Illegal Art is a
sampling record label
A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...
that was started in 1998. The label gained immediate notoriety from legal threats surrounding ''
Deconstructing Beck'', a compilation made exclusively from sampling
Beck's music. This was followed by two other theme-based compilations, ''Extracted Celluloid'' and ''Commercial Ad Hoc''. All three were co-released with
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 ...
's
Seeland Records
Seeland Records is an independent record label created by Negativland in 1979 to release their own recordings. It is a reference to the song "Seeland" by the band Neu!, who also gave Negativland the basis for their name, Sea-Land Corporation, ...
label and sponsored by
RTMark. After these theme-based compilations, Illegal Art focused on artist releases. One of the most popular artists on the label is
Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis), who in 2006 released his third album, ''
Night Ripper
''Night Ripper'' is the third studio album by American musician Gregg Gillis, released under his stage name Girl Talk on May 9, 2006 by Illegal Art. It is a mashup album primarily composed of samples taken from other artists' music, while al ...
'', to critical acclaim on the label, earning a
''Wired'' magazine Rave Award a year later.
Illegal Art also released the ''
Steinski Retrospective'', spanning his work from 1983 to 2006. It includes the legendary "Lessons", which have been described as "one of the most desirable and prized
bootleg recordings in hip hop" (Antidote). It also contains a variety of other essential tracks, and his critically acclaimed ''Nothing to Fear: A Rough Mix'', an hour-long
mashup that was produced for Solid Steel/BBC London and hailed as "the closest to a masterpiece the genre has produced."
As of April 2014, Illegal Art's website states that the label has been on an "indefinite hiatus" since 2012.
Artists
*
The Bran Flakes
*
Girl Talk
*
P. Miles Bryson
*
People Like Us
*
Steinski
*
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 ...
*
Legion of Doom
The Legion of Doom is a group of supervillains who originated in '' Challenge of the Super Friends'', an animated series from Hanna-Barbera based on DC Comics' Justice League. The Legion of Doom has since been incorporated into the main DC Univer ...
See also
*
List of record labels: I–Q
References
External links
Illegal Art's WebsiteThe
Some Assembly Required Interview with Illegal Art's Philo T. Farnsworth (2001).
Illegal Art Exhibition Compilation CD
{{Authority control
American record labels
Record labels established in 1998
Electronic music record labels
Mashup