Comments on: MP3 Discussion Group: Oval’s ‘Oh’

By: Tschussie

Tschussie — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:11:42 +0000

Ah! video :)

By: encym

encym — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:47:31 +0000

Has no-one here mentioned Fred Frith? This work (the snippets at least) remind me very much of the daring work of this great avant guitarist and composer. Particularly his “Guitar Solos” album.

By: encym

encym — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 12:45:45 +0000

Thanks for your opinions. Oh isn’t released on CD yet, am I right?

By: Chang

Chang — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:10:24 +0000

I don’t know but it seems to me that whenever anyone gets bored of electronics, or stops being inquisitive, they hoof it back to the tried and true avenues of conventional instrumentation used to play compositions that stretch the definitions of free jazz like fat pants after a birthday party at Country Buffet.

Oh (Oh?) starts out good, so much differently than what I expected from Popp. But soon it groans to a halt under the weight of pretentious jangling of guitars run through electronics and MAX/MSP. Minute and a half noodlings of bad guitar playing run through DSP banks does not great art nor jouissance make.

Is it a wonder than F.X. Randomiz hasn’t released anything in ages? The trend for fellow Teutonic electronicists to head sell their 303′s for guitars may be something he’s afraid might be spreading.

Perhaps ‘Oh’ stands for ’0′?

By: Tschussie

Tschussie — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 15:02:16 +0000

Kastell video

http://vimeo.com/12620087

By: Alan Lockett

Alan Lockett — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 05:00:27 +0000

Julian, so you’re suggesting a pomo tweak on John McLaughlin’s once-notorious ‘God plays through me’ claims. Popp may well be being channelled unconciously, but for me his pluckings are for the birds, who by the way, may make these strings sing but somehow their aleatory ain’t got that swing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFV-7gYw8JQ
As George Michael might have had it in a dream collaboration with John Cage, “Hey, that’s too indeterminate for me, baby”. (And they got nothin’ on this cat’s purposive potency:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ860P4iTaM)

Anyway, Marc, thanks for involving me in the interchange, and sorry for bringing so little to the table. I may not have Ooh-ed and Aah-ed, but I’ve enjoyed everyone’s Oh-pinings.

By: Marc Weidenbaum

Marc Weidenbaum — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 04:09:55 +0000

@Joshua: I’m not so sure I’d describe this as “disolving.” I hear songs, fragments, riffts; the drum patterns stick with me, and I find myself looking forward to them as they come ’round again. I do realize you don’t mean it as a criticism, and I do think it has a kind of formlessness, though less so than, say, a standard act of European free improvisation.

@Colin: I’m re-sending that first track now (apologies for the delay). It’s one of my favorites. You note the semi-improvisatory sense, and I do wonder about that — of course, there are various types of composed, and there’s always the chance with Popp that he developed a system, or a process, that produced these sounds.

@Joshua: I’m guessing you were being playful, but in case not, the cover art is a still from a work by the French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. I confirmed with the label that none of Boursier-Mougenot’s bird-playing-guitar music actually appears on Oh. I kind of like the idea that Popp is commenting on his relative ability with the guitar. It may also speak, as you suggest, to “happy accidents” (aka chance operations amid systems).

@Alan: Sorry you’re not digging it too much.

By: Joshua Maremont

Joshua Maremont — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 00:22:09 +0000

Julian, your mention of the sleeve art, which I must admit was so small on my player software that it took me a few different viewings of several versions to realize exactly what had been depicted, brings up another issue for me, in that while I am not at all convinced that the guitars on Oh were played with beaks or talons I do miss something behind the plectrum. I keep thinking of Fenton’s Pup album on Plop, on which Dan Abrams broke from the abstractions of Shuttle358 with the unmistakable sound of guitars, but also in mind is the remixed version of what I think it safe to call the now classic Endless Summer by Fennesz, which I just reprocured for myself over the weekend. These albums may use the guitar as fodder for the computer, but in both instances there is an audible deliberateness to the playing, whereas on Oh I hear happy accidents transmuted into riffs through skilled sampling, editing, and arranging. Of course, this is my bias as a guitarist working with computers, but then again perhaps the happy accident, the transformation of noise and error into music, is the point of Oval old and new.

By: Colin

Colin — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:52:19 +0000

I like Marc’s description in (5) of Oh sounding “… like a band practicing complicated music.” I hadn’t thought of this music in those terms, but it suddenly opens up thought of other musical practices such as Supersilent – those drums remind me at times of the deliciously asymmetrical work of Supersilent’s (sadly now departed) drummer Jarle Vespestad. At other times on, say, Kastell, I’m very much reminded of Autechre.

Regarding the sound of Oh, (Joshua 9.) and given its performative nature, it’s striking how synthetic it sounds to me. I like that aspect very much, it’s playful and confounds expectations. It makes me think of Miles Davis’ use of wah and the way at times in his ’70s music, it wasn’t clear who was playing what. Articulating and exploring a middle ground between live performance and the digital is an interesting area. I don’t know whether they set out to do so, but for some reason I’m think of Radian. There’s also Jaki Liebezeit’s oft-quoted desire to play like a drum machine. Who else is doing that?

Alan’s reference (11.) to low end usefully highlights the upper-register nature of Oh’s sound. Exploration of this airier region (also hinted at by Joshua) is relatively rare in my experience. One group that has consistently done so though is snd. I find such insubstantiality liberating and literally en-light-ening.

I’m interested by Julian’s assertion (6.) that “Oh feels very proudly ‘composed’”. I hear it as part composition, part improvisation/chance and part assemblage, but that may be because of the short nature of the tracks. Like Joshua (9.) I’m struggling a bit with the sequencing which doesn’t seem to quite cohere. If the 70 tracks of the upcoming album are all this short I wonder what that will be like – tiresome/too much or ultimately immersive/meditative? Will Hey include Oh or stand separately?

Julian also writes “So the logical next move is deglitching.”, but I’m not sure I go along with such a binary approach to method. However, I’m fascinated by the idea of oeuvre and artistic signature, especially as that develops over an artist’s lifetime. Having explored digital malfunction, must Popp’s subsequent work always work/be judged in relation to that?

I’m finding Oh to be really delightful: kastell 4, locria, the reflectiveness of nonfiction. There’s real feeling at times here. The range of track titles imply a diversity of subjects and a playfulness – hey, hmmmm, grrr, oh! The brevity of these tracks may have wrongfooted me, they’re beautiful miniatures. Do they add up to a greater whole?

Marc – could you resend me the first track? I don’t know why computer took exception to it, but I’d like to hear it again, thanks.

By: Julian Lewis

Julian Lewis — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:18:08 +0000

Predictably enthusiastic, but still interesting contribution from Boomkat at http://boomkat.com/vinyl/309843-oval-oh

“Oval still sounds like Oval, it’s just that on Oh it all seems to be happening in real-time, and on conventional instruments…perhaps the clue is in the Céleste Boursier-Mougenot sleeve art: for much of the time (particularly during the shorter tracks on the B-side) it does actually sound like you might be listening to a number of small birds pecking at a Les Paul. “