The avant-garde is defined by its its progressiveness and its ability to push boundaries, whilst maintaining attraction from the mainstream. Similarly, the underground is also boundary pushing, but always stays outside or on the border of the mainstream, even in the audiences it draws. This is not to say that the avant-garde aims to draw a mainstream audience, but rather that it does not aim to attract a particular niche or group of people. One way in which you can tell this difference clearly is in aesthetics.

When thinking of performance set up, the avant-garde and the underground can be very similar, with the use of multiple synthesisers and other electronic / analogue equipment that gives both styles its unique sound. This can be seen the image above of modern day avant-garde duo, Hype Williams. However, without the previous knowledge of what the duo would identify as, it would be quite easy to assume this was a photo of an artist that would consider themselves underground.

When looking at the album art, however, it is very uniform and very “clean” looking. It is very plain and simple, almost keeping a sense of ambiguity of what it is, meaning it has not been aimed at a particular underground niche. This idea can be seen clearly when looking at the aesthetics of avant-garde vs underground labels. Another important distinguishing factor of the underground vs the avant-garde are their ranges; the avant-garde aims to be as left-field as possible when it comes to presentation and its formatting of its sounds, with avant-garde label, Leeraum, displaying this beautifully.

The first interesting thing to point out is Leeraum’s usage of a website over a bandcamp page. Perhaps this is to signify the fact that the avant-garde is not just restricted to sound that can be streamed as music.

Looking closely at the term “avant-garde”, “little is known of its etymology […] beyond its donation of […] comparative radicalism” (Graham, 2010). It would be interesting to explore how the avant-garde compares to the underground when thinking of all its definitions. Based on aesthetics, I now have a clear understanding in the differences between the two.