94 Diskont

''94 Diskont'' (stylised as ''94diskont.'') is the fourth album by German electronic music group Oval. It was released in 1995 via Mille Plateaux in Europe and in 1996 by Thrill Jockey in the United States. It was the final Oval release to feature Sebastian Oschatz and Frank Metzger. It has received critical acclaim.

Background

Oval received both praise and controversy for its styling methods, such as literally deconstructing music and digital audio by using exacto knives, paint, and tape to damage the surfaces of compact discs, only to stitch the sound back together in loops of melody punctuated by the disc's physical skips. On its initial release, '' Select'' noted in their review that Oval "sound unlike any other combo" on ''94 Diskont''. The review went on to note that group have been described in desperation as techno and critiqued this reference stating "try dancing to the sort of erratic pulsing and hiccuping that comes over like the read-out from a dying alien's electrocardiograph".

''94 Diskont'' was released as a companion piece to Oval's previous album, '' Systemisch''. The album's centerpiece is "Do While," a 24-minute track originally composed for the group's 8-channel, 128-speaker modular sound installation named Wohnton (translates into home tone) in a stereo mixdown. The installation was shown throughout Europe between 1994 and 1996 on various occasions, ranging from art exhibitions to techno raves. A radio edit of the song, "Do While ⌘X", is also included on the album. The US pressing by Thrill Jockey adds two additional songs and, on vinyl, moves "Do While ⌘X" up in the running order to appear directly after "Do While", instead of closing the album.

Both US and international vinyl versions of the album came with a remix LP that contains remixes by Mouse on Mars, Scanner, Cristian Vogel, and Jim O'Rourke.

Music

''94 Diskont'' is considered to be an album in the glitch and ambient music genres. Philip Sherburne of ''Pitchfork'' assessed: "If ''Systemisch'' is where Oval first distilled their idea down to its essence, then ''94diskont'' is where they discovered their homemade medium’s expressive potential. Bit-crushed chirps and desiccated hiccups establish the basic vocabulary that will come to define “glitch music” for the next decade; some of the album’s more abstracted tracks, like 'Commerce Server,' sound like a peripheral device coughing up pixels. On centerpiece 'Do While,' glassy pings skitter like snowflakes across the frozen surface of a pond; bell tones rise and fall in pitch, glowing with an eerie luminescence. There’s nothing more to it than a handful of short, overlapping loops, yet something about the way they wrap around each other only draws you deeper into the mix with every elliptical pass. ..Like Satie’s furniture music or Eno’s airport ambience, it’s a sound that both fades into the background and charges the very air around you."

Reviews and influence

Dave Morrison of '' Select'' gave the album a four out of five rating, first mentioning the group's unorthodox method of obtaining the sounds on the album, then noting that "this out-on-a-limb approach wouldn't mean a thing if the results weren't so brilliant."
''The Wire'' placed the album at number five on its 1995 of top albums of the year.

Ben Tausig of AllMusic awarded the album five stars and stated, "''94 Diskont'' is undoubtedly a standout in the field of electronically advanced, glitch-heavy music." In their 1998 list of "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)", ''The Wire'' wrote of the album: "From nothing but digital detritus, Oval construct a resonant holism of pure crystalline beauty. The balance of this disc is given over to brief excursions into textural exposition, pushing back the boundaries of sound as music."

In a 2003 feature, the webzine ''Pitchfork'' placed ''94 Diskont'' at number 47 on its list of the top 100 albums of the 1990s. Mark Richardson of ''Pitchfork'' declared, "Sounds appear as multi-layer holograms, with both sources and ghosted copies simultaneously vying for attention, a piece of sonic trickery used to create some of the most serene and aquatic music of the '90s." Richardson would later state in a 2016 piece that ''94 Diskont'' "was the first sound of a new future". In 2016, ''Pitchfork'' named ''94 Diskont'' the seventh best ambient album of all time.

Track listing

Notes and references

External links

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''94 Diskont''
at Thrill Jockey

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1995 albums
Oval (musical project) albums
Thrill Jockey albums
Mille Plateaux (record label) albums