
Jacob Wick’s sound floats between chamber jazz, wild improvisation, classical-leaning structures, and dramatic vocalizations along the lines of Scott Walker or Circuit Des Yeux. But there’s so much more to his aesthetic and it flowers nicely on Something in Your Eyes, ostensibly a covers album in which Wick’s Mexico City ensemble make abstract versions of songs by Emmylou Harris, Alice Coltrane, Kyle Minogue, and Billie Holiday. Wick seems more interested in matching the spirit of the originals than covering them in any conventional sense. The result is a beguiling album of unpredictable tracks, peaking when Wick’s vocals match the crests of his collaborators, who weave spells with drums, cello, violin, bass, and guitar.
