Wednesday 19 February 2025, 7.30pm
Markus Popp, the visionary artist behind Oval, is set to revisit his seminal 1995 album "94diskont." in a groundbreaking live performance.
"94diskont." is widely considered a landmark achievement in electronic music. Popp's bold experimentation with glitches and fragmented samples created a wholly new aesthetic, forever altering the landscape of ambient music. The album's unique blend of the avant-garde and the deeply listenable resulted in a hypnotic and downright otherworldly experience, leaving a lasting impact on generations of artists and listeners.
This new live performance is not a mere rehash, but a meticulously crafted reimagining. Popp delves deep into the original source material, drawing from the original 1.44 MB floppy disc archives (and Rolodex cards) to create a fresh interpretation that, once again, will push boundaries.
Far from a simple reconstruction, this new version benefits from the vast sonic palette Popp has amassed over the years since the album's release. He'll be utilizing the full arsenal of tools and techniques honed across his acclaimed body of work to breathe new life into "94diskont."
And this isn't just a sonic experience. Accompanying the performance will be stunning visuals by award-winning, cutting-edge digital video artist Robert Seidel. Together, Popp and Seidel will deliver a synesthetic spectacle that merges sound and vision, appealing not only to fans of electronic and ambient music but also to connoisseurs of avant-garde multimedia art.
Trailblazing glitch masterpieces (1990s), delicate, hyper-real, futuristic post-rock vignettes (after 2010) and now abstract club bangers with a delicious twist - Markus Popp aka Oval continues to be one of THE most prolific, influential creative forces in contemporary electronic music.
Every Oval album is a unique, shape-shifting celebration of innovation, skill and sensibility. In an age of shallow spectacle, Popp keeps going on his deep dives, always ready to reinvent and surprise - merging uncompromising high tech with compelling musicality. Popp is distinctly doing his thing, yet always enthusiastically dealing with the “here & now”. No one out there plays the computer quite like him.
Kirk Barley (aka Church Andrews) is a Yorkshire-born composer and sound artist. Under his own name, he produces textural, organic work, formed from processed studio and field recordings. As Church Andrews, he explores synthetic, beat-focused music through digital synthesis and algorithmic composition. Across both projects, Barley draws influences from jazz, minimalism, techno, and hip-hop, experimenting with time signatures, temporals, and tuning systems to create his distinctive hyper-real sound worlds.
His forthcoming album Lux continues this exploration, blending found sounds, live instrumentation, and work with alternative tuning systems. Written and recorded in early 2024, Lux bridges organic and abstract elements. Inspired by surrealist cinema and northern landscapes, Lux presents sound worlds where the boundaries between reality and artifice blur.
Kirk Barley’s Lux is released on ODDA Recordings on 14th March.
