To embrace the freedom of the unknown is to chase the thrill of discovery. Here, artists fuse the conventional with the unconventional, distorting and contorting predictable rhythms, melodies, and time signatures until they morph into something unrecognizable—a process that begs listeners to question their fundamental understanding of what music can be. Experimental music transforms passive listening into a visceral, all-encompassing, body-consuming experience. Presentation becomes performance.
Experimental music’s origins lie in the movement of Futurism of the early 20th century, which rejected Western classical music and embraced nonconformity.
The realm of what can be dubbed “experimental” extends beyond any single musical discipline. As artist and researcher Matthieu Saladin puts it in the introduction of his collection L'Expérience de l'expérimentation, “It is rather singular relationships to musical creation that emerge, nourished by different problems or interests according to the musicians and artists, crossing moreover a multiplicity of currents and practices.” Similarly, RateYourMusic denotes that “approaches may be ideologically informed, focusing on the liberatory desires of the artists and replicating the intended result of the piece in musical structure, although intent may also be interpretive.”
Experimental music’s origins lie in the movement of Futurism of the early 20th century, which rejected Western classical music and embraced nonconformity. Deeply influenced by the industrial revolution and its machinery, Futurism wove obscure sounds—from banging and clanging to screeching and scraping—into the fabric of its noise. Academics who emerged from later schools of thought (the avant-garde in particular) came to revere this stripped back concept of noise as a musical medium in its own right. Jazz artists were among the first musicians to follow suit, some of which included Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, according to RateYourMusic. The advent of electronic music and the increasing accessibility of sound manipulating tools also opened up new areas of experimentation, bringing new perspectives and fresh sounds to the table.
Now concentrated in Tallinn, Estonia’s experimental music scene is one of many across the globe, burgeoning with talent. But it wasn’t always like that—it took a couple years for it to find its footing during the country’s transition to re-gaining its independence in the early 1990s.
Inspired by a previously-unavailable plethora of music from around the world, Estonian musicians began creating their own.
In an article written by Lottie Brazier for Vice, electronic musician Ruum (AKA Hendrik Kaljujärv) recalls what that period was like: “Before that shift fully happened, it was too difficult to throw parties or play music; not because any of it was illegal, but because nobody had the time nor money to do so.”
Yet, the introduction of computers into Estonian society transformed the way musicians consumed and produced music. Inspired by a previously-unavailable plethora of music from around the world, Estonian musicians began creating their own. Still, the trend for aspiring Estonian musicians currently seems to be to move elsewhere. “Like in Berlin, Tallinn’s winters are dark and cold, meaning that musicians who [do] live here tend to work alone, creating whole audio-visual worlds in their apartments and warehouse spaces. This has given them plenty of breathing space to experiment with their own directions,” wrote Lottier.
Keep an ear out for these three Estonian artists that are shaping the scene:
Ratkiller
Listening to Mihkel Kleis’ (AKA Ratkiller) most recent album, Leather Squeaking Softly, is “as if your whole life was a theme park built on a hazardous waste site,” according to the project’s Bandcampsite. It features just two tracks—both about 15 minutes in length—that explore irregular compositions layered on top of “faulty drum machines and field recordings of distorted memories.” As an exploration of heavy metal hellscapes, listening to the album in full is akin to reading a bed-time horror story jam packed with eerie whimsy and absurdity.
Andres Lõo
Already with 12 singles, EPs, and albums under his belt, Andres Lõo is an accomplished artist who has experimented with everything from noise rock to jazz. His most recent single, Weightless Warhorse, is an homage to all the scenes he’s experimented with. Radical jazz sequences intersect with more intense industrial beats, while soothing vocals mingle and dance about.
L O O T U S
“Influenced by the surreal and lurid sci-fi of J.G. Ballard,” L O O T U S’ first label release, Sounds From Vermilion Sands, is engaged in a game of broken telephone. Idyllic melodies, spoken numerical sequences, and erratic hymnals are layered on top, next to, and around darker soundscapes, radio static, and mechanical humming—whether they seem to be communicating with each other or are simply relaying information into nothingness remains open to interpretation. Yet this ambiguity should be considered a contribution to the project’s success. For him, the conventional and the unconventional seem to meet somewhere in an uncanny valley. Sounds From Vermilion Sands is a listening experience that induces a sense of limbo; a hesitancy that warrants closer inspection and gratitude of your own surroundings.
In the artist’s words: “Picture synthetic jazz broadcast from a private resort in Palm Springs. There is a hall with rows of glossy monitors, all reflecting desktop backgrounds with rolling hills and perfectly sculpted clouds. On the path to the garden, the collective hum of mechanical mosquitoes enfolds you with a warm and menacing embrace. The staff has somehow taught the flowers in the garden how to sing.”
All three artists are available to listen to on Spotify and on BandCamp.
This article was written by Natalie Jenkins as part of the Local Journalism Initiative.
