Oval (musical project)

Oval
Origin	Germany
Genres	Ambient techno, microsound, glitch, noise
Years active	1991–present
Labels	Thrill Jockey (United States) Mille Plateaux (Europe)
Associated acts	So Microstoria Mouse on Mars
Members
Markus Popp
Past members
Sebastian Oschatz Frank Metzger

Oval is an electronic music group founded in Germany in 1991.

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, 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 designer with Meso, a German media design collective.

In 2001 Björk sampled the track "Aero Deck" (from the 1994 album Systemisch) on her Vespertine album.^[1] Markus Popp was an integral part of the creation of Gastr Del Sol's 1998 album Camoufleur.

In 2003, Popp released a record on Thrill Jockey together with the Japanese 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.^[2] His new album entitled "O" was released on Thrill Jockey September 7, 2010.

Markus Popp also composed the entire soundtrack for a 20 minute short film, Retina, due to be completed February 2011.

Discography

Albums

• Wohnton (Ata Tak/1993)
• Systemisch (Mille Plateaux/1994)
• 94 Diskont (Mille Plateaux/1995)
• Dok (Thrill Jockey/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)

See also

• Electronic music
• Acoustic ecology
• Noise Music
• List of noise musicians
• Chip music
• Circuit bending
• Dark ambient
• Sonic artifact
• No-Fi

References

1. ^ Björk FAQ
2. ^ [1]

External links

• Markus Popp Interview by Marc Weidenbaum, Disquiet, 1997
• Markus Popp Interview by Sam Inglis, Sound on Sound, 2002