Friday, October 9, 2009

Ursonate

Dadaist poet Kurt Schwitters accomplished much during his lifetime. He was a visual artist, poet, and visionary. Kurt is probably best remembered for publishing a periodical called Merz (today this would be called a zine or a blog.) Schwitters also invented the concept of installation art, starting a conceptual piece/space called Merzbau (the inspiration for the Japanese noise artist Merzbow.) But the focus of this post is his role as the very first freestyle rapper. Schwitters could often be found in the cafes of Berlin, spitting dope lyrics that may have sounded like a barrage of nonsense words and sounds to the brutish, uncultured ear. These "poems" were part of a larger body of work called The Ursonate. Over a period of ten years Schwitters painstakingly worked and reworked The Ursonate into a finalized version. Whinemeal, The Nazis came along and made Berlin a decidedly unfun place to live, and make weird art, so Schwitters hightailed it to Norway. It was there that he was able to make some recordings of The Ursonate for future generations to listen to and scratch their heads at.

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11 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 9, 2009 at 3:39 AM

    This is the soundtrack to my psychosis.

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  2. gamefacedOctober 9, 2009 at 6:01 AM

    interesting. thnks for this.

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  3. idoOctober 9, 2009 at 6:36 AM

    Bad ass.

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  4. UnknownOctober 9, 2009 at 12:46 PM

    I could see Ultra Eczema releasing this

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  5. ECWOctober 9, 2009 at 12:56 PM

    Fantastic. Aesop, do you know the Sub Rosa series, An Anthology of Noise & Electronic Music? Some of it rather esoteric and boring, but largely a goldmine, particularly. (It's pretty sprawling, but if you're interested and don't have this, I could make you some copies.)

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  6. robert woodOctober 9, 2009 at 1:49 PM

    Thanks for this. I love the shift from King Diamond to Dada. Always has been one of my favorite sites....

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  7. NØOctober 9, 2009 at 6:20 PM

    Dadaist poet Kurt Schwitters,"the first freestyle rapper...spitt'n dope lyrics..soun'n lika b'rrage a nonsens sounz...2 da bruttish, uncult'rd ear" I'm diggin' your rappin' & dl'ing his. Thanks A

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  8. AnonymousOctober 10, 2009 at 1:19 PM

    Oh my god I have not heard this in over 10 years! I used to make fucked up tape mixes to listen to while messed up on robotussin. I had this guy on one, from some weird radio program on KFAI in Minneapolis.

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  9. BaywatchOctober 14, 2009 at 7:14 PM

    i concure with robert. many thx.

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  10. AnonymousOctober 15, 2009 at 1:33 PM

    Jaap Blonk, an abstract vocalist re-recorded the ursonate in 2003, with an interesting personal touch.


    Altough im a huge fan of kurt schwitters, and grateful for all of his contributions to art and culture even to this day, I'd suggest to have a little listen to Jaap's version as well. It is absolutely amazing and performs the ursonate quite fast (He does it in 10 minutes less, astounding)

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  11. AnonymousOctober 15, 2009 at 1:42 PM

    If anyone IS interested in Jaap Blonk's other work, he made an insane recording together with Dylan Nyoukis
    called 'dubbeltwee'. It features some beautifully weird and mood-setting dutch monologues (if you understand dutch). Pure 'waanzin'.

    Dylan Nyoukis & Jaap Blonk - Dubbeltwee

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