Microtonal music that's... Good

Just stumbled on this microtonal synth fest and I love it.

It’s made me realise I’d love to find more great microtonal music that…

(1) Actually has some musicality, tension/resolution, rather than a complete mess.

(2) Isn’t made by Aphex Twin.

(3) Sits outside of non-western musical traditions (ie not looking for middle Eastern music, or things that try to copy it).

Is there a search term, blog, Spotify playlist, Reddit or similar that I should be hunting in?

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Caterina Barbieri

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Kali Malone

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not microtonal electronic theremin jazz but still… you know.

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Check out Sevish, he makes microtonal music:

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though not electronic

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One of my favourites:

Some pop music:

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La Monte Young - The Well-Tuned Piano, Just Stompin’, … [many other works]

Terry Riley - Shri Camel, Descending Moonshine Dervishes

Ben Johnston - String Quartets 2-10 (played by Kepler Quartet), Suite for Microtonal Piano, … [many other works]

Harry Partch - US Highball, And on the Seventh Day Petals Fell in Petaluma, … [many other works]

Easley Blackwood - 12 Microtonal Etudes for Electronic Music Media

Syzygys - Otona, … [other works]

Horse Lords - …

And to repeat what @monomatik said, Sevish - … [many albums]

[EDIT: adding:]

Kyle Gann - Hyperchromatica, … [various other works]

Hyperchromatica | Kyle Gann | Other Minds Records.

https://kylegann.com/Gannaudio.html

Also, to address the original post, not just title— i’d recommend searching Bandcamp for tags such as “microtonal”, “xenharmonic”, “just intonation”

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I was going to post some King Gizz but you beat me to it. Incredible band, on record and live.

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I really like all of the crumbling castle material, polygondwanaland I guess. and gumboot soup.

but I don’t like these albums because they’re microtonal, I like them because they’re indicative of some of the band’s best material.

I would not personally choose to listen to something specifically and only because it exclusively featured microintervals, I would choose to listen to something because it was good, regardless of the genre or artist.

just like how I would take a hard pass on content which is not good, even from the same artists.

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King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard is great— FYI, I think their only “fully”-microtonal albums so far are:

  • Flying Microtonal Banana
  • K.G.
  • L.W.

… although there could be some other scattered tracks

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As you are already talking about King Gizz I have to drop their best (for me) song (microtonal, of course):

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dope song and video

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Same, and for the same reasons. It’s just solid music. I love Crumbling Castle, such a unique and powerful piece of prog. I was lucky enough to catch them performing this in London a few years back.

Choosing to listen to specifically microtonal music is a bit like seeking music written only in the Phrygian mode. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Thanks all. Should have said I love King Gizzard, I think that set me off on this a few days ago.

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This comment got me to finally check out KGLW. Just finished Polygondwanaland. It’s fantastic prog. I’m not a prog person by any means but I really enjoyed it.

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I’m glad I was able to bring something new and positive into your spectrum of awareness, and I hope you continue to enjoy it!

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