Musique concrète is a pioneering form of experimental music that uses recorded sounds from everyday life, transformed and assembled to create unique sound works. This genre pushes the traditional boundaries of music by prioritizing texture and sound collage.
Discover our collection of Musique concrète vinyls, ideal for sound innovation enthusiasts.
This page gathers musique concrète vinyl and the electroacoustic music that grew out of it. The idea, developed by Pierre Schaeffer in Paris in 1948, was to compose not with written notes but with recorded sounds: noises, voices, objects and instruments, transformed by editing, loops, speed changes and filtering. It's far from a dead end: its techniques fed into electronic music, hip-hop sampling and much of modern production. The selection here is small and changes with what partner stores list.
It started with Pierre Schaeffer's "Étude aux chemins de fer" in 1948, built from the sounds of locomotives. In 1950, Schaeffer and Pierre Henry created "Symphonie pour un homme seul." The Groupe de Recherches Musicales, or GRM, founded in 1958, then became the genre's laboratory, a place where composers could experiment with tape machines and studio tools that were rare at the time.
Essential records include Bernard Parmegiani's "De Natura Sonorum," Luc Ferrari's "Presque rien," and Pierre Henry's "Messe pour le temps présent," written with Michel Colombier for a Maurice Béjart ballet and home to the famous "Psyché Rock." François Bayle and Éliane Radigue are also key names. More recently, the American duo Matmos has built whole albums out of everyday objects and situations.
Original pressings, notably Philips' Prospective 21e Siècle series from the 1960s and 1970s, are sought after and often expensive. Fortunately there are plenty of reissues: the Recollection GRM series, launched with the label Editions Mego, has brought a significant part of the historic GRM catalog back into print. With music built on silence and fine textures, surface condition is decisive.
Vinyles.com compares offers from several partner stores for the same record, new or used. For a specialist repertoire like this, it's a quick way to see whether an album is available and at what price. Musique concrète sits in the Alternative section, where neighboring collections, from ambient to
8 result(s)
From$32.99
3 offersEllen Arkbro, Hampus Lindwall, Hanne Lippard
AlternatifMusique concrète
From$14.35
2 offersGiuliano Sorgini
AlternatifMusique concrète
From$25.09
2 offers
