Work history

The band's original members were Markus Popp, Sebastian Oschatz, and Frank Metzger, although Oschatz and Metzger left the group in 1995. All three are regarded as pioneers of glitch

Glitch (music)

Glitch is a term used to describe a genre of electronic music that emerged in the mid to late 1990s. The glitch aesthetic is characterized by a deliberate use of glitch based sonic artifacts that would normally be viewed as unwanted disturbances reducing the overall sound quality and are thus...

, a genre of music that embraces the sound of damaged audio produced by the failure of digital equipment. Disdaining the use of synthesizers, Oval instead deliberately mutilated CDs by writing on them with felt pens, then processed the palette of fragmented sounds to create a very rhythmic electronic style.

Markus Popp continues to release albums under the name Oval. Frank Metzger has released some singles with Mego and the Internet label Falsch, and has started a collaboration with Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli from "TU M'" in 2003 that is called Steno, while Sebastian Oschatz is an interaction design

Interaction design

In design, human–computer interaction, and software development, interaction design, often abbreviated IxD, is "the practice of designing interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services." Like many other design fields interaction design also has an interest in form but its main...

er with Meso, a German media design collective.

In 2001 Björk

Björk

Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

 sampled the track "Aero Deck" (from the 1994 album Systemisch

Systemisch

Systemisch is a 1994 album by the glitch band Oval. The track Aero Deck was sampled by Bjork in 2001 for her song Unison, in album Vespertine.1. Textuell2. Aero Deck3. The Politics Of Digital Audio4. Schoner Wissen5. Catchy DAAD6. Mediation7. Tonregie...

) on her Vespertine

Vespertine

Vespertine, is the fifth studio album by the Icelandic recording artist Björk, released on 27 August 2001. On this album, Björk creates a quiet, introverted world of microbeats and personal lyrics...

album. Markus Popp was an integral part of the creation of Gastr Del Sol's 1998 album Camoufleur

Camoufleur

Camoufleur is a 1998 album by Gastr del Sol released on Drag City. The album was written and performed by David Grubbs, Jim O'Rourke and Markus Popp, with an array of other musicians including John McEntire , Rob Mazurek and Darin Gray...

.

In 2003, Popp released a record on Thrill Jockey

Thrill Jockey

Thrill Jockey Records is an American independent record label established in 1992 in New York City by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards.-History:...

 together with the Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese singer Eriko Toyada. As a duo they were called So, and its record was self-titled.

After an extended silence, Oval released the EP entitled "Oh" on Thrill Jockey in June 2010. The pre-sale for this album was limited to 1,000 pressings and sold out before it was available to the public.
His first album in almost a decade entitled "O" was released on Thrill Jockey September 7, 2010.

Oval's 2CD "OvalDNA", featuring both new and unreleased older tracks, is due for release late 2011 in Europe and early 2012 in the rest of the world.

Markus Popp also composed the soundtrack for a short film. Retina

Albums

• Wohnton (Ata Tak/1993)
• Systemisch
  Systemisch
  Systemisch is a 1994 album by the glitch band Oval. The track Aero Deck was sampled by Bjork in 2001 for her song Unison, in album Vespertine.1. Textuell2. Aero Deck3. The Politics Of Digital Audio4. Schoner Wissen5. Catchy DAAD6. Mediation7. Tonregie...
  
  (Mille Plateaux
  Mille Plateaux
  Mille Plateaux is an influential electronica record label founded 1993 by Achim Szepanski in Frankfurt, Germany. It is known for mostly releasing minimal techno, glitch music and other experimental electronic music.-History:...
  
  /1994)
• 94 Diskont
  94 Diskont
  -External links:* at Thrill Jockey...
  
  (Mille Plateaux/1995)
• Dok (Thrill Jockey
  Thrill Jockey
  Thrill Jockey Records is an American independent record label established in 1992 in New York City by former Atlantic Records A&R representative Bettina Richards.-History:...
  
  /1998)
• Szenariodisk (Thrill Jockey/1999)
• Ovalprocess (Form and Function/2000)
• Pre/Commers (Thrill Jockey/2001)
• Ovalcommers (Form and Function/2001)
• Oh (Thrill Jockey/2010)
• O (Thrill Jockey/2010)
• OvalDNA (Shitkatapult/2011)

See also

• Electronic music
  Electronic music
  Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
  
  
• Acoustic ecology
  Acoustic ecology
  Acoustic ecology, sometimes called ecoacoustics or soundscape studies, is the relationship, mediated through sound, between living beings and their environment. Acoustic ecology studies started in the late 1960s with R. Murray Schafer and his team at Simon Fraser University as part of the World...
  
  
• Noise Music
  Noise music
  Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
  
  
• List of noise musicians
• Chip music
• Circuit bending
  Circuit bending
  Circuit bending is the creative customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as low voltage, battery-powered guitar effects, children's toys and small digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators....
  
  
• Dark ambient
  Dark ambient
  Dark ambient is a subgenre of ambient music that features foreboding, ominous, or discordant overtones. Although it had its roots in the 1970s, Dark ambient emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with the introduction of newer, smaller, and more affordable Effects units, synthesizer and sampling technology...
  
  
• Sonic artifact
  Sonic artifact
  In sound and music production, sonic artifact, or simply artifact, refers to sonic material that is accidental or unwanted, resulting from the editing or manipulation of a sound....
  
  
• No-Fi
  No-fi
  No-Fi is a term used to describe music or media created outside conventional technical standards.-The name:Where "Hi-fi" and "Lo-fi" are short for "High Fidelity" and "Low Fidelity", respectively, "No-fi" is a play-on-words intended to be interpreted as meaning "No Fidelity".-The sound:No-Fi is an...
  
  

External links

• Markus Popp Interview by Marc Weidenbaum, Disquiet, 1997
• Markus Popp Interview by Sam Inglis, Sound on Sound
  Sound on Sound
  Sound on Sound is an independently-owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, UK. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, and interviews with industry professionals...
  
  , 2002