Popp Music

Oval, Microstoria, and the man behind their curtains

By Marc Weidenbaum

"Oval is a very strict and limited approach," the prolific 26-year-old says, "in order to make some new distinctions clear -- and, in a way, to go beyond the music concept, the music metaphors underlying the concepts used in the digital instruments involved."

Those limits are strict, indeed. The source material for Diskont is entirely CD skips and stutters. Like many of us, Popp has noticed how a faulty disc can transform even the most hardcore metal or tumultuous symphony into a sonic sedative, a loop of industrial background noise. Popp has simply gone on to edit those miscues into small body of rarefied art music.

Popp's Microstoria endeavor is buoyant by comparison, if only because its palette is considerably warmer, and the composing team, Popp plus Jan St. Werner (moonlighting from the fairly flamboyant techno duo Mouse on Mars), doesn't always look askance at old composing staples. Such as rhythm and melody, to borrow a formula cited in Big Audio Dynamite's last hit song. Microstoria is more comfortable than is Oval in referencing the world outside. Echoes of church organ breathiness, sci-fi spookiness and bachelor-lounge whimsy contribute to Microstoria's latest recording, snd (also on Thrill Jockey).

"Microstoria does focus much more on the playfulness of the overall approach," says Popp, "the ability to keep the operating system and the parameters involved flexible by having real-time access to the parameters in the sense that there are some improvisation moments involved."

When it is suggested that he speaks in terms of metaphors but never actually uses metaphors -- never uttering something as pedestrian as "Making music on computers is like painting with sound" -- Popp says, "No! I have to pin it down as precisely as possible." Such precision requires intense self-awareness, and in the process of analyzing his own creative process, Popp reports, he has developed software which allows users to duplicate Oval's techniques on their home computers.

Both new albums were originally released on the Frankfurt-based label Mille Plateaux, whose roster also includes Alec Empire and Christian Vogel. Diskont features two additional cuts, and Vogel contributes to a new 12-inch featuring Oval remixes by such prominent electronic musicians as Jim O'Rourke, Scanner and Werner's Mouse on Mars. Popp appreciates the attention, but he is not quick to align himself with the burgeoning world of electronic music. He's far too busy pondering its implications.

"The main culprit in electronic music is the term music itself," says Popp. "The whole field of electronic music has long since reached a state of pure abstraction and music only survives as a metaphor in software." He considers this before softening the blow. "Well, musical metaphors in software are just providing some means of orientation for people who deal with music as it was, whereas music as I would see it ..." His voice trails off. "I usually don't use the term music too much. I just say 'audio.'"  

Originally published in Pulse! magazine, December 1996

Copyright © 1996, 1997 Marc Weidenbaum. All rights reserved.  

Full transcript of Markus Popp interview