Released
1996




Reviewed by
destruKt

Contact




Last Edit/Update
03 February, 1998

Oval

94DISKONT

         
Track Listing

1. Do While
2. Store Check
3. Line Extension
4. Cross Selling
5. Commerce Server
6. Shop in Store
7. Do While (zX)

          Oval is brainchild of Markus Popp, a German sound sculptor whose work explores both the process and the systems behind the fundamental design of electronic music. Popp is a character at the margins of modern electronica, most famous for deliberately damaging and altering digital media to produce a sound based around glitches and skipping CD’s.
          94diskont is the third release from the Oval camp, which is now basically in the hands of Popp (while both Sebastian Oschatz and Frank Metzger are in the liner notes, they have little to do with the sound in general. Metzger is no longer with Oval, and Oschatz works only on the visual side of the project).
          Oval continues to delve deeper into sublime and soothing sounds, 94diskont is far removed from the chaos of Wohnton and jarring dissonance of Systemisch (which is a brilliant album anyhow). While Oval has the reputation of being steeped in intellectual theory (like many releases from the Mille Plateaux stable), the usual cold distance of "art" music is avoided with this release. 94diskont has an overwhelming feeling of warmth to it, albeit an alien warmth.
          Beginning with the 24-minute opus, "Do While", the bubbling energy of the album is apparent, and you are instantly caressed by a tinkering loop. The sounds of CD manipulation are less apparent than any other Oval work in this song, echoing the smooth melodies of Popp’s side-project Microstoria (alongside Mouse on Mars Jan Werner). Time patterns shift and warp, strange things happen with the tempo, but these techniques only serve to enhance the blanketing feel of the piece.
          "Store Check" returns to the obvious Oval trademark of a scanning CD. It clicks and chatters to itself, the sound of store bar-code scanners sending information down phone lines, humming and pulsating in a language humans can (and must) never comprehend. "Line Extension" is a moody piece, strange instruments and cheesy analog melodies lack a fixed point of reference wandering in a soup of controlled static.
          "Cross Selling" is possibly as close to dance music as Oval gets, yet still being further than ninety-nine percent of modern electronic music from the club-floor. It clicks away incessantly and is rather unnerving, but isn’t that the idea? "Commerce Server" builds a song from the raw data of damaged sounds, noise and glitches meld into one, going everywhere at once, an orchestra of computer networks coming to life and writing a symphony.
          "Shop in Store" is frantic, its diskont time in the Oval superstore, everything marked down! I hope Oval don’t get sued for copyright violations, sometimes the manipulations become obvious and skirts the fine line between plunderphonics and loop sampling. You know it’s closing time when the song fades away…
          "Do While zX" continues where its namesake left off, with the same loop and bass drone. It’s as if everything between track one and track seven is to be forgotten, a strange series of encounters along an electronic highway through the solar system.

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