Oval — 94.Diskont. A brief story behind first glitch album

A landmark album of glitch music, released at the height of the IDM movement in 1995. Journalists admired the working methods of Oval. Band first recorded smooth music and samples on CDs, which they then scratched themselves, covered with paint and pieces of sellotape, drew on with felt-tip pens—in short, they did everything so that the CD reading laser would constantly stumble and give non-smooth random music through trial and error. “Genius! Genius!” said the wordsmiths.

Marcus Popp who remained in Oval didn’t share the enthusiasm of the fans. “The glitch was, to me, much more a means or a method to surprise myself, without being random, because I really don’t like experimental music. It really gets on my nerves. So I listen to very normal music, mostly played by real people on a small stage. Those early Oval records were a means to be contemporary or on a student budget, and be surprising and new. Having no money and no connections because I was sitting in the German countryside—in a no post office, no gas station, no supermarket kind of village. If you’re in that environment, you don’t think about revolutionising music—you just want to do something that surprises yourself.”