Sampling as an art has often been criticized as blatant
plagiarism ­— a cheap way for hip-hop producers and Vanilla Ices to rip off
other artists’ work as their own. “Soundwaves: The Art of Sampling,” the latest
exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla, examines the term
“sample” when applied to various forms of media — such as film, paintings and
sound installations — and how the use of derived snippets in a new framework
gives them a refreshed sense of direction.

Three inflatable kiddie pools rest on concrete, surrounded
by chairs, while a whirring motor in the water prompts an assortment of bowls
and glasses to chime against each other in Celeste Boursier-Mougenot’s
“Untitled (series #3).” Although the artist arranged the china beforehand, the
resulting note combinations are mainly left to chance, so that no two
performances are the same. He creates a space where ordinary sounds are
repurposed as delicate compositions.

Tim Bavington transcribed classic segments of rock greats
into visual art, using his own color-wheel methodology to represent tones as
they correlate to the musical scale. Examining the way we consume music through
material acquisition and archiving, Christian Marclay’s “Soundsheet” pokes fun
at our nostalgic infatuation with the vinyl records. Dario Robleto goes one
step further, stripping the music of physicality by removing pictures and text
from the album covers of deceased musicians, leaving behind an eerie footprint
of what once captivated audiences.

Popular and accessible tools like YouTube.com and Garageband
have made it easier for us to shape outside influences of all types into more
palatable forms that emphasize the collage-artist over the direct source. The
exhibit showcases the ideology that the past can always be reinterpreted, and
take on new relevence with an active manipulator and audience.

Black Dice
Load Blown
Paw Tracks

{grate 3.5}

Aaron Warren and brothers Eric and Bjorn Copeland tend to
hole themselves up in their Brooklyn practice space for months without seeing
the sun. As Black Dice, they dedicate endless hours to sonic experiments that
eventually become “songs,” but really function more in the public context of
provocative art. The Dice mold electronic samples beyond the point of
recognition, to where they must be defined in an entirely new language. In
place of standard notation, the band maps out a song’s progression with
self-made symbols and abbreviations, denoting each part and its placement. Load
Blown, their new LP, transports us into futuristic drum circles, where household
appliances riff off each other in free-jazz fluidity.

We don’t know what indigenous alien music would sound like,
or what instruments would create it, but we can begin to imagine how strangely
exotic and inaccessible it would be. Black Dice appropriate that unfamiliar
folk tone by manipulating effects pedals and software into a hectic collage.
“Bottom Feeder” ambles like a Disneyland ride gone awry, where the backing
soundtrack to the attraction shifts pitch and speed as the carts malfunction.
“Drool” resembles a fucked-up 1970s sci-fi soundtrack from the aliens’ point of
view. Their society bustles beneath the Martian soil as humans touch down on
the quiet planet. Dig the alien barbershop quartet on “Manoman” — its minimal
percussion and moaning space-invader bloops accentuate the garbled harmonies.
When the aliens try to communicate with humans via CB radio, but the language
barrier poses a problem, they give up and start using a Morse code of pops and
whirrs; that’s the gist of “Bananas.”

Black Dice have built a world that is at times fascinating
and peculiar, but also distant in its unfamiliar origin. Load Blown will
polarize anyone curious enough to endure its noise, either taxing or arousing
the psyche. Whether or not you’re feeling it now, expect their neurotic trance
to fill dance clubs in the not-so-distant future.