Experimental Music Genres You’ve Probably Never Heard Of

Let’s talk about the weirdest, most mind-bending musical genres you’ve probably never heard of.

There’s a whole world of experimental sound that breaks all the rules and challenges our definition of what music can be. 

From turning random noise into symphonies to exploring sounds so quiet you might need a microscope to hear them, these genres push the limits of sonic possibility. 

Let’s dive into six that might just change the way you approach your productions – and maybe music in general.

Musique Concrète: The Sound of Possibility

Musique concrète – literally "concrete music" – is about as far from traditional composition as possible. 

It started in Paris in the 1940s, where a radio engineer named Pierre Schaeffer started playing around with tape recorders. What if music didn’t have to come from instruments at all? What if the world around us was already full of music — we just needed to listen differently?

This idea was part of a broader movement in experimental and futurist thought, which also drew inspiration from philosophers like Theodor Adorno in the mid-20th century.

Adorno saw ‘noise’ as a means of breaking traditional music apart and evolving it. 

So Schaeffer recorded things. Train whistles. Footsteps. Laughter. Clanging metal pipes. Then he cut the tape, flipped it backward, looped it, layered it – creating something totally new. It wasn’t about melody, but texture, rhythm, and noise. 

Concrète didn’t stay in the avant-garde corners for long. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop picked up on these ideas in the ‘50s and ‘60s. One of its composers, Delia Derbyshire, used tape manipulation and electronic sounds to create the iconic Doctor Who theme.

Musique concrète also influenced a ton of experimental and electronic artists over the decades, from Karlheinz Stockhausen to Aphex Twin. 

And honestly, a lot of the music we listen to now – sampling, looping, remix culture – owes something to Schaeffer’s early experiments with scissors and tape.

Key Characteristics of Musique Concrète

• Uses everyday recorded sounds as the core of music.

• Relies heavily on creative tape manipulation techniques.

• Rejects traditional musical notation in favor of sound exploration.

• Transforms natural sounds electronically into new textures.

• Focuses on timbre and texture over melody or harmony.

Pioneering Artists

• Pierre Schaeffer: The foundational innovator who first conceptualized musique concrète

• Pierre Henry: Expanded the genre's artistic possibilities

• Karlheinz Stockhausen: Theoretical pioneer who pushed electronic music boundaries

• François Bayle: Developed complex electroacoustic compositions

Drone Music: The Infinite Tone

Imagine music stripped down to its most basic element: a single, sustained sound that seems to go on forever. Welcome to drone music – a genre that turns traditional musical progression on its head and invites you to get lost in pure sound.

Drawing inspiration from Indian classical music and Tibetan meditation practices, drone pioneers like La Monte Young created compositions that could last hours.

Drone music also found a natural home in the emerging minimalist movement, with composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass incorporating elements of drone into their repetitive, hypnotic structures. 

In the 1990s and 2000s, drone music expanded even further, influencing a wide range of genres. Earth, the pioneering Seattle-based band, merged drone with heavy, slow guitar riffs, creating what we now generally know as doom metal. 

Similarly, Sunn O))), with their deep, crushing drones and minimalist structures, made a mammoth impact on both the drone and metal communities, blurring the lines between ambient and noise rock.

Key Characteristics of Drone Music

• Features long, sustained tones that create an immersive, meditative experience.

• Minimal harmonic changes, focusing on continuous sound.

• Emphasizes the emotional and psychological effects of sound over structure.

• Often minimalist, with sparse, repetitive elements.

• Creates an expansive atmosphere, often with little to no rhythmic movement.

Pioneering Artists

• La Monte Young: Considered the grandfather of drone music

• Terry Riley: Pioneered minimalist and drone compositions

• Pauline Oliveros: Explored deep listening and drone concepts

• Sunn O))): Modern metal/drone experimental collective

• John Cale (from Velvet Underground): Early experimental drone work

Plunderphonics: The Art of Musical Theft

Plunderphonics is a bold remixing style where artists take existing recordings and turn them into something totally new. 

And no, they don’t always ask for permission first. Well, with the name plunderphonics, that’s basically the point. 

The term was coined by Canadian composer John Oswald in the 1980s. He wasn’t just sampling a beat here or there – he was pulling full songs apart and stitching them back together. One minute it’s Michael Jackson, the next it’s warped strings from a classical piece.

Oswald wanted it to be rebellious. He was poking at the idea of who “owns” music.

If a song already exists in the public sphere, can it be totally reused? The practice of sampling says it can, to some extent, but how far can you push it?

Plunderphonics opened the door for all kinds of experimental and mashup artists, including music-comedy acts like Cassette Boy, who remix politicians and pop stars into sharp satire. 

Others, like The Evolution Control Committee, mashed up unlikely sources just for the fun of it – think Public Enemy vocals over cheesy lounge music. 

In the modern era, there's the viral sensation There I Ruined It, twisting familiar hits into genre-bending parodies that are equal parts clever and ridiculous, generously breaking copyright in the process. 

Key Characteristics of Plunderphonics

• Involves unauthorized sampling and recontextualizing existing recordings.

• Features radical sound manipulation, often transforming familiar music.

• Challenges concepts of copyright and ownership in music.

• Focuses on sound as a malleable artistic medium.

• Surprises listeners by breaking expectations with familiar tunes.

Pioneering Artists

• John Oswald: The original plunderphonics innovator

• Negativland: Media collage and sound manipulation pioneers

• The Tape-beatles: Experimental sound collage collective

• Girl Talk: Contemporary sampling-based musical artist

Glitch Music: Celebrating Digital Imperfection

Once upon a time, a computer error was something to be fixed — feared, even. But glitch music flipped that idea on its head and asked: what if the error is actually the art?

Emerging in the mid-1990s, glitch musicians turned technological malfunctions into creative tools. Skipping CDs, software crashes, corrupted files…digital noise became the raw material for something new and strangely beautiful.

Pioneering glitch artists like Oval, Ryoji Ikeda, and Alva Noto were not just using computers to make music — they were making music from the computer's mistakes. The clicks, pops, hums, and stutters of broken tech became their instruments.

And while glitch began as a niche, experimental scene, its influence is now everywhere. You can hear it in the chopped-up beats of Radiohead’s Kid A, the warped vocals and textures in James Blake’s productions, or the digital stutters in Bon Iver’s later albums. 

As producer and ambient music pioneer Brian Eno once said: “Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit — all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided.”

Key Characteristics of Glitch Music

• Uses digital errors, glitches, and malfunctions as musical elements.

• Embraces the beauty in technological imperfections and digital artifacts.

• Focuses on minimalistic, highly detailed sound structures.

• Explores the aesthetic of malfunction and disruption.

• Critiques the pursuit of technological perfection in music production.

Pioneering Artists

• Oval: German pioneers of glitch electronic music

• Ryoji Ikeda: Japanese audio-visual glitch artist

• Autechre: Complex algorithmic electronic music

• Fennesz: Experimental electronic and glitch composer

Microtonal Music: Beyond the Twelve Notes

Western music usually sticks to twelve notes per octave — a neat, familiar system. 

Microtonal music looks at that and says: “... but what about all the sounds in between?”

This genre dives into the vast space between the notes we’re used to, exploring pitches that fall outside the standard scale. It opens up a whole new world of textures, emotions, and sonic colors that most Western ears aren’t trained to expect.

Composers like Harry Partch took things to the extreme – building custom instruments just to play his unique 43-note scale.

 Microtonality isn’t limited to the avant-garde, either. Today, artists across genres – from experimental electronic producers to psychedelic and indie rockers like King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – are pushing the boundaries of tuning and tone, proving that there’s still a lot of music left to discover between the notes.

Key Characteristics of Microtonal Music

• Explores intervals smaller than the traditional semitone.

• Uses custom-built instruments with unique tuning systems.

• Rejects the standard 12-tone Western scale.

• Focuses on expanding sonic possibilities beyond familiar tuning.

• Incorporates mathematical and cultural exploration of pitch.

Pioneering Artists

• Harry Partch: Inventor of radical musical instruments

• Julián Carrillo: Mexican composer who developed microtonal theories

• La Monte Young: Explored alternative tuning systems

• Ben Johnston: Composed microtonal classical music

Lowercase Music: Reducing Sound to a Whisper 

In a world full of loud, attention-grabbing music, lowercase music goes in the other direction. It’s quiet – really quiet. So quiet that if you’re not paying attention, you might not realize it’s happening at all – which is part of the point.

Lowercase music isn't about melodies or beats. It’s about presence, inviting us to slow down and notice the sounds we usually ignore. 

A faint breath, a creaking floorboard, the hum of an old appliance, the rustle of a turning page. These tiny sonic fragments become the core of the music, asking us to listen with our full attention – that’s a challenge in a world so full of distractions!

Artists like Steve Roden, who helped define the genre, work with extremely quiet field recordings and processed sounds, layering them into pieces that are as much about atmosphere as they are about sound. 

Sometimes, the line between what’s in the music and what’s happening in the room you’re sitting in starts to blur, which is exactly what makes listening to lowercase music such a unique experience.

Key Characteristics of Lowercase Music

• Features extremely quiet, almost inaudible sound sources.

• Focuses on minute, subtle audio details.

• Emphasizes silence and the space between sounds.Aims to create a meditative, introspective listening experience.

• Challenges the listener to pay attention to the most delicate sounds.

Pioneering Artists

• Steve Roden: Primary innovator of the lowercase genre

• Bernhard Günter: Minimal electronic music composer

• Richard Chartier: Sound artist exploring extreme minimalism

• Taylor Deupree: Experimental ambient and lowercase music creator

Learning From Experimental Music

Experimental music has shown us that the traditional boundaries of sound and composition are just starting points. 

From the disorienting textures of musique concrète to the infinite tones of drone music and the fragile whispers of lowercase sound, each one opened up new worlds of possibility, pushing us to hear beyond what we thought was possible.

While it might rile some up, music isn’t simply about hitting the right notes — it’s about questioning the rules, exploring uncharted territory, and finding beauty in the unexpected. 

You achieve all of that through experimentation. 

If you're ready to apply some experimentation to your own projects, Sample Focus is the perfect place to start. 

With our extensive library of high-quality, royalty-free samples, you can dive deep into sound and start pushing the boundaries of your own music.

Happy experimenting!