A few years ago the London-based entity Data 70, loosely affiliated to the U.K.'s hauntology network, put out a pair of wonderful EPs of modern-day library music–electronic miniatures, mood-tints, and retrofuturist underscores–entitled Space Loops Volume One and Volume Two. That was on the label West Norwood Cassette Library.
Now Bob Bhamra, the man behind Data 70 and West Norwood Cassette Library, has launched a new side project, Astronaut No. 1. Its first offering is "Instant Digest": a monstrously compressed synopsis of the history of pop that crams five decades into just twenty minutes.
Check it out here:
http://modyfier.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/west-norwood-cassette-library-process-part-269/
Bhamra describes his modus operandi thusly: "Select an album from every year, sample the whole thing, splice out the phrases, hits, pops and squeaks of interest and meticulously re-structure them in the running order of the album."
Now you're probably thinking, "hang on a second, Simon... isn't this just the same as the mash-ups you were decrying only a few days ago?"
Weeeell, yes... and no. I like to think of these as– cough– exercises in plunderphonics, except that John Oswald's Zappa-esque sneer is here replaced by amusement/amazement. Alongside Oswald's pell-mell radioscape-sampling Plexure (1993), other precedents for "Instant Digest" are The Residents's Third Reich N'Roll (1976) and Bernard Parmegiani's 1969 works "Pop' Eclectic" and "Du Pop A L'Ane" (musique concrete panoramas patched together from swatches of pop, rock, jazz, schmaltz and classical). It's also only fair to mention the mash-up scene's own vanguardists Osymyso, whose "Intro Inspection" (2002) segued intros from 101 famous songs into a ep(ilept)ic 12 minute track.
Unlike mash-ups, which even in the case of "Intro Spection" work through the recognition factor of spotting familiar tunes, "Instant Digest" is much more delirious and disorienting. If pop has eaten itself, then this is the gastric turbulence that follows... the hiccoughing sound of history repeating.
More information on West Norwood Cassette Library - http://westnorwoodcassettelibrary.blogspot.com/
Interview with Bob Bhamra -
http://onethirtybpm.com/features/interview-west-norwood-cassette-library/
Youtube of John Oswald's finest moment, "Dab", his massacre of Michael Jackson's "Bad"
youtube of the Residents Third Reich N' Roll
Bernard Parmegiania "JazzEx" from Pop Eclectic
Osymyso, "Intro Inspection"
