musical cut-up artist (article)
RMJon23
as much heat from here on out, so innocent does his work appear in light of the
Napsters.-rmjon23)
Source: Performing Arts & Entertainment in Canada, Summer 1997 v31 n1
p12(2).
Title: Plunderphonics pioneer. (manipulation of recordings)
Author: Robert Hoshowsky
Abstract: 'Plunderphonics' is the manipulation of other artists' recordings
to create sounds that exist only on the recorder's imagination. John Oswald
created this process and released it in 1989. It gained different reactions
from its listeners and was sued for violation of copyrights.
Subjects: Sound recordings - Usage
Copyright - Sound recordings
Full Text COPYRIGHT 1997 George Hencz Performing Arts & Entertainment in
Canada
FRANK SINATRA SINGING A DUET WITH U2'S BONO? WHITEBREAD CROONER PAT BOONE
BELTING OUT METALLICA?
Suggesting such unlikely musical pairings a decade ago would have music-lovers
howling in record store aisles, but to Toronto-based composer John Oswald,
extraordinary musical morphings are nothing new - he's been creating them for
years. Oswald is the man behind "Plunderphonics," the manipulation of
recordings by other artists to create sounds which previously existed only in
his imagination. Dollar Parton sounds like a husky baritone in Oswald's world,
and lyrics like "Ghandi as a young Yeti eats Verdi...OW!" are born. His work
has challenged not only the ears of music listeners, but copyright laws as
well; a popular Oswaldian expression goes, "If creativity is a field,
copyright is the fence."
Using analogue and digital editing, Oswald creates music that is slowed down,
cut up, sped up, stretched and reverberated. Live musicians will occasionally
play along to his newly-created tracks, resulting in a dense beehive of sound.
"There isn't any single Plunderphonics technique," says Oswald, a lean,
soft-spoken man in his forties. "Plunderphonics is a genre based on taking
existing music and someway making it different or, ideally, making it better."
Like his music, Oswald cannot be readily categorized. Open and polite, he
remains shadowy, and conveys the impression of an extremely intelligent man
belying his intelligence. He seems serious, but you'd never know it listening
to his work.
Oswald's sonic dabblings go back to childhood, when he would play classical
Lps at 78 rpm, jazz records at 16 rpm, and transform static between radio
stations into music. Over time, he grew eager to preserve his work, which
evolved into Plunderphonics. His efforts to "improve the originals" have been
met with extremely mixed reactions. Some consider him a genius, while others
think of him as an unrepentant blight on the music industry. The 1989 release
of Plunderphonic immediately became a legal nightmare, and spawned countless
debates over copyright. At his own expense, Oswald made 1,000 copies of the
not-for-sale Plunderphonic, distributed free to radio stations, libraries and
others. Many of the tracks are quirky, like Bing Crosby warbling his way
through an altered White Christmas. Even reclusive musician Michael Jackson is
featured twice on the CD. He is heard on Dab (a jerky backwards version of
Bad), and seen on the cover, his head and leather jacket transplanted onto the
slender body of a nude white woman. Although all artists were credited,
Jackson's lawyers, CBS Records, and the Canadian Recording Industry
Association (CRIA) were not amused.
"Jackson was fine with this thing," Oswald says. "He thought it was really
funny. A perhaps inaccurate quote in the Mondo 2000 book was that Michael
thought it was very, very funny." Brian Robertson, president of the CRIA,
phoned Oswald after a reporter showed him the disc, which ended up at CBS
Records and Michael Jackson's offices. "I think Brian Robertson said he
listened to about 20 minutes of it, which isn't very much of a 70-minute
album, especially if you're willing to destroy it, which is what they wanted
to do, and what they eventually did."
The lawsuit, for alleged copyright violation, came at an appropriately
inconvenient time. The CD was released on Halloween, and Oswald received a
letter on December 15 saying he must desist all operations within ten days. "I
thought, that's interesting. Ten days, the 25th of December, and they want me
to stop giving things away and being Santa Claus."
While Djs across North America encouraged listeners to tape Plunderphonic,
Oswald was forced to surrender all remaining Cds and master tapes, which were
destroyed by crushing. "Part of the agreement I'd made with them was hands off
people who already had it," he says. "The only person that it's not fine to
have a copy is me."
Although the potential lawsuit took Oswald out of the free record distribution
business, it got him commissions from the Kronos Quartet, Elektra Records, and
the Grateful Dead. Grayfolded is an authorized re-tooling of 25 years' worth
of live performances of The Dead's Dark Star and has been hailed as one of the
greatest sonic efforts of the 1990s. Initially reluctant, Oswald spent three
weeks in the group's vault listening to tapes and making copies. Returning to
his Mystery Lab with 40 hours of digital transfers, he created a two-CD set,
Transitive Axis and Mirror Ashes.
"There have been a lot of recommendations from Dead fans to do further works
of The Dead, but I've really had my say on that particular phenomenon," he
says firmly.
The Grateful Dead have not been the only ones to ask for Oswald since the
Plunderphonic debacle. To celebrate their 40th anniversary, Elektra Records
commissioned Oswald to make Rubaiyat, a CD featuring music of The Doors, The
Cure and Carly Simon. Soon after, he was contacted by The Kronos Quartet and
producer John Zorn, who encouraged him to create Plexure, one of his most
ambitious projects to date.
Gathering pop music from 1982 to 1992 - the first decade of the compact disc -
Plexure features sound snippets from U2, Peter Gabriel, Tears For Fears, and
about 1,000 other artists. Instead of individual credits, Oswald morphed names
together, resulting in monikers like "Sinead O'Connick Jr." and "Depeche
Mould." A new version of the disc will be out later this year. Plexure is like
what George Lucas is doing right now by re-releasing Star Wars," says Oswald.
"He's fixed the things he didn't like about the original version. I've been
tending this record album like it's been a garden since 1992." Plexure plays
with "the threshold of recognizability," the amount of music you need to hear
to identify the piece. "You can recognize something, but ideally you can't put
your finger on what it is. The sounds are piled up on one another, and come in
rapid sequences."
Oswald's recent efforts have taken an unintentional turn toward film. He
contributed music to the soundtrack of One Eight Seven - by the director of
Waterworld - and created the soundtrack to Canadian film maker Bruce La
Bruce's Hustler White.
"Bruce knew about me, I didn't know much about Bruce, except that he had a
film with a great title, Super 8 1/2, and that was a good enough introduction
for me," says Oswald, who rhythmically interspersed heavy breathing and
dialogue from the film with music. Like most of his Plunderphonics-related
projects in the past few years, the soundtrack for Hustler White is
exclusively derived from identifiable sources of music. He hasn't had any more
lawsuits or dealings with the Canadian Recording Industry Association or its
president, Brian Robertson, a man he never met. Perhaps one day. "I'm quite
disappointed," he says, smiling. "I would have welcomed some sort of public
debate.
Robert Hoshowsky is a freelance writer who lives in Toronto.
-- End --
nougat
CD, the tunes are all available here, in streamed mpeg3 shockwave audio -
files are also available for direct downloading, and there's a link to the
official plunderphonics site, where you can get the tracks "in pristine,
uncompressed file formats":
http://www.detritus.net/archive/plunderphonic/
Slower connections (like mine) may have problems with the excessive
bandwidth required by streaming MP3.. I downloaded them from the official
site and burned a CD.
RMJon23 <rmj...@aol.comnotrash> wrote in message
news:20000727051006...@ng-ck1.aol.com...
Aingeboy
music revolution protesting copyright laws. The Droplift Project is very
interesting.