Inspired by the theories of Gilles Deleuze and the ethics of digital politics, the Berlin musicians behind Oval hold to a conceptual aesthetic that is as semantic as it is artistic. Markus Popp, Sebastian Oschatz, and Frank Metzger damage compact discs using various destructive processes then extrapolate intricate musical topographies from the glitches, skips, and stuck loops produced as the impaired discs are played. Through rigorous processing and programming, the trio creates extraordinary tessellated soundscapes, working as though its raw material was not fragmented sound but shards of tile or multicolored glass.
"Do While," DISKONT's astonishing 24-minute opener, evolves from vague glints and shimmers into a prismatic lattice of brittle melodies, its edges melting and mutating like the symmetric facets of a snowflake. Oval's lofty rhetoric might not lead you to expect such flowerings of melody and fantastic, seemingly impossible forms. The other six tracks, while less expansive, are scarcely less striking. Admittedly, Oval's tilting, unsettled sound is an acquired taste. The skewed ambience of "Line Extension," the scrambled melodic complexities of "Store Check," and the garbled, nonlinear structures of "Commerce Server" or "Shop in Store" oblige the listener to accept Oval's music on its own uncompromising--but ultimately rewarding--terms.
