Skip to main content

Listening report Sebastian Ermer John Oswald: Plexure

 

John Oswald´s “Plexure” is a remarkably unique piece of music that plays with traditional ideas of structure and musical composition. The album and its songs consist of a collage of various sound recordings, which Oswald has manipulated and recontextualized to create a dense, yet multifaceted soundscape.

One of the most striking aspects of “Plexure” is the sheer amount of different samples Oswald incorporates into the album. Throughout its roughly 25-minute runtime, one can hear snippets ranging from jazz and classical music, all the way to news broadcasts or television advertisements. These conflicting elements are woven together by Oswald in order to create a musical performance that is in equal parts surprising and jarring.

Oswald's approach to sound collage is both playful and sophisticated. He has a keen sense for unusual connections and interplay between different sounds. For example, he might take a snippet of a classical piano piece and splice it together with a burst of white noise, creating a sudden change in soundscape and mood. He also plays with motives, such as repetition and fragmentation, isolating short snippets of sound and looping them endlessly, or cutting them into tiny excerpts that almost seem to dance across the soundscape Oswald creates.

Despite its fragmented structure, Plexure is a surprisingly cohesive piece of music. Oswald uses recurring motifs and sounds to create a sense of unity and continuity throughout the album. While the songs might sound unpleasant or almost painful at the beginning, they come together after listening for a short time in order to create a whole new experience.

Overall, John Oswald's Plexure is an intriguing and challenging work of art that rewards close listening. It's a testament to the power of sound collage as a creative tool, and a reminder that there are always new ways to approach the act of musical composition.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure

 Sarah Kumar Dr. Bernd Herzogenrath The Future of (American) Music 06 Mar. 2023 Listening Report on John Oswald: Plexure According to John Oswald, “[a] plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded” (Lecture Slides 18). However, only if the source stays recognizable can it be called plunderphonics. In his album Plexure , several songs are played back and mixed together, thus creating a new sound. This is interesting because while the excerpts of songs that are used are recognizable or at least sound familiar to some degree, played backwards and mashed up as they are in Plexure , they create a new sound. Like on the cover of the album, on which a collage making up a man can be seen, the mixing of different songs played backwards gives a new feeling to something known. The way the songs are mixed makes them unintelligible. The meaning of the words of the original recordings are not able to be compr...
Post a Comment
Read more

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

John Cage – Inlets

  This does not sound like music to me. Depending on the interpretation of different players or performers, this piece will always sound different. In this case, it sounds to me like someone is walking through a cave with water at the bottom, dragging their feet through it. Sometimes it sounds like water in a toilet bowl, especially when we hear the water in a bigger shell being swished around. These sounds are relaxing in the background, it is like a gentle stream of water. I just wonder what went through the head of the composer while writing this piece. But I guess he had some experimental ideas that are interesting to try out. Those shells are quite pretty, I have never seen such big ones that are not broken. I was surprised when something else happened towards the end of the piece. That tone which came out of the one shell was so clear, it sounded like a trumpet. I didn’t know that shells can sound like that. It was quite beautiful. It was a nice way to end the piece. I di...
Post a Comment
Read more