John
Oswald is a Canadian composer, saxophonist, media artist and dancer. Special
about Oswald is that he extracts fragments out of previously existing
recordings to make new music.
His
play “Plunderphonics” from the album “Plexture” is an example of such a
recreated play from previous existing recordings.
The
extracted fragments are very short so that it is often impossible to recognize
the fragments. I was still able to recognize some familiar parts of some songs
but I am not able to label them because I do not remember the names and the
fragments are so short that I am not able to reconstruct the rest of the song.
Nonetheless, some parts sounded very familiar, and I am sure to have heard them
somewhere before.
“Plunderphonics”
is very long, almost 20 minutes long. I would have preferred it if the play
would have been a bit shorter because after 10 minutes it was very difficult
for me to stay concentrated and focus on the fragments.
The
fragments are completely mixed, and it seems like Oswald mixed all kinds of
genres to create “Plunderphonics”. Soft and slow sounds are followed by harsh
and loud sounds. This results in making the play very inconsistent and
impulsive.
Furthermore,
this creates some kind of unpredictability. For me, it was impossible to
predict what kind of sounds and fragments are about to follow because of the
inconsistency and impulsivity of the play. In some regards, this makes the play
interesting and exciting, but I think I would have preferred it if the play was
more harmonious. This could have been created by adding together sounds that
sound more similar.
The
beginning of “Plunderphonics” starts by a sequence that sounds like all kinds
of sounds are mixed into a distorted sequence that makes it impossible to
recognize specific sounds. For me, it sounded similar to a completely crowded
room full of people talking. “Plunderphonics” ended with the same kind of
sequence. This creates some kind of unity in this very impulsive and
unpredictable play because the beginning and ending of the play are very
similar. This similarity is actually the only similarity in this whole play.
Even
though this kind of music is not my preferred kind of music, I have to say that
this idea of Oswald to mix different fragments of music is a very interesting
idea and approach to creating new music.
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