illegal art & Seeland Records -- Various Artists

Track Listing

1. Mr. Meridies -- Paving the Road to Hell Pt2
2. Jane Dowe -- Puzzels and Pagans
3. Huk Don Phun -- Killer Control Enters Blackhole
4. Steev Hise -- Stuck Together, Falling Apart
5. The International Bankers -- Void Transaction
6. Corporal Blossom -- Burning Today's Memory
7. Mr. Meridies -- So Cal Weevil Dream
8. ECC -- One Beck in the Grave
9. Spacklequeen -- Eggs eggs, arms legs
10. Hromlegn Kainn -- Doublefolded
11. Mr. Meridies -- Carpet Tunnel Syndrome
12. Jane Dowe -- Bust a Move
13. J. Teller -- Fat Zone

There are clearly two sides to this release: the premise of the music and the music itself, which obviously go hand in hand. This being illegal art's debut recording, and the artists involved being relatively unknown and anonymous, it's safe to say the premise plays the more important role in catching people's attention.

No release has been more true to it's title. Beck samples are carefully manipulated, spliced, diced, twisted and moulded into thirteen various plagiaristic deconstructions. Is it a slap in Beck's face? Aside from parody song title's like "One Beck in the Grave", it's nothing personal. Is this art illegal? Unfortunately, yes.

In our western society peppered with television ads and billboards, culture jamming has become an interesting tool for artistic expression; a clever way of rebuking corporate influence. Everything from reworking billboards to pasting Richard Nixon's head onto a Barbie doll can be considered a form of culture jamming. illegal art falls somewhere in between the two.

We've all heard Beck's music; a one time hobo turned big time pop icon. Needless to say, the artists on this disk shed some new light onto Beck's tunes armed with pseudonyms, PCs, samplers and tape decks. Some of the songs are easily able to stand on their own, with added beats or rhythms to hook you in. With others, however, you can sense that the sole intention was to cut and paste with minimal consistency. These tracks represent the disks more experimental side.

The individual songs are varried in both approach and sound. There is "Puzzels and Pagans", where a Beck song is cut up into 2500 pieces and systematically placed back together with sophisticated computer programming techniques, or the more simplistic "Killer Control Enters Blackhole", which was assembled using a bunch of blank cassette tapes. Regardless, each artist has no trouble finding a unique way to hack up Beck.

This CD was co -- released by Negativland's Seeland Records, one of the larger profiles in audio copyright mischief. It was also sponsored by ŽTMark, which is a group of consultants that supports the informative alteration of corporate products. Clearly the support for these releases is strong. They are appealing on the levels of humour, cultural politics, and quality electronic sample -- based music, and the only thing crucial to illegal art's success is their continued anonymity.