Saturday, October 25, 2003
Wohnton - Oval
What's Oval's most important album? I'd say that it's Wohnton (thanks for the tip, HYPO), the first CD which Markus Popp and Sebastian Oschatz were working on as early as 1995 - almost 10 years ago - with but I don't think that many people would agree with me. Why is this important? Well, for one thing, it shows that Markus Popp really has come full circle, in a manner of speaking. What I mean is that on this album, there is singing. Male vocals to be exact (I think it's Mr. Popp himself) and in German at that. Imagine Schubert, for better or for worse, with a Macintosh and a faulty CD player, and you're pretty much in the ballpark. Anyway, the great things about this CD is that if we compare it with his latest work with as So (with Eriko Toyoda) it shows Popp coming back to vocals...but with an interesting twist. He isn't singing this time. Why not? Well, he's just following the rules. What are the rules, you ask? Well...
1. There is to be no singing in laptop music whatsoever.
2. If there is to be singing, the singer should be female.
3. If the singer is female, it would be best if she were also Japanese.
4. Did we mention no singing in German?
5. If there is to be singing in German, refer to rule no. 1.
Of course, there are no rules, right? Well, I'm not sure, but the five that I've listed seem to work pretty well as a way to describe what's happened up until now in the laptop world. Naturally, there are always exceptions, like Momus, but then again he isn't singing in German except on a song about Schubert himself, but that one's in fucked-up German, so somehow it doesn't count. We also have to count Nick's falsetto and the fact that tight t-shirts look good on him in his favor. Popp doesn't look good in...well, anything that isn't baggy, but I digress. Perhaps there's something going on here that's not being discussed? Who knows...
In any event, this time around Markus has finally found his collaborative "MiniMe" in Toyoda, after going through Oval's other members and also Christophe Charles, because it is she, not the others that "completes him." What does she have that they didn't? Well for one thing, she's malleable (liner notes and press-releases on So attest to the fact the Popp is basically "reworking" her ideas. She also functions as Popp's way to sidestep the fact that he can't avoid rule no. 3 working alone. If only Markus had been more of a Bowie fan in the early 90s, perhaps male vocals and laptop music wouldn't have died with the Wohnton album.
In a related note, I'm very interested to hear Tujiko's answer to my question no. 19 in the interview that I'm giving her below. I wonder what her take will be on all of this...
1. There is to be no singing in laptop music whatsoever.
2. If there is to be singing, the singer should be female.
3. If the singer is female, it would be best if she were also Japanese.
4. Did we mention no singing in German?
5. If there is to be singing in German, refer to rule no. 1.
Of course, there are no rules, right? Well, I'm not sure, but the five that I've listed seem to work pretty well as a way to describe what's happened up until now in the laptop world. Naturally, there are always exceptions, like Momus, but then again he isn't singing in German except on a song about Schubert himself, but that one's in fucked-up German, so somehow it doesn't count. We also have to count Nick's falsetto and the fact that tight t-shirts look good on him in his favor. Popp doesn't look good in...well, anything that isn't baggy, but I digress. Perhaps there's something going on here that's not being discussed? Who knows...
In any event, this time around Markus has finally found his collaborative "MiniMe" in Toyoda, after going through Oval's other members and also Christophe Charles, because it is she, not the others that "completes him." What does she have that they didn't? Well for one thing, she's malleable (liner notes and press-releases on So attest to the fact the Popp is basically "reworking" her ideas. She also functions as Popp's way to sidestep the fact that he can't avoid rule no. 3 working alone. If only Markus had been more of a Bowie fan in the early 90s, perhaps male vocals and laptop music wouldn't have died with the Wohnton album.
In a related note, I'm very interested to hear Tujiko's answer to my question no. 19 in the interview that I'm giving her below. I wonder what her take will be on all of this...
