Welcome!

“One the great adventures of our time” (Michael Byron)
SO at Euston
Scratch Orchestra at Euston Station 1970

COVID-19 information: The EMC is back to sending out hard copies by post. 

Hello and welcome (or welcome back!) to the Experimental Music Catalogue.  If you don’t know us, there’s a little explanation (Who We Are) about our history and how we got back to providing some good experimental music. This is an updated, upgraded home page, and we hope you like it.

Here are some features that might tickle your fancy:

New on JEMS (Journal of Experimental Music Studies, our sponsored peer-review journal): JEMS Special Forum: The EMC² Festival, 24–26 March 2017, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Papers, panel discussions and greetings on the Experimental Music Catalogue from the EMC² Festival and conference, sponsored by CoMA (Contemporary Music for All), Arts Council England, University of Leicester, and De Montfort University. And for more JEMS, see our JEMS page.

Bandcamp. The EMC’s Bandcamp pages present listenable and downloadable tracks and albums of new music, previously unreleased music, and rare archival music. The EMC Bandcamp page will be available as long as we can afford the subscription, so enjoy, download, and if you like it, give! Our Bandcamp offerings include music by Christopher Hobbs, Michael Parsons, and John White, Rick Cox, Read Miller and Dave Smith.

    • New! Chris Hobbs, 24 Preludes
  • EVEN NEWER!!! Chris Hobbs, Sudoku Music. The streamable version of our EMC-104. Buy one, buy both…your choice!

The EMC BlogNews, views and short articles about all the experimental, minimal, postminimal, animal, vegetable, and free improvisatory things that interest us.

Events galore, as they happen…

EMC Facebook. Come and see us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emcsystems. All the quick news about the EMC in your newsfeed, so you can see what we’re doing while you’re liking and poking.

EMC Scores, Recordings, and other goodiesMusic by Cornelius Cardew, Chris Hobbs, Hugh Shrapnel, Michael Parsons, Dave Smith, Erik Satie and others. Includes CDs and reissues of the EMC Verbal Anthology and more.

New!!! 

On Jems: Chris Hobbs reviews Brian Olewnick’s Keith Rowe.

Christopher Hobbs, Sudoku 82, this time in a solo piano version, which Chris premiered at the EMC² Festival in March this year. Great pdf score for home or concert performance, just £5. And you can see the premiere on the EMC Youtube channel, experimusichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bInQqXeaesg.

Also recent:

    • The EMC Rhythmic Anthology is back, done up in a lovely pdf format. One of the important publications of the original EMC, with music by Shrapnel, Bryars, Gibson, Nyman, Hobbs, and Parsons. Some landmark pieces of minimalism/systems.
    • The Alec Hill Anthology: Systems music scores by one of the original members of the Promenade Theatre Orchestra. If you like bell-ringing systems, this is for you!
    • The Journal of the London Institute of ‘Pataphysics, devoted to John White on his 78th birthday. The first issue, no, 8, is Albus Liber I: Exploits and Opinions of John White, Composer. Issue 9 is Albus Liber II: The Music of John White. 
  • EMC² Festival: The Festival celebrating the Experimental Music Catalogue, organized by CoMA (Contemporary Music for All), and hosted by De Montfort University in Leicester, from 24–26 March, was a roaring success. We’ll be putting up highlights of the festival, and hopefully publishing recordings, videos, and other materials as soon as we get our collective breaths. In the meantime, check out our Facebook page for clips and stills of the event. Thanks to Kieran O’Riordan and Annd Claydon, the musical director and conference organiser, to DMU Music Technology and the South Leicestershire Improvisors Ensemble for taking part, and especially to the CoMA people!

Freebies. We don’t want anyone to leave empty-handed, so, thanks to the kind permission of the composers and authors, we have a number of free pieces by Chris Hobbs, Michael Parsons, John White, and the historic Scratch Orchestra Research document, Nature Study Notes.

Stuff to read. Our well-respected Journal of Experimental Music Studies (which includes the EMC Article Archive of historic writings), EMC Composers and other people, and various guides. Perfect for that summer afternoon…

Other free stuff, including archival recordings….

Plus other things of interest:

  1. How to Order EMC scores and recordings: We have Visa facility for ordering, through Paypal.  You have to join Paypal (it’s free), but then you can order using your card through them to us.  It’s worked really well for us and has proved to be very safe so far.  This is the cheapest method of ordering, especially for those of you who live outside of Britain.  For information on how to order, see How to Order.
  2. FAQs: Here are some frequently asked questions we receive. Have a look through them — if you don’t find your answer, contact us! We’re happy to chat.
  3. Credits:
  • Thanks so much to James Pease, composer and producer, and his Forte Productions, our technical adviser on recent EMC Bandcamp albums.
  • You might have also noticed the EMC Ball Logo, designed by the saxophone improviser Bruce Coates a long time ago now.  It’s based on the big ball section of Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise (pp. 130-135), with a particular resonance to a ball on p. 134.  We think that this logo gives a fine sense of who we are and where we’ve come from.  Thanks so much to Bruce for his talent and friendship.

For information on the EMC, contact:
questions**experimentalmusic.co.uk (for the **, substitute @)

This site updated 20 February 2020 by Virginia Anderson (vander**experimentalmusic.co.uk – for the **, substitute @), who has been working hard on the new book of interviews with American composers.