Irida Records: Hybrid Musics From Texas And Beyond, 1979-1986

This 7 CD set is a survey of 70s avant-garde music—all of it—that represents almost every style, except you’ve likely never heard any of it. Label founder Jerry Hunt is represented here by piano minimalism and a range of burly vocalese and mouth noise. James Fulkerson’s “Music For Brass Instruments” is a 15-minute sleeper, slow trombone figures circling a simple motif and going through tape loops, a bit like Basinski’s Disintegration Loops reforming and becoming more solid and glad to be alive. Dary John Mizelle’s entire disc of computer and tape music is gently intense and intense when not gentle. That’s less than a quarter of what’s here. An independent canon worthy of repeated listens, also unexpectedly fun.