John Oswald, Douglas Kahn and Sound Art

For the past few weeks, I've been a panelist for the Tate Modern's forum on sound art along with co-panelists John Oswald and Douglas Kahn. Kahn is best known for his great history of sound art in the 20th century called Noise Water Meat. Back in the 80s, he did one of the funniest Reagan cut-ups called Ronald Reagan Speaks for Himself, a plundered speech-thing from an interview with Bill Moyers (a ton more Reagan cut-ups can be found at the Ronald Reagan Translations page). And of course you know John Oswald, founder of plunderphonics . But I'll bet you don't know his early releases that he produced under the name of  Mystery Labs called "Kissing Jesus in the Dark" and "The Mystery Tapes". I've posted 3 tapes' worth of this stuff here. Dig in: it sounds more relevant today than when it was released 25 years ago.

Comments

[Ed Word]

Oh I am digging the Mystery Labs mp3s... Thanks a lot.This can hold me over for the next 38 and a half hours of KennyGless radio.

ed word

[Wendell]

One of the greatest Reagan mutilations I ever heard was released as a flexi-disk in Raw magazine in the 80's ... I remember laughing hysterically, although there may have been substance abuse involved ... I think it was the same issue that featured the painting "Donald Duck descending a staircase" which also sent us into fits of hysterics, so ... yes ... I think there was substance abuse involved.

Wendell

[Wendell]

... having gone back, that "Ronald Reagan speaks for himself" is the Raw magazine recording ... wonderful to have it again.

[Oscar]

Track 2 ("japanese pop") of the Mystery Tapes X1 Version tape is We Are Ninja by Frank Chickens, with no chopping up or plundering added.

I knew I recognised it but I had to Google anyway to find out who it was by.

These tapes are great little mashed up audio artefacts, thanks a lot, Kenneth.