Tony Conrad—the composer, musician, video artist, teacher, and writer—has died, The Buffalo News reports. Conrad is considered a pioneer of minimalism, drone, and noise music. He had been battling prostate cancer and was recently hospitalized with pneumonia. He was 76.

Conrad was born in 1940. After he graduated from Harvard in 1962, he moved to New York, where he became an integral member of the city's underground music scene. He collaborated with La Monte Young and was an early member of the collective Theater of Eternal Music (aka the Dream Syndicate). He was in a short-lived pre-Velvet Underground band called the Primitives with John Cale and Lou Reed. Conrad reportedly introduced Cale and Reed to a book called The Velvet Underground, which is how they got the band's name.

In the 1960s, he became an experimental filmmaker. His first was 1966's The Flicker, which is considered widely influential in the development of structural filmmaking. Conrad worked with Faust to create the 1973 album Outside the Dream Syndicate. In 1993, he returned to performing after a long hiatus, and in 1995, he released Slapping Pythagoras, his first new album in over two decades. From that point on, he released several records, including collaborations with Jim O'Rourke, Rhys Chatham, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, and many others.

Conrad taught at the University of Buffalo's Media Department starting in 1976. About a week ago, he was scheduled to perform Outside the Dream Syndicate with Faust at Big Ears Festival, but was forced to cancel because of his health. Laurie Anderson performed with Faust in his place. In an interview with Pitchfork contributor Marc Masters, Conrad said, "I still have a lot of music that hasn't found its way to daylight yet."