John Oswald (composer)
Encyclopedia
John Oswald is a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, saxophonist, media artist and dancer. His best known project is Plunderphonics
Plunderphonics
Plunderphonics is a term coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative. It has since been applied to any music made by taking one or more existing audio recordings and altering them in some way to make a new composition...

, the practice of making new music out of previously existing recordings (see sound collage
Sound collage
In music, montage or sound collage is a technique where sound objects or compositions, including songs, are created from collage, also known as montage, the use of portions of previous recordings or scores...

 and musical montage).

Philosophy

Oswald coined the term "plunderphonics
Plunderphonics
Plunderphonics is a term coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative. It has since been applied to any music made by taking one or more existing audio recordings and altering them in some way to make a new composition...

" to describe his craft in a paper called "Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative" which he presented at the Wired Society Electro-Acoustic Conference in Toronto in 1985. Inspired by William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

' cut-up technique, Oswald had been devising plunderphonic-style compositions since the late '60s. In an interview with Norman Igma following the release of the Plunderphonics EP in 1988, he described the concept as follows:


A plunderphone is a recognizable sonic quote, using the actual sound of something familiar which has already been recorded. Whistling a bar of "Density 21.5
Density 21.5
Density 21.5 is a piece of music for solo flute written by Edgard Varèse in 1936 and revised in 1946. The piece was composed at the request of Georges Barrère for the premiere of his platinum flute, the density of platinum being close to 21.5 grammes per cubic centimetre .Allmusic's Sean Hickey...

" is a traditional musical quote. Taking Madonna singing "Like a Virgin" and rerecording it backwards or slower is plunderphonics, as long as you can reasonably recognize the source. The plundering has to be blatant though. There's a lot of samplepocketing, parroting, plagiarism and tune thievery going on these days which is not what we're doing.


Plunderphonics
Plunderphonics
Plunderphonics is a term coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative. It has since been applied to any music made by taking one or more existing audio recordings and altering them in some way to make a new composition...

 is related to but distinct from sampling used in genres such as hip-hop.

Works

His 1975 track "Power" married frenetic Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

 guitars to the impassioned exhortations of a Southern US evangelist years before hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

 discovered the potency of the same (and related) ingredients. Similarly, his 1990 track "Vane", which pitted two different versions of the song "You're So Vain
You're So Vain
"You're So Vain" is a song written and performed by Carly Simon and released in December 1972. The song is a critical profile of a self-absorbed lover; Simon asserts "You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you." The subject's identity has been the matter of speculation, fueled by...

" (the Carly Simon
Carly Simon
Carly Elisabeth Simon is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and children's author. She rose to fame in the 1970s with a string of hit records, and has since been the recipient of two Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and a Golden Globe Award for her work...

 original and a cover by Faster Pussycat
Faster Pussycat
Faster Pussycat is an American hard rock band from Los Angeles, California formed in 1986. The group was most successful during the late 1980s with their self-titled debut album, their 1989 gold album Wake Me When It's Over and the 80,000 selling Whipped! in 1992.-The roots of Faster Pussycat...

) against each other, was a blueprint for the contemporary pop subgenre, 'glitch pop' or 'mashup (music)
Mashup (music)
A mashup or bootleg is a song or composition created by blending two or more pre-recorded songs, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song seamlessly over the instrumental track of another...

'.

In 1980, Oswald founded the Mystery Tapes Laboratory, which created unnamed, unattributed works on cassette, described on the plunderphonics website as "little boxes of sonifericity specifically formulated for the curious listener. Available in your choice of aural flavors: subliminal, blasted, excerpted, repeatpeateatattttttedly, these cinemaphonically-concocted aggregates of très different but exquisitely manifest, unprecedentedly varied festerings of audio quality fine magnetic cassette tapes are the best of whatever you've been listening for". Oswald continues to be Director of Research at Mystery Tapes.

His greatest source of controversy was the 1988 release of the Plunderphonics EP, which he distributed to the press and to radio stations. It contained four plundered tracks: "Don't" by Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....

 which included piano accompaniment by Bob Wiseman
Bob Wiseman
Bob Wiseman is a Juno winning Canadian musician, filmmaker, singer-songwriter, and actor. Wiseman was an original member of Blue Rodeo.-Career:Wiseman was raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He studied piano at York University...

, "Pocket" by Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

, a version of Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton
Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...

 singing "The Great Pretender" in which "she gets to sing a duet with himself(sic)", and "Spring", a version of Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

's The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring
The Rite of Spring, original French title Le sacre du printemps , is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky; and concept, set design and costumes by Nicholas Roerich...

. In 1989, Oswald released an expanded version of the Plunderphonics album containing twenty-five tracks, each using material from a different artist. In 1990, notice was given to Oswald by the Canadian Recording Industry Association on behalf of several of their clients (notably Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...

, whose song "Bad" had been cut up, layered, and rearranged as "Dab") that all undistributed copies of Plunderphonics be destroyed under threat of legal action. An excerpt from a press release on the plunderphonics website is repeated below:


"I wasn't selling the disc in the stores, so I let listeners tape it off the radio for free," explains Oswald, who paid for the production and manufacture of the CD out of his own pocket. He receives no royalties or financial compensation for airplay. Brian Robertson, president of CRIA says, ``What this demonstrates is the vulnerability of the recording industry to new technology...All we see is just another example of theft."

Oswald received notice from CRIA's lawyers demanding that he cease distributing Plunderphonic as of Xmas eve '89. "They insisted I quit playing Santa Claus," Oswald observes.


In 1993 Oswald released Plexure. Arguably his most ambitious composition to date, it attempted to microsample the history of CD music up to that point (1982–1992) in a 20 minute collage of bewildering complexity. The ambition of this piece would later be recalled by the British bootlegger Osymyso
Osymyso
Osymyso is a musician and DJ from the United Kingdom who specializes in the genres of bastard pop and breakbeat. He has been making music since 1994, but he released his first album, Welcome to the Pailindrome, in 1999...

, whose "Intro-Inspection" emulates the pop-junkie feel of Plexure.

From 1993-1996, Oswald worked on and released Grayfolded
Grayfolded
Grayfolded is an album produced by John Oswald featuring the Grateful Dead song "Dark Star". The album's name, Grayfolded, is a homophone of "Grateful Dead".-Creation:...

, a 2-Disc set commissioned by the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

 consisting of pieces created from over 100 performances of the song "Dark Star". Oswald initially created and released disc 1, "Transitive Axis", which contains a 59 minute 59 second work in 9 movements. Feeling that there was more territory to explore, Oswald worked on disc 2, Mirror Ashes, which is a composition in "6*" movements. Once both discs were complete they were packaged together with extensive liner notes and a "visual time map" of the sources used in the compositions. Grayfolded
Grayfolded
Grayfolded is an album produced by John Oswald featuring the Grateful Dead song "Dark Star". The album's name, Grayfolded, is a homophone of "Grateful Dead".-Creation:...

was selected the #1 international recording of the decade by the Toronto Sun
Toronto Sun
The Toronto Sun is an English-language daily tabloid newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for its daily Sunshine Girl feature and for what it sees as a populist conservative editorial stance.-History:...

.

In addition to his extensive work in "plunderphonics", Oswald is also involved with acoustic music, as a composer and improviser. His compositions for orchestra often do include electronic elements, such as Concerto for Wired Conductor and Orchestra (?), but has also composed for acoustic ensembles, such as Acupuncture (1991). Oswald improvises with the saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

. Oswald is also actively involved in dance
Dance
Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

, as a composer for dance works, as a collaborator with choreographers, and as an active Contact Improviser
Contact improvisation
Contact improvisation is a dance technique in which points of physical contact provide the starting point for exploration through movement improvisation...

.

Oswald founded the record label fony, which produced the retrospective box set 69 plunderphonics 96
Plunderphonics 69/96
Plunderphonics 69/96 is a two-CD compilation album by John Oswald. The album compiles most of Oswald's infamous Plunderphonics recordings, including the 1989 Plunderphonic self-released giveway album that ran afoul of the Canadian Recording Industry , and the Elektrax promotional EP that had been...

(a.k.a. Plunderphonics 69/96) and reissued Grayfolded
Grayfolded
Grayfolded is an album produced by John Oswald featuring the Grateful Dead song "Dark Star". The album's name, Grayfolded, is a homophone of "Grateful Dead".-Creation:...

. The label also rereleased Plexure and released Aparanthesi, a work which uses the single note A in an experiment with timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

, dynamics, and layering, on CD in 2003.

Since 2000 Oswald has as active in exhibiting his visual art as in continuing his musical activities.

In 2004, Oswald was one of six artists to win the annual Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts, as awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts, for lifetime achievement. http://www.canadacouncil.ca/news/releases/2004/qb127235918565781250.htm.

Quotes

  • "If creativity is a field, copyright is the fence"
  • "Musical instruments produce sounds. Composers produce music. Musical instruments reproduce music. Tape recorders, radios, disc players, etc., reproduce sound. A device such as a wind-up music box produces sound and reproduces music. A phonograph in the hands of a hip hop/scratch artist who plays a record like an electronic washboard with a phonographic needle as a plectrum, produces sounds which are unique and not reproduced - the record player becomes a musical instrument. A sampler, in essence a recording, transforming instrument, is simultaneously a documenting device and a creative device, in effect reducing a distinction manifested by copyright".http://www.plunderphonics.com/xhtml/xinterviews.html

Discography

  • Burrows (1974–75)
  • Power (1975)
  • Improvised (1978)
  • Moose and Salmon (Music Gallery, 1979)
  • Alto Sax (Metalanguage, 1981)
  • Plunderphonics EP (1988)
  • Plunderphonic CD (1989)
  • Electrax (1991)
  • Discophere (1991)
  • Rubiyat Plunderphonics (1991) - promo-CD made from Elektra Records
    Elektra Records
    Elektra Records is an American record label owned by Warner Music Group. In 2004, it was consolidated into WMG's Atlantic Records Group. After five years of dormancy, the label was revived by Atlantic in 2009....

    ' Rubáiyát: Elektra's 40th Anniversary collection
  • Acoustics (1993) - with Henry Kaiser
    Henry Kaiser (musician)
    Henry Kaiser is an American guitarist and composer.Recording and performing prolifically in many styles of music, Kaiser is a fixture on the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. He is considered a member of the "first generation" of American free improvisers.-Biography:His grandfather was the...

    , Jim O'Rourke
    Jim O'Rourke (musician)
    Jim O'Rourke is an Irish-American musician and record producer. He was long associated with the Chicago experimental and improv scene...

    , and Mari Kimura
    Mari Kimura
    is a Japanese violinist and composer best known for her use of subharmonics, which, achieved through special bowing techniques, allow pitches below the instrument's normal range...

  • Plexure (1993)
  • Grayfolded
    Grayfolded
    Grayfolded is an album produced by John Oswald featuring the Grateful Dead song "Dark Star". The album's name, Grayfolded, is a homophone of "Grateful Dead".-Creation:...

    (1994) - a two cd mix of over 100 versions of the Grateful Dead
    Grateful Dead
    The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

     song "Dark Star
    Dark Star (song)
    "Dark Star" is a song released as a single by the Grateful Dead. It was written by lyricist Robert Hunter and composed by lead guitarist Jerry Garcia; however, compositional credit is sometimes extended to include Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, the late Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and Bob Weir...

    "
  • Parcours scénographique (1997)
  • aCCoMpliCes with CCMC
    CCMC
    CCMC may refer to:*Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, an early advocacy group for national health insurance in the United States of America*Communications Consortium Media Center*Community Coordinated Modeling Center...

    (Victo, VICTO 063, 1998)
  • 69plunderphonics96
    Plunderphonics 69/96
    Plunderphonics 69/96 is a two-CD compilation album by John Oswald. The album compiles most of Oswald's infamous Plunderphonics recordings, including the 1989 Plunderphonic self-released giveway album that ran afoul of the Canadian Recording Industry , and the Elektrax promotional EP that had been...

    (a.k.a. Plunderphonics 69/96) (Box set) (2000)
  • Complicité (2001) - with Paul Plimley
    Paul Plimley
    Paul Plimley is a free jazz pianist and vibraphonist. He is one of the doyens of the Canadian jazz avant-garde, a co-founder of the New Orchestra Workshop Society and frequent collaborator with the bassist Lisle Ellis...

    , Marilyn Crispell
    Marilyn Crispell
    Marilyn Crispell is an American jazz pianist and composer.-Biography:Crispell studied classical piano and composition at the New England Conservatory of Music. She has been a resident of Woodstock, NY since 1977 when she came to study and teach at Karl Berger's Creative Music Studio...

     and Cecil Taylor
    Cecil Taylor
    Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...

  • Bloor (2001) - with David Prentice
    David Prentice
    David Prentice is an English artist and former art teacher. In 1964 he was one of the four founder members of Birmingham's Ikon Gallery....

     and Dominic Duval
    Dominic Duval
    Dominic Duval is an American free jazz bassist.Since the 1990s, Duval has been active principally on the New York City jazz scene. He did not begin recording regularly until the 1990s, but since then has appeared on a very large number of albums, particularly on the labels CIMP, Cadence Jazz, and...

  • Dearness (2002) - with Anne Bourne and Fred Frith
    Fred Frith
    Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...

  • Aparanthesi (empreintes DIGITALes
    Empreintes DIGITALes
    empreintes DIGITALes is a record label founded in 1990 and based in Montreal which specialises in contemporary electroacoustic music, acousmatic and musique concrète.In 2005, empreintes DIGITALes shifted from CD to DVD-Audio.- Composers :* Mathew Adkins...

    , IMED 0368, 2003)
  • Arc d’apparition (DVD
    DVD
    A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

    ) and Whisperfield (CD) (2004)
  • Number Nine with Michael Keith and Roger Turner
    Roger Turner
    Roger Felix Turner was an American figure skater.He was born in Milton, Massachusetts and died in Walpole, Massachusetts....

     (Emanem 4129, 2005)

List of works

  • aparanthesi A (2000–03)
  • aparanthesi B (2000–03)
  • Bell Speeds (1983, 90)
  • Blur (Bolton Chili Overdire); 1 Moment, 2 Wow, 3 Nest
  • Burrows (1974–75)
  • Compact (R.E.M.T.V. Hammercamp); 1 Phase, 2 Snap
  • Cyfer (Depeche Mould)
  • from Burrows: silence to say (1974)
  • Grayfolded (1995)
  • Homonymy (1998), flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trombone, percussion, violin, cello, doublebass and video tape
  • Mad Mod (Jello Bellafonte)
  • Manifold (Bing Stingspreen); 1 Philosophy, 2 Phase
  • Massive (Ozzie Osmond); 1 Hazzard, 2 Warning, 3 Treacherous
  • Ohmigone (2001)
  • Open (Bo No Ma); 1 Suck, 2 Rip
  • Ridge (2001)
  • Skindling Shadés (1987)
  • "Spectre" (1990)
  • Temperature (Beastie Shop Beach); 1 Tempus Amoré (Hyper Love Time), 2 Tempo Pact
  • Un paysage (Ouverture) (1996)
  • Urge (Marianne Faith No Morrisey); 1 Slow, 2 Slice, 3 Blink
  • Velocity (Aretha Vanilli); 1 Tremendous, 2 Tremulous
  • Worse (Anthrax Squeeze Factory)
  • Zoom (Sinead O'Connick Jr); 1 Alone, 2 Gogh

Sources


External links


Further reading

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