Plunderphonics
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Plunderphonics is a
music genre A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from '' musical form'' and musical style, although in practice these terms are som ...
in which tracks are constructed by sampling recognizable musical works. The term was coined by composer John Oswald in 1985 in his essay "Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative", and eventually explicitly defined in the liner notes of his ''
Grayfolded ''Grayfolded'' is a two-CD album produced by John Oswald featuring new edits and re-mixes of the Grateful Dead song " Dark Star". Using over a hundred different performances of the song, recorded live between 1968 and 1993, Oswald, using a proces ...
'' album. Plunderphonics can be considered a form of sound collage. Oswald has described it as a referential and self-conscious practice which interrogates notions of
originality Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romanticism, by a notion t ...
and
identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), an ...
. Although the concept of plunderphonics is seemingly broad, in practice there are many common themes used in what is normally called plunderphonic music. This includes heavy sampling of
educational film An educational film is a film or movie whose primary purpose is to educate. Educational films have been used in classrooms as an alternative to other teaching methods. History Determining which videos should count as the first educational fil ...
s of the 1950s,
news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to event ...
reports, radio shows, or anything with trained vocal
announcer An announcer is a voice artist who relays information to the audience of a broadcast media programme or live event. Television and other media Some announcers work in television production, radio or filmmaking, usually providing narration ...
s. Oswald's contributions to this genre rarely used these materials, the exception being his rap-like 1975 track "Power." The process of sampling other sources is found in various
genre Genre () is any form or type of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially-agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other f ...
s (notably hip-hop and especially
turntablism Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA sys ...
), but in plunderphonic works, the sampled material is often the only sound used. These samples are usually uncleared and sometimes result in legal action being taken due to
copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...
infringement. Some plunderphonic
artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
s use their work to protest what they consider to be overly restrictive copyright laws. Many plunderphonic artists claim their use of other artists' materials falls under the
fair use Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests ...
doctrine. Development of the process is when creative musicians plunder an original track and overlay new material and sounds on top until the original piece is masked and then removed, though often using scales and beats. It is a studio-based technique used by such groups as the American experimental band
The Residents The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, ''Meet the Residents'' (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music vi ...
(who used Beatles tracks). Often the new track has little resemblance to the original, making it a derivative work and thus freeing the musician from copyright issues.


Early examples

Although the term ''plunderphonics'' tends to be applied only to music made since Oswald coined it in the 1980s, there are several examples of earlier music made along similar lines. Notably,
Dickie Goodman Richard Dorian Goodman (April 19, 1934 – November 6, 1989), known as Dickie Goodman, was an American music and record producer born in Brooklyn, New York. He is best known for inventing and using the technique of the "break-in", an early precur ...
and Bill Buchanan's 1956 single " The Flying Saucer", features Goodman as a radio reporter covering an
alien invasion The alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade the Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under an intense state, harvest people ...
interspersed with samples from various contemporary records.
The Residents The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, ''Meet the Residents'' (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music vi ...
' "Beyond The Valley Of A Day In The Life" consists of excerpts from Beatles records. Various
club Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a '' Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands and enterprises ...
DJs in the 1970s re-edited the records they played, and although this often consisted of nothing more than extending the record by adding a
chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...
or two, this too could be considered a form of plunderphonics. Some classical
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...
s have performed a kind of plunderphonia on written, rather than recorded, music. Perhaps the best-known example is the third movement of
Luciano Berio Luciano Berio (24 October 1925 – 27 May 2003) was an Italian composer noted for his experimental work (in particular his 1968 composition ''Sinfonia'' and his series of virtuosic solo pieces titled ''Sequenza''), and for his pioneering work ...
's ''
Sinfonia Sinfonia (; plural ''sinfonie'') is the Italian word for symphony, from the Latin ''symphonia'', in turn derived from Ancient Greek συμφωνία ''symphōnia'' (agreement or concord of sound), from the prefix σύν (together) and ϕωνή (sou ...
'', which is entirely made up from quotes of other composers and writers.
Alfred Schnittke Alfred Garrievich Schnittke (russian: Альфре́д Га́рриевич Шни́тке, link=no, Alfred Garriyevich Shnitke; 24 November 1934 – 3 August 1998) was a Russian composer of Jewish-German descent. Among the most performed and re ...
and
Mauricio Kagel Mauricio Raúl Kagel (; 24 December 1931 – 18 September 2008) was an Argentine-German composer. Biography Kagel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, into an Ashkenazi Jewish family that had fled from Russia in the 1920s . He studied music, his ...
have also made extensive use of earlier composers' works. Earlier composers who often plundered the music of others include
Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed ...
(who often quoted folk songs and
hymn A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn ...
s in his works) and
Ferruccio Busoni Ferruccio Busoni (1 April 1866 – 27 July 1924) was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor, editor, writer, and teacher. His international career and reputation led him to work closely with many of the leading musicians, artists and literary ...
(a movement from his 1909
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
suite Suite may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Suite (music), a set of musical pieces considered as one composition ** Suite (Bach), a list of suites composed by J. S. Bach ** Suite (Cassadó), a mid-1920s composition by Gaspar Cassadó ** ''Suite ...
''
An die Jugend ''An die Jugend'' is a sequence (or collection) of pieces of classical music for solo piano by Ferruccio Busoni. Plan of the work The collection was written June–August 1909 and consists of four volumes, the last with an epilogue. It was pub ...
'' includes a prelude and a
fugue In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the co ...
by
Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...
played simultaneously). During the '90s Oswald composed many such scores for classical musicians which he classified with the term ''Rascali Klepitoire''. In France, Jean-Jacques Birgé has been working on "radiophonies" since 1974 (for his film "La Nuit du Phoque"), capturing radio and editing the samples in real-time with the pause button of a radio-cassette. His group
Un Drame Musical Instantané Un Drame Musical Instantané, since its creation in 1976, featuring Jean-Jacques Birgé, Bernard Vitet and Francis Gorgé, has decided to promote collective musical creation, co-signing their albums, which they consider as artworks in themselves, or ...
recorded "Crimes parfaits" on LP "A travail égal salaire égal" in 1981, explaining the whole process in the piece itself and calling it "social soundscape". He applied the same technique to TV in 1986 on the "Qui vive?" CD and published on the 1998 CD "Machiavel" with
Antoine Schmitt Antoine Schmitt (born 1961 in Strasbourg, France) is a French contemporary artist, programming engineer and designer. Biography Antoine Schmitt was a self-made programmer at the age of 16. After earning his engineer diploma from the Telecom ...
, an interactive video scratch using 111 very small loops from his own past LPs.


''Plunderphonics'' (EP)

''Plunderphonics'' was used as the title of an EP release by John Oswald. Oswald's original use of the word was to indicate a piece that was created from samples of a single artist and no other material. Influenced by William S. Burroughs'
cut-up technique The cut-up technique (or ''découpé'' in French) is an aleatory literary technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. The concept can be traced to the Dadaists of the 1920s, but it was developed and populariz ...
, he began making plunderphonic recordings in the 1970s. In 1988 he distributed copies of the ''Plunderphonics'' EP to the press and to
radio station Radio broadcasting is transmission of audio (sound), sometimes with related metadata, by radio waves to radio receivers belonging to a public audience. In terrestrial radio broadcasting the radio waves are broadcast by a land-based radio ...
s. It contained four tracks: "Pretender" featured a single of
Dolly Parton Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman, known primarily for her work in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album ...
singing "The Great Pretender" progressively slowed down on a Lenco Bogen turntable so that she eventually sounds like a man; "Don't" was
Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the " King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. His ener ...
's recording of the titular song overlaid with samples from the recording and overdubs by various musicians, including Bob Wiseman,
Bill Frisell William Richard Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist, composer and arranger. Frisell first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader. He went on to work in a variety of contexts ...
and
Michael Snow Michael Snow (born December 10, 1928) is a Canadian artist working in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are '' Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Région Centrale'' (1971), with the ...
; "Spring" was an edited version of
Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...
's ''
The Rite of Spring , image = Roerich Rite of Spring.jpg , image_size = 350px , caption = Concept design for act 1, part of Nicholas Roerich's designs for Diaghilev's 1913 production of ' , composer = Igor Stravinsky , based_on ...
'', shuffled around and with different parts played on top of one another; "Pocket" was based on
Count Basie William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...
's "Corner Pocket," edited so that various parts loop a few times.


''Plunderphonic'' (album)

In 1989 Oswald released a greatly expanded
album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records c ...
version of ''Plunderphonics'' with twenty-five tracks. As on the EP, each track used material by just one artist. It reworked material by both
popular music Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
ians like
The Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
, and classical works such as
Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...
's '' Symphony No. 7''. Like the EP, it was never offered for sale. A central idea behind the record was that the fact that all the sounds were " stolen" should be quite blatant. The packaging listed the sources of all the samples used, but authorization for them to be used on the record was neither sought nor given. All undistributed copies of ''plunderphonic'' were destroyed after a threat of legal action from the
Canadian Recording Industry Association Music Canada (formerly Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA)) is a non-profit trade organization that was founded 9 April 1963 to represent the interests of companies that record, manufacture, produce, and distribute music in Canada. It ...
on behalf of several of their clients (notably
Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the " King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over ...
, whose
song A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetiti ...
" Bad" had been chopped into tiny pieces and rearranged as "Dab") who alleged copyright abuses. Various press statements by record industry representatives revealed that a particular item of contention was the album cover art which featured a transformed image of Michael Jackson derived from his Bad cover.


Later works

Oswald was subsequently approached by
Phil Lesh Philip Chapman Lesh (born March 15, 1940) is an American musician and a founding member of the Grateful Dead, with whom he played bass guitar throughout their 30-year career. After the band's disbanding in 1995, Lesh continued the tradition of ...
to use
Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, country, jazz, bluegrass, blues, rock and roll, gospel, reggae, world music, ...
material on what became the ''
Grayfolded ''Grayfolded'' is a two-CD album produced by John Oswald featuring new edits and re-mixes of the Grateful Dead song " Dark Star". Using over a hundred different performances of the song, recorded live between 1968 and 1993, Oswald, using a proces ...
'' album. Later works by Oswald, such as ''Plexure'', which lasts just twenty minutes but is claimed to contain around one thousand very short samples of pop music stitched together, are not strictly speaking "plunderphonic" according to Oswald's original conception (he himself used the term ''megaplundermorphonemiclonic'' for ''Plexure''), but the term "plunderphonic" is used today in a looser sense to indicate any music completely — or almost completely — made up of samples. Plunderphonics 69/96 is a compilation of Oswald's work, including tracks from the original ''plunderphonic'' CD. It is often assumed that "plunderphonics" is a brand name that Oswald applies exclusively to his recordings, but he has stated several times that he considers the term to describe a genre of music, with many exponents.


Works by other artists

Another important early purveyor of what can be described as plunderphonics was the Houston, Texas based industrial punk rock band, Culturcide’s second album entitled “Tacky Souvenirs Of Pre-Revolutionary America” (released in 1986) where the band sampled famous 1980’s Top 40 pop and rock songs.
Negativland Negativland is an American experimental music band which originated in the San Francisco Bay Area in the late 1970s. They took their name from a Neu! track, while their record label (Seeland Records) is named after another Neu! track. The co ...
(See Negativland's " Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2") is another important work that utilizes plunderphonics. While Oswald and Culturcide used easily recognizable and familiar sources, Negativland's sources were sometimes more obscure. 1983's '' A Big 10-8 Place'', for instance, consists of recordings of people talking on the radio. Their next album, '' Escape From Noise'', like most of their later records, also makes extensive use of spoken-word samples, often to make particular
political Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studi ...
points. Their most famous release, the '' U2'' EP, featured an extended rant from radio DJ
Casey Kasem Kemal Amin "Casey" Kasem (April 27, 1932 – June 15, 2014) was an American disc jockey, actor, and radio personality, who created and hosted several radio countdown programs, notably ''American Top 40''. He was the first actor to voice No ...
and extensively sampled U2's "
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the second track from their 1987 album '' The Joshua Tree'' and was released as the album's second single in May 1987. The song was a hit, becoming the band's ...
", which resulted in a lawsuit being brought by U2's
label A label (as distinct from signage) is a piece of paper, plastic film, cloth, metal, or other material affixed to a container or product, on which is written or printed information or symbols about the product or item. Information printed ...
,
Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in 1959 by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in Jamaica, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, anoth ...
. Both Oswald and Negativland made their recordings by cutting up
magnetic tape Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic storage made of a thin, magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic film. It was developed in Germany in 1928, based on the earlier magnetic wire recording from Denmark. Devices that use magne ...
(or later using
digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
technology), but several DJs have also produced plunderphonic works using
turntables A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...
; in fact, "digging" for samples plays a large part in DJ
culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
.
Christian Marclay Christian Marclay (born January 11, 1955) is a visual artist and composer. He holds both American and Swiss nationality. Marclay's work explores connections between sound, noise, photography, video, and film. A pioneer of using gramophone records ...
is a
turntablist Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA system ...
who has been using other people's records as the sole source of his music-making since the late 1970s. He often treats the records in unusual ways, for example, he has physically cut up a group of records and stuck them together, making both a visual and aural
collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...
. Sometimes several spoken-word or
lounge music Lounge music is a type of easy listening music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It may be meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place, usually with a tranquil theme, such as a jungle, an island paradise or outer space. The rang ...
records bought from thrift stores are mashed together to make a Marclay track, but his ''More Encores'' album cuts up tracks by the likes of
Maria Callas Maria Callas . (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''bel cant ...
and
Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several era ...
in a way similar to Oswald's work on ''Plunderphonics''. Marclay's experimental approach has been taken up by the likes of Roberto Musci & Giovanni Venosta,
Otomo Yoshihide is a Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly plays guitar, turntables, and electronics. He first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in ...
, Philip Jeck and
Martin Tétreault Martin Tétreault (born 1957 in Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Quebec, Canada) is a free improvisation musician and visual artist. Often using the turntable as the basis for his experimental music, he has over 60 releases, featuring him solo or in collabora ...
, although in these artist's works the records used are sometimes heavily disguised and unrecognizable. The Bran Flakes and People Like Us have both used thrift store records to create their music; the
Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
pop band TAS 1000 did the same with thrift store
answering machine An answering machine, answerphone or message machine, also known as telephone messaging machine (or TAM) in the UK and some Commonwealth countries, ansaphone or ansafone (from a trade name), or telephone answering device (TAD), was used for a ...
tapes. Late 80's house musicians like
Coldcut Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the 1980s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, ...
,
S'Express S'Express (pronounced ''ess-express''; sometimes spelled S'Xpress or S-Express) were a British dance music act from the late 1980s, who had one of the earliest commercial successes in the acid house genre. "Theme from S'Express", which containe ...
,
MARRS MARRS (stylised M, A, R, R, S) were a 1987 recording collective formed by the groups A.R. Kane and Colourbox, which only released one commercial disc. It became "a one-hit wonder of rare influence" because of their international hit " Pump Up t ...
used cut-up collages to build dance music songs.
Kid 606 Miguel Trost De Pedro (born July 27, 1979), better known by his stage name Kid606, is an electronic musician who was raised in San Diego and later moved to San Francisco. He is most closely associated with the glitch, IDM, hardcore techno and b ...
has created quite a bit of plunderphonic work (most notably "The Action-Packed Mentalist Bring You the Fucking Jams"), similarly never seeking permission, although his work is sold commercially.
Akufen Marc Leclair, better known by his stage name Akufen, is a Canadian electronic musician. His music is electronic music that is often described as minimal house, minimal techno, glitch, or microhouse. His 2002 release titled ''My Way'' introduced h ...
used more than 2000 plundered sound samples to build his ''
My Way "My Way" is a song popularized in 1969 by Frank Sinatra set to the music of the French song "Comme d'habitude" composed by Jacques Revaux with lyrics by Gilles Thibaut and Claude François and first performed in 1967 by Claude François. Its E ...
'' album.
Wobbly The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
is also known for his plunderphonic works, most notably "Wild Why", a CD piece compiled from his own recordings of mainstream Hip-Hop radio from the
San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
. In Italy Filippo Paolini (aka Økapi) has published several albums using samples also for post-classical music projects. Vicki Bennett of People Like Us has extended the plunderphonic ideal to
video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...
, creating
film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...
s to accompany her music by plundering the resources of the
Prelinger Archives The Prelinger Archives is a collection of films relating to U.S. cultural history, the evolution of the American landscape, everyday life, and social history. It was in New York City from 1982 to 2002 and is now in San Francisco. History The Arc ...
, the online part of the collection of film archivist
Rick Prelinger Rick Prelinger is an archivist, professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz; writer and filmmaker, and founder of the Prelinger Archives, a collection of 60,000 advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur films acquired by th ...
. Anne McGuire used similar techniques in her 1992 film ''Strain Andromeda The''. With permission, McGuire reversed ''
The Andromeda Strain ''The Andromeda Strain'' is a 1969 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton, his first novel under his own name and his sixth novel overall. It is written as a report documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the outbreak of ...
''
shot Shot may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Shot'' (album), by The Jesus Lizard *''Shot, Illusion, New God'', an EP by Gruntruck *'' Shot Rev 2.0'', a video album by The Sisters of Mercy * "Shot" (song), by The Rasmus * ''Shot'' (2017 f ...
by shot so that everything unfolded in reverse order, although with each scene running in normal time with comprehensible
dialogue Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is c ...
.
Andrea Rocca Andrea Rocca (born 9 June 1969, in Rome) is an Italian musician, guitarist and film composer. Rocca moved to London in 1988 where he trained with John White and graduated in ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1997. ...
’s 1994 album Heartsounds, and much of his subsequent output, makes extensive use of plunderphonics, with dialogue and musical fragments taken from sources as diverse as cartoons and pornography. Another approach is to take two very different records and play them simultaneously. An early example of this is the
Evolution Control Committee The Evolution Control Committee (The ECC) is an experimental music band based in Columbus, Ohio. The ECC was founded by Mark Gunderson (a.k.a. TradeMark G.) in Columbus, in 1986. They create music that falls within the borders of the sound col ...
's ''Whipped Cream Mixes'' (1994), which laid the vocals from
Public Enemy "Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe p ...
's "Rebel Without a Pause" over
Herb Alpert Herb Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American trumpeter who led the band Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass in the 1960s. During the same decade, he co-founded A&M Records with Jerry Moss. Alpert has recorded 28 albums that have landed on the ...
's "Bittersweet Samba". This gave rise to the so-called "bastard pop" or " mash-up" phenomenon where an
a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
version of one song is mixed on top of a purely
instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...
version of another song.
Soulwax Soulwax are an electronic band from Ghent, Belgium. Centred around brothers David and Stephen Dewaele, other current members include Igor Cavalera and Stefaan Van Leuven. They were first noticed after the release of their album ''Much Against Eve ...
and
Richard X Richard Philips, better known by his stage name Richard X, is a British songwriter and music producer. Gaining attention as a pioneer of the bootleg craze, Richard X has earned success as a producer and remixer. He has helmed hit singles for arti ...
have both produced records along these lines. New possibilities in plunderphonics projects are permitted by Dataflow programming languages, such as
Pure Data Pure Data (Pd) is a visual programming language developed by Miller Puckette in the 1990s for creating interactive computer music and multimedia works. While Puckette is the main author of the program, Pd is an open-source project with a large d ...
and
Max/Msp Max, also known as Max/MSP/Jitter, is a visual programming language for music and multimedia developed and maintained by San Francisco-based software company Cycling '74. Over its more than thirty-year history, it has been used by composers, per ...
, allowing the artist to even release true aleatory works, which will sound different each time the listener executes the algorithm, an example of this approach is the work o
Alea T. - Hot 01-00-09
There are also several
Web Web most often refers to: * Spider web, a silken structure created by the animal * World Wide Web or the Web, an Internet-based hypertext system Web, WEB, or the Web may also refer to: Computing * WEB, a literate programming system created by ...
-based plunderphonics projects. The Droplift Project created a
compilation CD A compilation album comprises tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several performers. If by one artist, then generally the tracks were not originally intended for rel ...
of plunderphonic works which was then "drop lifted" into record stores (this involved slipping copies of the record onto the shelves without knowledge of the store owner — a sort of reverse stealing). Dictionaraoke took audio clips from online
dictionaries A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, p ...
and stitched them together so that they recited the words of various popular songs while instrumental versions of the music (often in
MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...
renderings) played along.
Vaporwave Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, visual art style, and Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, elevator music, elevator, contemporary ...
, which largely consists of sampled and slowed down 1980s pop music, has been cited as a subgenre of plunderphonics. American musician and humorist
Neil Cicierega Neil Stephen Cicierega ( ; born August 23, 1986) is an American comedian, actor, filmmaker, singer, YouTuber, musician, songwriter, puppeteer, artist, and animator. He is known as the creator of a genre of Flash animation he termed "Animutation ...
has released several mashup albums with a plunderphonic ethos, beginning with his albums ''
Mouth Sounds ''Mouth Sounds'' is a mashup album by American musician Neil Cicierega. The album was released independently by Cicierega on April 27, 2014. Consisting of mashups pairing Top 40 hits of the 1980s and 1990s along with Smash Mouth's " All Star" ...
'' and ''
Mouth Silence ''Mouth Silence'' is the second mashup album by American musician and comedian Neil Cicierega. Following the format of his previous release, ''Mouth Sounds'', the album is composed of mashups and remixes of popular songs from the 1980s, 1990's, a ...
'', both released in 2014 on his own website, which were released to critical acclaim.


Notes


External links

* Interview with John Oswald (2010) fo
Ràdio Web MACBA

Radio Feature
The Some Assembly Required (radio program), Some Assembly Required Interview with John Oswald (2001)
"Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative"
– an essay by John Oswald
plunderphonics.com
– website created by Oswald cohort Phil Strong
pfony.com
– Oswald's record label: includes some current info on his other activities

A comprehensive history and analysis of plunderphonia by Chris Cutler.
detritus.net
– deals with recycled art in all areas, especially music
Illegal Art

We Edit Life (Vicki Bennett's Movie)

Variations
A series on Sampling Music by Jon Leidecker for Ràdio Web MACBA {{Appropriation in the Arts Musical techniques Sampling (music) Electronic music genres