OSWALD, JOHN Plunderphonics 6996 (Seeland / Fony) 2cd 31.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
In 1989 Canadian audio artist John Oswald released his tour de force of sound appropriation "Plunderphonic", a cd that was never intended for sale, and found himself face to face with The Canadian Recording Industry Association and their lawyers. Whether they were more upset with the "piracy" of their clients' music or the disc's cover art (which featured a picture of Michael Jackson as a naked white woman) can be argued -- according to Oswald the CRIA refused to allow it to be issued even with a cover change. Out of a thousand copies made, only a few hundred escaped destruction. The cd was certainly the most complex and exciting work of tape manipulation when it was made, and even today it stands far and above what anyone has done -- Oswald aside -- in terms of sample based music. Oswald applied his razors to tape with the precision of a surgeon cutting rococo swirls into the collective cultural funny bone. No one is spared, from Captain Beefheart to Carly Simon to Igor Stravinsky to Count Basie. Some tracks condense an entire album into 2 minutes (so Metallica becomes the most insanely tight metal band in existence), and others make bastardized duets in which an artist performs with another paying tribute to them (Carly Simon and Faster Pussycat do "You're So Vain") and some have so many different artists sampled in such short, yet precise snippets that you barely have time to recognize a sample before it's been replaced by fifteen others and seamlessly blended to pitch and rhythm.
Despite its extremely limited release "Plunderphonic" (reasonably) became something of a holy grail of tape manipulation and champions of its artistic validity have been making it available by making cassette copies for a small fee and even more recently the cd has been uploaded -- sans artwork -- for anyone with a fast connection to download (I, myself spent three days downloading it on a 28.8 dial up three years ago... nerd.) Now, over eleven years after its creation, for the first time ever "Plunderphonic" is now available, in somewhat steady supply and hopefully without legal interruptions... for sale. Initially Oswald had intended to see this edition released "legitimately" (in the eyes of publishing companies and major record labels) by clearing all the samples, but quickly ran into problems with music industry bean counters who have little patience for fair use (especially now, I suppose, that the disc is being offered up for sale.) As a way of bypassing the authorization process Seeland Records has thankfully stepped in and "stolen" the disc for, err... *from* Oswald and produced it themselves. And yet, saying that this is merely a reissue of "Plunderphonic" would be an extreme misnomer. Although all of the original tracks from Plunderphonic are here on this collection, many have been reworked -- some slightly, and some greatly -- and sequenced differently than on the original album. So those of you that have cdr's of the original might not want to start using them as coasters just yet. Also included on this anthology is Oswald's 1991 commissioned work for Elektra Records' anniversary (and previously only released as a promotional item), the five song ep "Elektrax" (Elektra chose to rename it "Rubaiyat") in which Oswald was given free reign to plunder anything in Elektra's vaults. On top of all that are several tracks from Oswald's 1991 release "Discosphere" (released by ReR / Cuneiform and consisting of tracks commissioned for dance), several miscellaneous cuts and tracks made for compilations dating as far back as 1975 and excerpts from Oswald's 1993 piece de resistance "Plexure" (Avant, Japan), a 20 minute opus featuring over 1,000 sampled artists.
Also included is a 46 page interview with John Oswald which alone is worth the cost of admission here. Along with going through all the tracks in the set and explaining the methodology behind each, Oswald details the events that led up to the cease and desist of the original cd. The two discs are packaged in a deluxe, hard bound long box and though the exterior artwork is much different than the original -- all of the original artwork is reproduced inside, along with additional plundervisuals by Oswald.
As a final note, many of you are probably wondering what the legal status & future longevity is of this edition. Well here's the scoop: this pressing has already been exhausted, we have 30 copies left as of this writing. However, we have been assured that this is NOT going to disappear or be a limited edition item. There are already 10,000 books made waiting for more cds to fill them, but that will probably be a month or two before that happens. So if you want your Plunderphonics now you should place an order ASAP, otherwise you will need to wait for the next batch of discs to be pressed.
RealAudio clip: "Angle"
RealAudio clip: "Anon"
RealAudio clip: "Cyfer"