Some Assembly Required is a weekly focus on sample based music and audio art. Host Jon Nelson explores the world of sound collage via this weekly podcast of his nationally syndicated radio program.
Episode 161, Some Assembly Required
Click the title above to listen!
The featured profile this week at the SAR BLOG is DJ
Rob Swift. Tune in to this week’s episode of Some
Assembly Required (#161) to hear a track off of his
debut solo release “The Ablist,” along with 15
additional sound collages by DJ Broken Window, Wayne
Butane, Coil, Diplo, Dum Dum TV, DJ Earlybird, Ground
Zero, DJ Jay-R, Lecture On Nothing, Martinn,
Messerchups, Negativland, The Tape-beatles, Hal Wilner
and Wobbly.
The standouts this week include a wonderful track by
Wobbly, called Only Musical (it’s the title track off
of his 2002 album). This collage was originally
featured on Illegal Art’s Extracted Celluloid
compilation in 1998, on which all the artists were
creating sound collage based entirely upon sounds they
found in film. Wobbly built “Only Musical” largely
from sung vocal fragments found in the 1964 Jacques
Demy film The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. This is
definitely one of my favorite albums by Wobbly.
Another standout this week is a segment from a very
long track by an artist calling himself Wayne Butane.
I’ve been trying to do a feature on Wayne Butane for
awhile now, but he is more than content in his
relative anonymity. We’ve been in touch for a couple
of years, but he refuses to answer any questions on
the record. His sound collages are based almost
entirely on fragments of dialogue recycled from
children’s records, television, Hollywood movies and
other major media outlets. The material is often comic
in tone, and the overall effect is quite surreal.
In other news - The Spark Festival of Electronic Music
and Arts is bringing creators and performers of new
media arts to the Twin Cities this week. Spark
celebrates the use of new technologies for artistic
expression, including music, video, theater, dance,
physical artworks and more. Centered in the University
of Minnesota’s West Bank Arts Quarter, this year’s
lineup features works by dozens of artists from all
over the world, along with keynote guest, composer
Morton Subotnick, and featured performance ensembles
TrioMetrik and Zeitgeist. You can check out more
information at www.sparkfestival.org.
Don’t forget to check out the SAR Q&A with DJ Rob
Swift at the SAR Blog, and download this week’s
episode HERE…
Thanks for listening!
Jon Nelson
Jon Nelson is an artist, curator and producer, focused almost exclusively on collage, with forays into radio, visual art, theater, writing and installation. His nationally syndicated radio program (Some Assembly Required) is a weekly radio art show, featuring the talents of audio artists who appropriate sounds from their media environments. Some Assembly Required is online, at: www.some-assembly-required.net
http://www.mnartists.org/jonathan_nelson