Volume One of his etudes is a good place to start — at least it was for me, when I found them at the campus radio station I was at in the early 80s. Many of his trademark sounds show up in the selections, like one voice that speeds up while another slows down, or nigh-incomprehensible chords rapidly strummed from the bottom of the keyboard to the top (which always make me think of the “terror chords” described in a short story in one of the “Dangerous Visions” collections).

I always wished that somebody would use his techniques to make a kick-ass piano roll version of “Rite of Spring.” There is a Pianola setting of the piece that sounds great, but one that used Nancarrow as a model would be transcendent.

http://www.americancomposers.org/gann_nancarrow.htm

Some of Kyle Gann’s work, including diskclavier pieces, can be heard on last.fm:

http://www.last.fm/music/Kyle+Gann

I rather doubt that Ligeti discovered Nancarrow in 1980 and became an “early” champion – even Columbia records released an album of some of Nancarrow’s pieces around 1968.

but it’s crazy interesting.

I think most good music over the years has been called “a horrible attack on the ears” or something similar at some point.

To get a feel for the kind of music he made using the Synclavier, you can listen to the Grammy-winning “Jazz from Hell”, as well as his final opus, “Civilization Phase III”.  Check out “G-Spot Tornado” on “Jazz from Hell”, and then compare it with the live orchestral performance on the “Yellow Shark” album.

There may even be a kind of aural uncanny valley, as my brain tries to reconcile the analog input of the piano with the impossible pace and phrasing.

Now that mechanically generated music is common, it is interesting to see his “multiple meters overlaid on top of each other” technique cropping up all over the place.