Song of the 2nd Moon - Electrosoniks

Dutch composers Dick Raaymakers and Tom Dissevelt are and were pioneers of electronic music and taped effects under the name Electrosoniks. In 1957 they released Song of the Second Moon, a composition built upon unusual audio samples and early synth sounds. The song was one of the first it's kind and stands as an example of early forrays into the field of electronica.

It's also fairly bonkers, but in the most lovably unnerving way.

The intro sounds like the opening of Voodoo Child shoved forcefully through a rotary phone. It has everything from distorted ghostly whistles to the death burbles of clavi-keyboards and the crushed whispers of industrial machinery. The song jumps styles several times over the course of it's three minutes- but always remains consistent in it's tone and presentation. The overall effect is that of a classical record collection being pounded into rubber electricity.

Etude Aux Chemins De Fer - Pierre Schaeffer

Pierre Schaeffer is the credited originator of a form of music theory known as Musique concrète. Schaeffer posited a genre of music which uses acousmatic sound as a compositional tool. Put simply, this means using sounds from pretty much anything in the world (not just classically musical sounds such as those from instruments or the human voice) to create a collage of samples manipulated into a musical form.

His first composition in this style, composed in 1948, was Etude Aux Chemins De Fer or Study With Trains- today's Best Song Ever.

As you'd expect with music that rejects music, it's rather hard to describe. My personal listening experience has unfolded in two very distinct ways. When I initially sat down to listen I had put the song on in the background, and all I heard were random train noises. And something that sounded suspiciously like an angry cockatoo.

Then I listened to the song again, this time paying close attention to the rhythm and textures of the sound. You know what? I heard drums thundering along the tracks. I heard musical trills built out of the snapped and clipped whistles. They didn't always flow continuously, but they were most definitely there.

So it's not a perfectly flowing piece of music (how could it ever be?). In many ways it feels like a series of musical snapshots-brief ten seconds glimpses into the melodic rhythms flowing through the world around you, cut together into a two minute blur of the greatest intstrument of them all: Life.