Pitchfork

While the increasingly in-demand Trevor hollAnd was busy mastering my debut album in late 2000 (I'm sure he labored over it for weeks), I worried, wondering how much longer loop-based material like mine could endure. I distinctly recall a drunken rant about what an unintentionally prescient piece of commentary Kitty Craft's numbingly simple "How Long Can This Go On?" made. I told anyone who'd listen that Land of the Loops' Bundle of Joy was the beginning and end of winking, coy bedroom loop pop, and that people wouldn't stand for Fisher Price pop stars like Solex and Cornelius. I was right, of course; my own album-- somewhat more dramatic than any mentioned here-- barely made it through the closing doors.

Mark Gunderson (aka Evolution Control Committee) sidestepped the near-twee self-absorption that led to shit like Len by actually using samples, as opposed to cloaking and co-opting their melodies. He's the last artist I can remember who became a relative sensation based solely on 7" singles: ECC's Whipped Cream Mixes (1996) sold out at every store that stocked it, a hilarious juxtaposition of isolated Public Enemy vocal tracks and Herb Alpert brass-offs taken from the 1994 debut cassette Gunderphonics. That tape actually caused something of an underground stir on its own: each copy was encased in a different hollowed-out 8-track shell, bought for pennies from thrift stores. The Rocked by Rape single doted further on John Oswald's "fair use" dares as Plunderphonics, patching together dramatic adjective-noun couplets from the always-stately Dan Rather over the mutilated carcass of AC/DC's "Back in Black" (CBS's instantly dismissed cease-and-desist order is proudly displayed on the ECC website). Musically, it was old hat for any Warlock Pinchers or Beastie Boys fan worth his salt, but high comedy nonetheless-- I still get bytes like "Tough, diplomatic Hell on Earth" and "Emergency anti-fatal shooting rampage" stuck in my head.

Plagiarhythm Nation is Evolution Control Committee's first widely available compact disc (true to form, the debut CD-R Double the Phat and Still Tasteless was sheathed in old 5\xBC" floppy disks). Released a full five years after his initial spark of hipster cachet, it's more than likely the college radio music directors charting this record never heard Mark Gunderson's work until now. Which is a testament to the timeless hilarity of copy-rock like this: recontextualization (like I wasn't getting that in here) is always more enduring than melodic misappropriation. When collage artists tweak the EQ on their samples or pitch-shift them, whatever the source material, it becomes a component in a new proposition, a "song." In colliding samples as found, Gunderson posits a collage of ideas, but with more humor and levity than the strictly legal middle finger of Plunderphonics.

And at first, on Gunderphonics, Evolution Control Committee backed up effusive intellectualisms like that. Record-pause-record-pause double cassette-deck genius like "Whole Lotta Royalty Payments" cut up the intro to "Stairway to Heaven", the usual, dramatic Zeppelin breakdowns and Plant's ridiculous moaning, forging a glorious pin to deflate those grandiose sagas. "The Acid Family" and "But I Don't Believe Evolution!" were both disturbing reassemblies of instructional and inspirational recordings Gunderson had come across, and of course there's the famous reworking of George Bush, Sr.'s wartime State of The Union, which produced the timeless misquote, "No nation...can stand...the United States of America." The Whipped Cream Mixes and Rocked by Rape singles predicted 2001's mash-up craze by five years; fans have been waiting in earnest to hear more of his original pirate material.

Sadly, Gunderson dumped it. "Version 1.0" of this album has been available for over a year in concert and online, and the Seeland update does little to improve on his wanting recent output, removing three tracks from the original CD-R and adding seven older ones, including the sure-fire hit "Rocked by Rape" (which you may or may not have already heard over your local collegiate airwaves). Plagiarhythm Nation opens with two of the most atrocious, sub-NPR lumps of horseshit ever released under the ECC banner: "Star Spangled Bologna" lays the Oscar-Meyer wiener song over the National Anthem-- I never would have guessed!-- but its brutally fatuous predictability is nothing compared to "The Fucking Moon", which is an audio reenactment of a story from The Onion. I relish that Seeland owners and "fair use" whiners Negativland call Amazon.com "corporate whores" in their sales blurb (who's a whore?) for a release that opens with this kind of water-cooler comedy. Guys, you get a big STFU on this one-- we know you're working for the weekend just like everyone else.

If you can ignore the ghastly intro to this record, its midsection offers some classic ECC hi-jinx. "I Want a Cookie" is among the best post-vinyl offerings, laying a feminist monologue over black power soul; this makes sense, works musically and unlike its predecessors, it's both engaging and sharp, the two critical qualities that make great ECC collages work. After "Rocked by Rape", we're treated to a stab at straight remixing, as "Spandau Filet" attempts a glitch-filled, snare-rush reconstruction of the classic East-Ender ballad "True". "Breakfast", "Lunch" and "Dinner" are peppered throughout the disc, repeating...the names of foods you'd expect to eat at these times! It's painfully dorky, but there's no way you can get through "Lunch" without laughing out loud: "HAMBURGERS! HAMBURGERS! POTATO SALAD?!"

Attempts at sample-delic songwriting fail miserably ("Arrhythmic Nation", the unbearably long "Fearsome As Odd Danger"), and though he really twists my heartstrings sampling Phil Collins during "I Don't Care" (a collection of the phrase as lifted from about 50 different songs), I'm unimpressed by Gunderson and Seeland's cowardice in not releasing "Chart Sweep" parts 1 & 2. This unreal sequence of brief (legally inconsequential) clips from every #1 song up to Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" is a must-download, available from ECC's site. Didn't Nirvana knock Whitney's tyrannic single off the charts? What's the implication in ending just before that happened? The tracks elicit all sorts of philosophical questions and cultural memories; there's no question of their artistic worth versus any copyright claims. These guys want to sell copyright controversy, but how can they insult our intelligence by boasting about CBS lawsuits while selling only the most timid of their adventures?

Plagiarhythm Nation, however fresh it sounds to new ears, is a damaged twelfth-generation dub of the real Evolution Control Committee, a mess of slight, insignificant and generally unfunny bits that I doubt even entertain Gunderson on sober reflection. Ignore this record: download and burn Gunderphonics from the ECC website instead-- Gunderson and company want you to, and though it doesn't put any money in their pockets, neither does it lift any from yours.