[performing the Music Reclamation Project live at Lemurplex in NYC
with video "Paris with No People" ]


Music Reclamation Project
Sampled and manipulated audio performance
from original vinyl records
Ongoing project, originating in 2006

Premier performance of the Music Reclamation Project at Hogar Collection in
Brooklyn, New York



Listen to an mp3 of the performance


Media is proliferating at a rate never before seen due in part to inexpensive digital still and video cameras, software such as GarageBand and iMovie, and dissemination methods like cheap CD- and DVDr's, YouTube, and file-sharing networks. The Music Reclamation project asks why create new media when there is so much source material to be recycled?

This is part of a larger project using existing media that also includes conceptually-edited Hollywood feature films (which are usually projected as part of this performance) and gestural remixing of historical speeches. The act of remix is not just historical, but ecological.

For the performance of Music Reclamation, the source is the original vinyl records of the worst pop songs ever written, which are manipulated live and transformed completely into thick, textural drones and psychedelic repetitions. The original recordings are wholly transformed into something new.

At the same time, however, the copyright issue is central to this work. Since the transformation is total, the source could never be unpacked and determined; but at the same time it is conceptually critical to reveal the source, and in doing so opens up the infringement.

After compiling a dozen online lists of "The Worst Pop Songs Ever Written" culled from various sources such as Blender magazine and VH1, this project seeks to save the worst pop songs humankind has ever been subjected to. The songs are edited and manipulated, but every measure, every note, every second of the song is used. These songs had potential locked in every measure but was squandered. The music is transformed into something wholly different than the original.

This work was presented as part of a talk on the idea of media ecology and expanded remix at a panel on contemporary sound art at the 2008 College Art Association conference.