Skip to main content

John Oswald – Plexure (Full Album)

 

Jon Oswald was known for his Plunderphonics music pieces, where he created new pieces from already existing music recordings of famous artists and reworked them. Artists like Michael Jackson, who was also part of the cover on Plunderphonic, The Beatles, James Brown, Bing Crosby but also classical musicians like Beethoven and Bach were part of his pieces.  The first minute and a half of his album consists of a wild mix of R&B and hip-hop songs. They are single, very short sequences, about 2-3 seconds long, which were cut together. The first song was introduced with a sound that reminded me of Michael Jackson's Thriller. From minute five to about minute seven, the use of rock & roll music was recognizable. At the end, I recognized Madonna, Nirvana and again Michael Jackson, among others. Personally, I can hardly identify with this kind of music, because listening to the album, I felt the compilation was relatively arbitrary and not balanced with each other. I recognized many performers and songs, but this constant change of beats, musical styles and different sounds in general is much too choppy for me personally and just seems chaotic. Listening to his album Plexure, I found it hard to tell when there was a transition from one song to another. But maybe that's exactly why he's considered a pioneer of music genres like bastard pop and mash-up, while representing a new kind of music genre and a curious, active idea of listening to music.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

William Basinski – The Disintegration Loops III

  The Disintegration Loops is a quartet of albums published in 2002 and 2003 by American avant-garde composer William Basinski. The pieces are made up of tape loop recordings that were played over time, with noise and crackles rising as the tape deteriorated. Basinski noticed this effect when attempting to convert his older recordings to digital format. The completion of the recordings coincided with the September 11, 2001 events, which Basinski witnessed and adds a deeper meaning to the composition. The composition is fascinating in many ways and makes the listener lose track of time. The tape loop recording had a very calming effect on me and put me in a trance-like state when I listened to it in its entirety. The tape loop is really soothing, so much so that I didn't even notice the loss of quality when I first listened to it. It makes you forget about time and allows you to really get into the piece capturing the calmness it exudes. You forget or don't really notice how i
Post a Comment
Read more

Alvin Lucier’s Nothing is Real

Reem Zedan 7711552 Prof. Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of [American] Music 02 February 2022   Alvin Lucier ’s Nothing is Real             In the beginning of the video, Lucier is seen recording and playing the piano. At first I thought he was playing snippets of different classical music, but later realized it was the melody of ”Strawberry Fields Forever” by The Beatles. The pop song is played in segments that are connected by frequent long pauses. These pauses emphasize sections of the melody and change the dynamic of the song. The sections end up having their own identity and become separated from their collective identity, which is the song. Another aspect to be noticed is the frequent use of the piano’s foot pedals to create a reverb sound effect. After playing the segments, Lucier utilizes a teapot for further production of unique sounds. He views the teapot as a room and the lid as its rooftop, moving the lid changes the quality of the sounds and provides the li
Post a Comment
Read more

John Cage’s “4’33” (1952)

  In his, I would say quite or even (pun alert) quiet experimental piece, “4’33,” Cage observes the ostensible absence of sound. Here, music is made out of those interesting background noises. Therefore, this piece of art has some performative aspects. Cage’s conception of silence would be that there is not actually such a thing as silence. He would argue that if there is sound, it means there is life.             As I am listening to this piece in class, I can only imagine how some people in the audience must have felt if they did not know what is going on. Especially, if they were some self-proclaimed music experts listening to basically nothing, at least on the exterior. Obviously, on an interior level of interpretation, this piece is all about what is happening in that single moment or ongoing for those 4’33 minutes. Cage is here quite a sneaky link shedding light on the small and everyday sounds with such an absurd and honestly also funny approach to music and life. The bizarre
Post a Comment
Read more