Source recordings cut, layered, looped and rebuilt into works with their own form.
A mix becomes a different kind of work when its source recordings are treated as material to compose with. An instrument can be lifted from a solo performance and placed inside an ensemble that never met. A vinyl groove can become a repeating voice; several records can sound at once, stretched or cut until their original boundaries disappear. These contributions make that reconstruction central to the recording.
We chose eight with documented methods of editing, layering or performing their sources. Long tracklists prompted closer examination, but their size is not the criterion: Carozzi’s eleven source records contain many locked grooves, while Bumšteinas’s single titled work draws on more than a hundred songs. The artists’ notes and source lists let us distinguish a continuous selection from a new composition made through it. Each reason below identifies the particular method, rather than borrowing a definition from the guest’s reputation.
Thirty-four source recordings, mainly solo-instrument performances, are cut and layered into an ensemble that never played together. Strings, keyboards, percussion and winds acquire a shared arrangement, with spoken fragments entering its dramaturgy. The contribution applies Kreng’s sample-based practice to large instrumental passages rather than merely sequencing finished pieces.
The duo describe three or four records sounding together, with their timing stretched, compressed, cut and synchronised. Forty-three listed sources, unreleased material and solo fragments become a roughly 66-minute construction in which the treatment of the recordings is as important as their selection.
Silent Night runs for 50 minutes and 19 seconds. Its restored list names 43 principal positions and four additional excerpts layered throughout: composition, film sound, voice and noise form a dense structure with Curgenven’s own fragments running through it. The list describes the sources; their overlap makes the work.
Sala assembled this work over six months using magnetic tape, a computer and effects. Sounds from friends, family home videos, YouTube and his own recordings are isolated and merged to lose their original contexts. The source collection becomes a personal archive shaped through physical and digital manipulation.
HELLGGPLAN takes Dante’s nine circles as its structure and lists 82 sources within an hour. After more than a year of research and two live presentations, stretching, reversal, distortion and changes of speed join original recordings to other music and samples. Its architecture precedes the sequence of records.
Sillon Fermé is built entirely from locked grooves, recorded with two turntables and later overdubbed with a third. Eleven source records can hold dozens or hundreds of loops per side. Repetition, wear and the uncertain task of locating a groove make the vinyl itself an instrument.
Two years of assembly produced a four-hour work with 122 listed sources. The original feature describes three to seven simultaneous layers: industrial and classical music, game soundtracks, film and speech meet across a sustained structure. Its place here rests on those overlapping constructions, rather than the exceptional length alone.
Stimulus Collapse folds more than a hundred songs sent by friends into one 43-minute work. Its instrumental, karaoke-like treatment frustrates recognition and reverses the organising idea of Muzak’s stimulus progression. One titled entry conceals a large source collection; recognition and the effort of listening become part of the composition.
Presented in original publication order, from reshaped records to loops, voices and large-scale montage.
All mixes
