Monday 3 March 2008

REVOLUTION MOON (groundbreaking musick)

OVAL

94 DISCONT

Original Issue: 1995 Mille Plateux (MP CD 13)

Reissue: 1996 Thrill Jockey (thrill 036) Buy it here!!!

Margot-meter: 5 moons / 5

1 Do While
2 Store Check
3 Line Extension
4 Cross Selling
5 Do While [Cmd]X

from Amazon:

94 Diskont arguably did for music what Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon did for art: contributed to artist evolution using the established traditions of the medium and smashing it all to pieces. In an era when most musicians reach decades back to rummage through the classics vaults for inspiration, 94 Diskont comes off as a refreshingly forward-thinking album that doesn't quite abandon the electronic music of yesteryear, but rather turns it on its head in previously unimaginable ways. Oval's method of making music involves manually marring compact discs (with paint, magic marker, nails...) and piecing the damaged sounds together so that the resultant outcome is a dizzying sonic stew of clicks, scratches, and fragmented melodies. His previous album, Systemisch, was a fine work of electronic minimalism, but on 94 Diskont those shards have coalesced into actual songs with increased depth and complexity.

What's so remarkable about 94 Diskont is that pure technical and theoretical innovation is here used to create something that's both intriguing and beautiful (as opposed to the pop culture-driven skipping frenzies of John Oswald). "Do While" is the album's centerpiece track: a thick, meditative piece that doesn't grow weary over its ambitious 24 minutes. Shimmering bells crackle over a hazy, four-note organ drone-the musical equivalent of sleepless exhaustion or swimming through tranquil water. Other standout tracks include the bottom-heavy, menacing "Commerce Server" and "Shop in Store," whose manic, stuttering wails bring to mind a warped superhero theme.

Uncompromising though it may be, 94 Diskont reveals itself to be more accessible with subsequent listens; the warm, gooey textures of "Do While" and "Cross Selling" effortlessly pull the listener in, and even the colder songs are stunningly provocative. If the album is difficult in its scope and methodology, it's also one that reveals no influences and takes many risks, augmented by a keen sense of melody and songcraft. If ever a case had to be made that an odd musical approach can be aesthetically enjoyable, or that an album can transform into something far greater than the sum of its parts, 94 Diskont may be all the proof you need.

Mike Newmark

11 comments:

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Thank your for the email dear Margot...You have a wonderful blog and you're very sweet. Greetings and peace

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much!

Anonymous said...

The anonymous thank you..came from adgrren...I forgot to mention..sorry about that..greetings again
Peace to you all
ADgrren

Anonymous said...

I have eaten up everything I can find by Oval/Microstoria/Markus Popp/So -- it's all awesome. I've heard a million forms of glitch and they seem to be the only really interesting ones for the fact that they don't just deconstruct music into noise, but they take that noise and then make music out of it.

iraklis said...

Thank you for all this wonderful music dear Margot!
Keep up the good work

I dare to make a difficult request:
do you have anything by "Dave Stringer"?
I'm searching all over the net and can't find a thing!
Thanks for your patience

Unknown said...

Sorry Iraklis but I've never heard about him (and this is quite unusual, believe me). Maybe some friend in this Musick Community can help you to find this Holy Grail.

Thank you for the comments :-) I'm really happy

Anonymous said...

There are many videos of Dave Stringer on Youtube :
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22dave+stringer%22&search_type=

Jeloca.

iraklis said...

I didn't know him either Margot until, a few days ago, a friend of mine played me 1 song from a collection.

A kind fellow on a forum posted me this:
Dave Stringer - Japa (192 kbps)
http://ifile.it/jwbsqd1
no pass

Give it a try, worth listen.

I'm still looking for "Japa"
"Divas & Devas", "Brink"
:)

Pancetta said...

This is a really good record that goes well above and beyond the glitch genre.

Anonymous said...

now i can find out if my vinyl copy was really warped, or if it was supposed to sound like that....thanks, steve