2004-01-18

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Oval: Ovalcommers: Pitchfork Review

Two misperceptions about Popp are that he makes ambient music and all his work sounds the same. In the watershed year 1994, the ambient label almost applied, due in part to Oval's composition process at the time. That year, Popp, along with then-collaborators Sebastian Oschatz and Frank Metzger, decided to take copies of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Volume II, apply a magic marker to the CD surface, and record and manipulate the ensuing tracking errors. This resulted in a beautiful audio object called Systemische, a record that proved hugely influential in the experimental electronic community. And yes, it was generally placid enough to be categorized alongside Music for Airports. But I defy anyone to listen to Ovalcommers' first track and think of Brian Eno. It begins with a two-note riff that prudent car alarm manufacturers should consider licensing, and then slides into a massive pit of raging black sound, full of bassed-out distortion and explosions of static. The opening siren continues to wail and actually takes on a pathetic quality as it drowns inside the din; you begin to feel sorry for that annoying little sound, so overwhelming is the clamor surrounding it.