the sonic liberations of plunderophonics

"If creativity is a field, copyright is the fence" – John Oswald (or, for the brave, John Oswald).

And the wonderful word plexure.

plexure: n. 1 The act or process of weaving
together -[Webster's 3rd]

I first read plexure as a diabolical portmanteau of pleasure + flex. And if anyone can help me understand why I read vinyl into flex (not cuz its bendy), beside maybe the old Dischord comp Flex Your Head, I’m thankful.

If you don’t know John Oswald’s early plunderphonic work (c1989), trek here. A full CD’s worth of assault and tweakery is downloadable in 2 large files (in gray, near the top). Bear in mind that this is his music 16 years ago, when the digital revolution was still years away from the type of sound-shaping and shifting advances that let a laptop become a complete soundstudio. The work appears to have been done through the painstaking manipulation of magnetic tape on a mixer. And probably requires a couple listenings to sink in (to destroy also being a creative act).

sound as property
sound as brand
sound as (re)source
sound as material
sound as food
“pop will eat itself”
cut its avant head off and get: the Gray Album.

Creativity as a matter of channel-surfing. Respecting that there is a wave (the surfer rides out waves – chooses among them for the One (finding many). Our culture provides a mindscape, through which we move. The question is to how?

Samples from Plexure (1993).
A synopsis of that project: an "megaplundermorphonemiclonic" “encyclopaedic popologue” covering 10 years (83-93) in pop music history that “plunders over a thousand pop stars” “It starts with rapmillisylables and progresses through the material according to tempo.” Thus becoming also a study of the relation of tempo to genre (there’s a moment when the metal is briefly cut by bluegrass – two very distinct mythologies of speed).

When I heard this as a teenager, it blew that same mid out the bedroom window. If it sounds more familiar, if I now have a sense as to the how of this work, and a better understanding of the where it works in and from, it does in one way become less of a visceral mindfuck. But knowing what goes into it, and what this type of work entails (incl. reams of Michael Jackson lawyers ordering you to “destroy all copies” and your family and neighbors shaking their heads year after year) it becomes more radical, more courageous, more plain old eccentric cum visionary. It tears the fence off the field – free-range as any organic label or cowboy legend can be.

Welcome to our new year. So lets hear it for electromegamadmonics. And what does it look like in words?