Rex: 3

Pioneering avant-garde turntable terrorist Christian Marclay once created an installation where records were strewn across the floor of an exhibition hall to be stepped on by visitors. Completing the conceptual process, Marclay then repackaged and sold the slabs of scratched vinyl as unique pieces of art and music. Markus Popp (who records as Oval) and Stefan Betke (who records as Pole) aren't quite as concept-minded, though each is clearly enamored with the process of deconstruction and automatic composition. Popp in particular has been attending to the creative potential of jittering, altered compact discs for several years now, so much so that he has reduced the system to an art. Or, in his case, a computer program: By taking and reshuffling found and reconstituted digital sound, Popp has come close to the kind of random ambient music generation that has similarly obsessed Brian Eno in recent years, though, unlike Eno, Popp is more likely to be jarring—who likes the sound of a CD skipping, no matter how artfully crafted—than soothing. There's no question that Popp's music is utterly modern, and that his ability to squeeze even the most minimal of melodies from digital cacophony is a fine metaphor for how the Pandora's Box of technology has affected the way we hear and listen to music. Betke, on the other hand, isn't as concerned with clicks and cuts as Popp. Instead, the music of Pole sounds like Marclay using King Tubby discs in his installation, then reselling scratchy copies of the King Of Dub. Betke's obsession with static and fuzz is an affectation, but as with Popp, there's a fascination with the artificiality of digital technology (in Betke's case, a broken Waldorf 4 Pole-Filter) and how that trait can be twisted to produce a sound that's gritty and real.