!VAR HAGENDOORN

Customers Who Bought Gerard Grisey Also Bought Nah und Fern

While browsing at amazon.co.uk by accident I noticed that customers who bought Les Espaces Acoustiques by Gérard Grisey, one of my favourite classical albums, also bought Nah und Fern by Gas, one of my favourite ambient techno albums (and it wasn't me).

The complete list of other albums bought by customers who bought Les Espaces Acoustiques includes several other of my favourite classical albums: Orion, Siddhartha and 5 Chansons Pour Percussion by Claude Vivier, Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, Sequenzas I-XIII by Luciano Berio, The Complete String Quartets by Jonathan Harvey as well as some albums by Tristan Murail, György Ligeti, Iannis Xenakis and Kaija Saariaho, all of whom are among my favourite composers. But I also noticed 5 Years of Hyperdub, an excellent dubstep compilation album and some albums by Brian Eno.

So, I'm not the only person who enjoys listening to spectral music, dubstep and ambient techno. I don't know how many people actually bought any of these albums together, but if you like Gas, Burial, Biosphere, Monolake, Four Tet and of course Brian Eno and Boards of Canada, I recommend that you give Gérard Grisey, Tristan Murail, Kaija Saariaho and Claude Vivier a try.

I know that Gas has a beat and that the work of Gérard Grisey and Kaija Saariaho is more discontinuous, but to me various, though not all, tracks, sound like sonorous landscapes, if that makes any sense.

Listen to an excerpt from Gas: Königsforst #5

Listen to an excerpt from Gérard Grisey: Modulations (1976-77)

Listen to an excerpt from Tristan Murail: Le Lac pour ensemble (2001)

Listen to an excerpt from Gas: Zauberberg #2

Listen to an excerpt from Kaija Saariaho: L'Aile du songe (2001)