In conjunction with his performance in the Musical Explorations series at REDCAT on February 20, Composer John Oswald will discuss his work in a special ACF Composer to Composer salon (while simultaneously displaying a large-screen projection of the chronophotic image from his brand new DVD feature movie The Arc of Apparitions).

Oswald is best known for his invention of Plunderphonics, a musical form/process/ethos wherein pre-existing recorded pieces are transformed into new works by a variety of editing and signal processing techniques. The 1989 Plunderphonic CD (never-for-sale, remaining stocks destroyed by Michael Jackson & CBS) became an underground cult classic. The realistic cover photo of a nude Michael Jackson revealed as a white woman paralleled the musical transformations depicted on the disc. Other electroquoted artists included Bing Crosby, The Beatles, Glenn Gould, Public Enemy & (consequently) James Brown. The samples Oswald used to create these pieces were studiously footnoted with all due credit given to the source artists. The disc was not sold but distributed freely to radio stations, libraries, critics and musicians. Despite this approach, prudes in the "Recording Industry" representing Michael Jackson destroyed the remaining copies and prohibited Oswald from distributing or reproducing the CD. In the wake of these events, Oswald was commissioned to plunderphonicize recordings by the Grateful Dead and artists on the Elektra label, and he has continued to explore the far reaches of musical perception, culture jamming, and sonic transformation (including the CD new release Aparanthesi - a 30 minute exploration of a single note).

Oswald's February 20 performance at REDCAT will include Rascali Klepitoire (plunderphonics-like treatments of the performance of obvious choices from the Classical Repertoire) as well as concert-situation and phenomenal (in multiple senses of the word) pieces, composed between 1991 & 2001.

Read the press release