Some artists march to the beat of a different drummer, but Erik Satie wrote the melody to accompany that different beat, and then gave the whole piece a crazy name. Dismissed by many critics during his lifetime as an eccentric bohemian whose absurdist humor disguised a lack of talent, Satie is now cr

Ambient, Fantastic, Kaleidoscopic, Parody, Spiritual, Surreal

This Bay Area-based group embodies the "sampledelic" appropriationist ethos of experimental music at the close of the twentieth century: Negativland exists by purloining and retooling the work of others for use in their own songs. Their music comprises hundreds of samples derived from music made ubiq

Citational, Collage, Eclectic, Plunderphonic, Political

According to Gene Santoro, John Zorn's "idiosyncratic mixtures of musical genres reflect the way popular music is currently transmitted from one culture to another...eclectic is far too weak a word to describe his intensely demanding yet playful sonic assaults." John Zorn's work doesn't simply titill

Cartoonish, Collage, Contemporary/downtown, Excessive, Free jazz, Free/avant-garde, Polychromatic, Psychedelic, Quirky

Born in a small farm town in Germany in 1928, progressive composer Karlheinz Stockhausen found his greatest pleasure in listening to the radio with his mother and playing what he heard on the piano. He began piano lessons at the age of six. At eight, he was performing popular tunes for tips and food

20th-century music, Collage, Dense, Musique concrete