Gli Oval sono il progetto del berlinese Markus Popp, inizialmente coadiuvato da Frank Metzger e Sebastian Oschatz. Popp riparte dagli esperimenti di Neu e Faust, in particolare dalle manipolazioni in studio di materiale acustico. Ha dalla sua una tecnologia ben piu` avanzata e il revival della musica ambientale.

Dopo un primo album ancora farraginoso, Wohnton (Ata Tak, 1993), con molti brani cantati, Popp trovo` la sua vera vocazione nella musica astratta di Systemisch (Mille Plateaux, 1994 - Thrill Jockey, 1996) un tentativo di applicare la "musique concrete" degli anni '50 alla musica ambientale degli anni '90. Il disco contiene infatti undici brani costruiti "suonando" i difetti di un compact disc. Lo "strumento" e` comunque un puro pretesto: il cuore dell'operazione e` costituito dal modo in cui Popp lascia fluire armoniosamente i suoi mostriciattoli sonori. Al di la` di apprezzare le qualita` timbriche di Textuelle e Tonregie, c'e` ben poco da ascoltare.

94 Diskont (Thrill Jockey, 1996) e` un summa dei suoi peggiori eccessi. Il clou del disco e` la lunga suite Do While (24 minuti), una serie di loop a ritmo febbrile che ripropongono lo stesso sordo rombo metallico in vesti leggermente diverse. Ma gli altri brani sono insignificanti accozzaglie di rumori simpatici (Cross Selling) o residui del pop decostruito degli esordi.

Popp e` rimasto senza i compagni per Dok (Thrill Jockey, 1997), ma e` aiutato da Christopher Charles che gli fornisce la materia prima su cui giocare. La principale differenza rispetto al disco precedente e` che Popp ha abbandonato la ripetizione e pertanto gli studi sul ritmo. Questi nove acquerelli futuristi tornano pertanto alla musique concrete di Systemisch. La musica di Lens-Flared Capital e degli altri otto brani e` sempre statica e dimessa, ma fluttua liberamente invece che essere intrappolata in strutture geometriche. Il primo disco era costruito con i suoni provocati da compact disc difettosi, il secondo disco e` costruito con suoni di campane e di folle. Questi sono dischi di una banalita` allucinante.

Popp is also in Microstoria with Jan Werner of Mouse On Mars. This project deals with an ambient version of Oval's glitch/digital music. Init Ding (Thrill Jockey, 1995) contains ten brief pieces of electronic music: surreal vignettes (16:9), tone studies (Fund), musique concrete (Communerism) Sonic events are crushed to a fluid cacophony (Slap Top) or organized in geometric patterns (File Care) or diluted in amoebic reverbs (Pokus). This album aimed at being for modern electronica what Brian Eno's Before And After Science was to early electronica. It failed, but nonetheless upped the ante for sound manipulation.
snd (Mille Plateaux, 1996) concede anche qualcosa alla melodia (Endless Summer). The compositional method is obscure, but the result is that Sleepy People is a slowly moving bubble of processed noise, Per Formal seems to obey a mathematical formula for sequencing loops, Feld 1 appears to be a chaotic assemblage of found sounds at very low volume. Bpi is related to the classical avantgarde of the 1960s, and, in fact, if you play them at double speed, these tracks are not all that different from Morton Subotnick's pioneering electronic jams, particularly the dissonant Teil Zeit and Quit Not Save.

Reprovisers (Mille Plateaux, 1997) is an album of remixes.

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Popp e` anche coautore con Jan Werner (Mouse On Mars) del progetto Microstoria, con i quali si cimenta in una musica piu` propriamente ambientale.

Microstoria's Improvisers (Sonig, 2000) is a set of four live tracks (two of them unreleased).

Microstoria's Model 3 Step 2 (Thrill Jockey, 2000) is a less smooth exercise in the same kind of free improvisation, highly reminiscent of free jazz (and even, occasionally, of Jimi Hendrix) except that it employs digital instruments (Me-Too-Modula). Most of the music is subliminal and chaotic (Glocky Bit, Soso Sound), rarely attempting to develop a narrative, although occasionally extreme dissonance risults in extreme tension (Kontra). Microstoria's avantgarde pastiches demand great effort on the part of the listener, but occasionally reward her with some of the most intriguing sound sequencing in memory.

Oval's Ovalprocess (Thrill Jockey, 2000) is less successful: it exploits an idea originally advanced by Dr Nerve's Nick Didkovsky: provide the means for anybody to compose Oval music. The album does not contain the actual process but only samples of what can be done. Markus Popp is still searching for a reason to continue to make music, after he exhausted the possibilities of his discrete sampling style. This album is slightly more musical than the previous one. If nothing else, the sounds have more color and less harshness. But Popp still hasn't found a way to turn his abstract paintings into theater, into stories, into emotion.

In the meantime, Popp is touring United States museums with a sound installation called "Skotodesk".

By increasing the level of chaos and sharpening the pitch of the "glitches", with Commers (Form & Function, 2001) Oval reinvents its own style, bringing it closer to Merzbow's noise. Electronic noises do more than just "float" over the ambient sounds extracted from keyboards and guitars: they "pierce" that surface, those oceanic waves, those infinite shrouds. The effect is not unlike that of mantras hummed in the middle of an inferno. At the same time, it is true that too little happens on these albums to justify their existence.

Invisible Architecture #1 (Audiosphere, 2003) is Microstoria's least stimulating album, a mere collage of old ideas.

Markus Popp's side-project So (Thrill Jockey, 2003) reinvented glitch music by juxtaposing its minimally noisy soundscapes with ethereal, breathless vocalist Eriko Toyada. Not exactly a return to the song format, but clearly a sign that Popp is becoming more interested in structure rather than mere texture.

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