Oval (band)

Infobox musical artist
Name = Oval


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Origin = Germany
Genre = Minimal techno Glitch ambient techno experimental techno post-rock noise
Years_active = 1991 to Present
Label = Thrill Jockey (US) Mille Plateaux
Associated_acts = So
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Current_members = Markus Popp
Past_members = Sebastian Oschatz Frank Metzger

Oval is an electronic music group founded in Germany in 1991. The band's original members were Markus Popp, Sebastian Oschatz, and Frank Metzger, though 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. The most recent are the back-to-back albums "Ovalprocess" and "Ovalcommers". 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 [ [http://b-faq.bjorkish.net/connections/c-ova.htm Björk FAQ] ] .

In 2003, Popp released a record on Thrill Jockey together with the Japanese singer Eriko Toyada. As a duo they were called So, and their record was self-titled.

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)

References

External links

* [http://www.disquiet.com/popp-script.html Markus Popp Interview] by Marc Weidenbaum, Disquiet, 1997
* [http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct02/articles/oval.asp Markus Popp Interview] by Sam Inglis, Sound on Sound, 2002