The practice of sound recycling, defined as the repurposing of sonic material, challenges and reconfigures the psychological models used to understand sound perception, Audio Scene Analysis in particular. Auditory Scene Analysis posits that in the perception of auditory information, complex sounds are parsed into segregated streams arising from distinct sources. The track Do While from Oval’s 1995 album 94 diskont provides a case study for discussing how sound recycling works in terms of sound perception. Do While, an example of “deconstruction electronica,” is composed of uncredited borrowed sound material and technological traces of a skipping CD. By using the frameworks of rhizome and assemblage (both adapted from network theory), the borrowed material is recontextualized into new forms. The resulting collage renders acoustic symbols of the medium (CD album) ambiguous. Technological listening, or the awareness of technological process over musical meaning, also affects works like 94 diskont and Vladimir Ussachevsky’s Wireless Fantasy (1960), which alters a recording of Wagner’s Parsifal with the distinctive soundscape of short wave radio. When considered through these frameworks, musical borrowing challenges the model of ASA by introducing a fluid relationship between the awareness of sound and the awareness of the technology mediating sound.

Works: Oval: Do While (159-161); Vladimir Ussachevsky: Wireless Fantasy (161).

Sources: Wagner: Parsifal (161).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Matthew Van Vleet