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. 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. His first album in almost a decade entitled "O" was released on Thrill Jockey September 7, 2010.

Oval's 2CD "OvalDNA", featuring both new and unreleased older tracks, is due for release late 2011 in Europe and early 2012 in the rest of the world.

Markus Popp also composed the soundtrack for a short film. Retina

Break-Up

The Oval project split up in 1995 after disagreements between bandmates. Says Frank Metzger, an ex-Oval member:

"Strictly speaking, neither Sebastian nor I actually 'left' oval. In the summer of 95, it became clear that Markus had very different goals for oval than I did. Increasingly, he wanted to professionalize oval.

For him, it was no longer so much about the music and the fun that went along with it, than it was about strategical considerations and marketing. I wrote a letter to Markus regarding this, which he has not answered to this day.

With Sebastian, the situation was similar. He saw on television that he was no longer an oval member. In a piece on the Japanese tour of mouse on mars/microstoria/oval that was broadcasted by the German music television station VIVA, there was a subtitle in a video clip of one of the oval pieces, which read: "This video was generated on the computer by Markus Popp and ex-oval member Sebastian Oschatz." It’s pretty likely that Markus was responsible for this subtitle. And Sebastian also no longer has any kind of contact with Markus."

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)
• OvalDNA (Shitkatapult/2011)

See also

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

References

External links

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