John Oswald’s “69 Plunderphonics 96”

 

John Oswald’s technique of “plunderphonics” sounds to me as a layman as a form of sampling. As far as I understand from listening to his piece “69 Plunderphonics 96,” he uses pre-recorded, mainstream and widely known music which he twists into something complete new. The used sound and music sources are still recognizable in the end result. In this way the end result still sounds somewhat familiar to a new listener. He mixes music genres, changes the sources speed and sometimes even plays them backwards to record again. In a way, he really took pieces that everybody knows and makes them strange but always still recognizable kind of like I would imaging an auditory collage out of sounds. Maybe because of the familiar parts, this avantgarde piece is rather easy to listen to in comparison to others we have got to know in this course. I can actually see myself listen parts of this while being in the car or doing laundry. However, I am still not sure what or if there is bigger meaning to Oswald’s style and technique or if he did this music just for his personal amusement and fun. When I think about using other people’s art, I always thought it was meant to be a homage to the original source. Here, it really seems like using other people’s stuff equals the use of an instrument in order to create something new. Further, I wonder if the intersecting of those individual parts follows a pre-planned pattern or if Oswald’s process of cutting those montages together was rather experimental.

            Going back to the idea of sampling: After reading some interviews with John Oswald, I start to understand why he seems to be offended by the comparison with sampling. The appropriation of other’s people’s music seems to be a rather sensitive topic to most artist, which is why he does not want to be labeled as a “sampler.” He does not want his work to be confused with the debate about musical appropriation.