94diskont

Oval's 1996 masterpiece, 94diskont, is perhaps the defining album of the glitch subgenre of electronic music. Markus Popp of Oval was one of the founding pioneers of the genre (along with Christian Marclay) and uses the "aesthetic of failure" to create beautiful soundscapes evoking a variety of emotions using source material of beeps, clicks, scratches, and other "bad" sounds. In fact, this album was created mostly through destroying old LP records and splicing their sounds together. Like fellow glitch master Christian Fennesz's Endless Summer, 94diskont could change the way you hear and think about music.The sprawling opening track, "Do While," is a slow exploration of a simple repeated theme that is sure to be ingrained into your head before the 25 minutes are up. Taking hints from minimalist composers such as Terry Riley and Steve Reich, Oval uses repetition to create a subtle but striking build-up that needs every second of the track to truly evolve. "Store Check" continues in the same subtle mannerisms. "Line Extension," the track that drew me to this album in the first place, is just brilliant. At times I don't even know what sounds I'm hearing, but they blend together into such a fluid movement that I find myself getting swept in every time I hear it. "Cross Selling" and "Shop In Store" also develop repetetive themes like in "Do While," though they are a bit more jarring and exciting because of the harsher sounds used. "Do While Apple-X" returns to the same theme as the album's opener, bringing the listener back to the beginning of the journey and completing a truly fantastic album.