Negativland has always been about media literacy; their sound collages and pranks are not only humorous but reveal something about how media function. But in recent years, as the world has changed around them, their relationship to this aspect of their practice has had to evolve. What was subversive in the 80s is mostly met with a shrug today. While sampling has become less essential to their work, the group continues to reappropriate and recontextualize human speech, and in an age of AI voice clones, the importance of using actual voices becomes even more significant. Last fall, I sat down with Negativland’s Mark Hosler and Jon Leidecker (Wobbly) at Krakow, Poland’s Unsound festival to discuss the history of their long running group, the importance of radio, and how the changing mediascape has transformed the meaning of their work as collage has gone mainstream. (Joseph Sannicandro)

Episode 39: REVERSE POLARITY – with Negativland

Sound Propositions should be available wherever you get your podcasts, so please keep an eye out and subscribe (and rate and review, it helps others who might be interested find us). You can support Sound Propositions on Patreon if you are so inclined, or send a one-time donation via PayPal. The first two seasons are also available on Bandcamp.  I’m very grateful for any support, which will help ensure future episodes.

Interview recorded in Krakow, October 2023
Produced and mixed in St. Louis, October 2024

This episode is the first part of an UNSOUND double feature, along with episode 40 (dropping tomorrow), marking the conclusion of season 4 of the Sound Propositions podcast. Half of the episodes this season have featured artists whose work foregrounds the voice and/or human speech. Unsound 2023’s theme was DADA, but there was also a shadow theme, DATA, with so-called Artificial Intelligence and machine learning a recurrent theme, tool, and topic of discussion. Various artists deployed AI as part of their practice, creating generative sound poetry, insane mash-ups, and poignant works of sound art.

Negativland were the first performers on the opening night of the festival, and their set was preceded by an announcement from the festival’s Artificially Intelligent Artistic Director (AIAD), rather than the festival’s human curators who would normally handle this role. The announcement was played in English and Polish, and it was a more than fitting prologue to a Negativland performance.For this live performance, backed by live visuals from SUE-C, Negativland consisted of Mark Hosler, on mixer and various pedals and electronics, and Jon Leidecker (Wobbly), with an array of tablets and iPhones dedicated to triggering and manipulating the vocal samples that are so often at the core of the group’s aesthetic. Hosler would end up staying in Krakow due to health issues, while Leidecker continued the tour on his own with remote help from Negativland members back in the States, making this performance all the more special. (More recently, Hosler has been affected by Tropical Storm Helene; donations to the wider community can be made at helpmarshall.org.)

Both audio and visuals had a strong collage aesthetic, and so juxtaposition and movement are essential to making sense of the experience. That said, a fair amount of nonsense is injected in case the point is a bit too clear. This has the dual effect of being both humorous as well as keeping the work open-ended and enduring, as work that is too clear or didactic largely tends to fall away. Pleasing kalimba melodies launched the set, which gradually incorporated sub bass and synth sounds, tied together by the group’s (very much not) trademarked vocal collage. The theme seemed to revolve around gaming and play, in the broad sense but also about video games and their specific place in contemporary culture and media. One particularly successful juxtaposition came when a voice stated “me and my brain are one” as another voice added “or zero,” which got significant laughs from the crowd.

There’s a dearth of humor in contemporary music. Besides novelty acts like Weird Al, the most reliable source of laughs comes in punchlines that are a feature of many styles of rap. Humor is certainly not a recurrent theme in most experimental music. Perhaps this makes some amount of sense. Comedy, as a general rule, doesn’t age nor travel well. But maybe that’s changing a bit. The theme of DADA certainly invited some comedy, and many of my favorite moments of the festival were those that made me laugh out loud. Comedy has always been part of what makes Negativland’s music work. In this interview, Hosler explains that if an edit makes them laugh they’ll keep it. But that alone isn’t enough, if the message starts to seem too clear they’ll be sure to add another element to confuse things, which is a form of comedy in its own right.

Since 1980, Negativland has been creating art—records, CDs, videos, books, and live performances—by appropriating sound, images, and text from mass culture. By recontextualizing these materials, they challenge corporate control and question copyright laws. Known for pioneering culture jamming (a term they coined in 1984),  they mix original music with found elements to subvert their intended meanings. They’ve long been DIY champions, releasing recordings through their own label, Seeland, as well as working with influential labels including SST. Their work has sparked debates on copyright, leading to two lawsuits for infringement in the 1990s, and establishing them as key figures in the conversation about creative freedom and intellectual property. It was in this context that I was first introduced to Negativland, when Hosler visited SUNY Purchase in 2008, as part of a tour lecturing on intellectual property and screening Craig Baldwin‘s documentary Sonic Outlaws. Looking back, that was a pivotal moment in the shift towards the normalization to audio collage. Remix culture was all the rage, as major artists like NIN were making their stems available to fans for reworking, DJ Spooky was busy spreading the good word, mash-ups were all over the radio, and artists like Girl Talk were taking the form to new heights of ADHD-addled glory.

The culture was in a very different place when Negativland first put blade to tape. Stand By For Failure, Ryan Worsley’s found-footage Negativland documentary, which was screened at Unsound, fittingly documents the history of the long running group, including those formative early years. Negativland used to maintain a bit of mystery regarding their membership, but as the group have sadly lost several core members in the last decade, Worsley’s documentary is of particular interest in peeling back the curtain a bit. You can watch the trailer here, and I’d encourage you to catch it if it will be screening in your city. I don’t know much about Ryan Worsley, but she pulls off a truly outstanding feat of editing worthy of her subjects (well-known for their own editing skills). Stand By For Failure has a clear narrative, and is basically chronological, from David Wills (aka The Weatherman)’s childhood tape recorder through the foundation of the “band,” meeting Don Joyce and joining his radio show, the fake press release linking the band to Minnesota ax murders, the whole U2 lawsuit, their subsequent championing of fair use, and evolution into the 21st century, as Jon Leidecker (Wobbly) becomes an official member, and three of the founding members die in quick succession. The film comes straight up to the present, showing the band preparing for 2021 live streams and masked touring. But it is far from a conventional documentary, rather an audio-visual collage, and it’s about Negativland, after all, so it largely leaves the meaning making up to the individual viewer. No explicit psychologizing or theorizing here, even if Marshall McLuhan makes repeat appearances. A touching and creative tribute to a pioneering group of sound weirdos.

Don Joyce, who was a bit older than the other members, had an art degree and brought a kind of theoretical sophistication to the group, balancing (or justifying) some of the more absurdist elements and grounding their practice in a broader tradition of the avant-garde. He also brought his radio show, which the other members quickly transformed into a lab of sonic experimentation. That show, Over the Edge, is the longest-running freeform radio show in history, airing Thursdays at midnight on KPFA FM in Berkeley since 1981. It was originally hosted by the late Don Joyce and is now led by Leidecker, who first heard the program as a teenager. In my interviews, I often ask artists about how they understand the difference between live performance and studio composition, and I’ve long been interested in radio as a medium that exists happily in the grey area between the two. In this episode, Leidecker elaborates on this point, emphasizing that radio is all about latency: in this context, “editing feels like improvising.”

Hosler, meanwhile, describes how the weekly radio sessions contributed to workshopping of material and the building of archives that may later coalesce into albums or be released as part of their Over the Edge series. Select copies of Vol. 9: The Chopping Channel (2016), the last that Joyce worked on before he died, included a bag containing two grams of his ashes (almost certainly violating some laws and making for some ethically questionable Discogs re-sales). “We’re pretty sure this is what he would have wanted,” Hosler joked(?). Hosler also points out that for many listeners, Over the Edge may be more highly regarded than the “band” itself. You can draw your own conclusions, as over 4,000 hours of the show are available for posterity via Archive.org.

It was also in the context of Over the Edge that Joyce developed his own idiosyncratic collage techniques using an old fashioned cart machine tape player. While still in high school, The Weatherman developed his signature instrument, known at “the booper,” essentially a manipulatable feedback button. The members also deployed various synthesizers and effects, but their real instrument is editing. As technology has developed, Negativland has developed with it, and while this may make for easier editing, lighter touring, and a slimmer live band, the techniques and aesthetics are still very much Negativland. (See our earlier interview with Wobbly for more insights on technology, creativity, and happy accidents.)

When the group began, sound collage and sampling seemed subversive, but as we discuss in this episode, the times have changed. What once seemed non-musical to many audiences is now de rigueur in pop, while absurd juxtapositions has become the core of internet culture. And nobody ever asks them where they find their sounds anymore. But these changes in media also have had a pernicious effect on our shared understanding of reality, what with “fake news” and AI muddying waters, a theme explored in their 2019 album True False. In an interview with Andy Battaglia at Unsound, Jon and Mark talked about how culture jamming has been appropriated by the right, recalling an argument the scholar danah boyd makes in “Did Media Literacy Backfire?” Perhaps the poles have switched, which just means that so do our responses, as artists and citizens alike. Negativland have continued to evolve with the times, even releasing Speech Free, an album devoid of any vocals. Afterall, it’s still irresistibly fun.

Part II of this UNSOUND double feature will be published tomorrow. Until then, happy listening.

LINKS

Negativland
Bandcamp
Seeland
Wobbly
Over the Edge
Stand By For Failure
Unsound

TRACKLIST
ARTIST – “TITLE” (ALBUM, LABEL, YEAR)

Negativland – “Is It Or Isn’t It” (Speech Free: Recorded Music For Film, Radio, Internet and Television, Seeland, 2022)
SP INTRO
Don Joyce – “We’ll Be Right Back [excerpt]” (Mort Aux Vaches, Mort Aux Vaches,  2020)
Negativland – “Content” – (The World Will Decide, Seeland, 2020)
Negativland – “5” (Negativland, Seeland, 1980)
Negativland – “The Answer Is…” (Points, Seeland, 1981)
Negativland – “Christianity is Stupid” (Escape from Noise, SST/Seeland, 1987)
New Order – “Blue Monday” (Blue Monday 12”, Factory, 1983)
Negativland – “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (U2, Seeland, SST, 1991)
Sarah Davachi – “ghosts and all” (Vergers, Important Records 2016)
iPad Synth demo youtube Ipad Synth or Original IVCS3 compared to EMS Synthi AKS
Negativland – “[Excerpt]” (Live at Unsound, 2023)
Edgard Varèse  – “Poème électronique” [1958] (Poème Electronique And Other Selections, EAV Lexington, 1973)
Karlheinz Stockhausen  – “Kontakte” [1958–60] (Kontakte, WERGO, 1963)
Wobbly – Failure Analyst (Failure Analyst, Bandcamp, 2024)
Christian Marclay – “Excerpt” (Live on Night Music 1988)
Charli – “Apple” [tiktok] (brat, 2024)
Negativland – “Failure” (The World Will Decide, Seeland,2020)
Negativland – “True or False” (True False, Seeland, 2019)
Negativland – “The Stain of Music”  (Over The Edge Vol. 9: The Chopping Channel, Seeland, 2016)
Negativland – “Death Is Optional” (Speech Free: Recorded Music For Film, Radio, Internet and Television, Seeland, 2022)
Negativland – “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” (U2, Seeland, SST, 1991)
Negativland – “Algorithmic Me” (Speech Free: Recorded Music For Film, Radio, Internet and Television, Seeland, 2022)
Chopping Channel – “Happiness Is The New Productivity” (Independent Therapy, 2016)
Bana Haffar – “Castles in Beirut” (Castles in Beirut, Bandcamp, 2019)
Negativland – “The World Will Decide” (The World Will Decide, Bandcamp, 2020)
Over the Edge – “1991/06/06” (The Best of Over the Edge, Archive.org, 6 June 1991)
E L U C I D  – “[excerpt]” [2020] (SEERSHIP!, PTP, 2022)
Ween – “I Hate Morrissey (Home Demo)” (Boognish Rising 2013 Sampler, 2013)
Negativland – “A Nice Place To Live” (Points, Seeland, 1981)
Chopping Channel – “Safe Place Orientation” (Independent Therapy, Seeland, 2016)
Don Joyce – “We’ll Be Right Back [excerpt]” (Mort Aux Vaches, Mort Aux Vaches,  2020)

—-
Sound Propositions is written, recorded, mixed, and produced by Joseph Sannicandro.