B'O'K is "The Xtina of BioAnarchist Audio MemeCore." I can't claim to know what that means exactly, but there isn't a lot we can say for sure about this mysterious project. Is B'O'K from Australia? Does B'O'K stand for Buttress O'Kneel? Noone knows for sure. Not really. A lot of energy has been put into concealing even the finer points of the artist's identity, but I can tell you a bit about the work...It's great! And it's all over the place. One track is a heavily cut-up political speech, another is a kind of glitch-pop. Sometimes we're in mashup territory and then all of a sudden it's a collage of startup sounds appropriated from the artist's personal computer. Hard to pin down, but most often compelling, the work is usually highly reliant upon samples - so of course we'll find time for B'O'K here on Some Assembly Required.
B'O'K's myspace page cites influences such as "the propaganda presented as "fact" in the corporatised mainstream media / the mindcontrol jingles presented as "entertainment" by the mainstream musick Industry / the madness of my surroundings (and) the hypocrisies displayed by traditional power-structures," which gives you an idea of the political nature of much of her work. Splendid Magazine calls her "a media guerilla, working from the underground trenches and subverting copyrights while creating politically charged audio collages from pop music and news footage... She is People Like Us or Negativland with a world conscience."
And she describes herself as "a collection of samples, organised by my biological sampler, with no independent existence - and so are you." Extremely well put. Without further ado, here's the SAR Q&A with Buttress O'Kneel...
*Name: B’O’K
*Are there any additional names used to describe this project: Buttress O’Kneel
*Do you use a pseudonym? Yes! When yr making illegal and/or anti-governmental music, it's probably best to keep under the radar.
*Members: Buttress O'Kneel. I'm not a band, just a person.
*Tape manipulations, digital deconstructions or turntable creations: Mostly digital. Although, a decade ago, it was all tape work - now it's pretty much all done on the computer. It just seems the fastest way to create high quality pieces.
*Another genre descriptor: Well, musically, I've coined the word "compop" (as in "composted music" - audiomulch that keeps getting remixed into itself to fertilize the brain) to refer to most of my non-political musical pieces. I use "hyperpop" for some of my cut-up multi- layered pop stuff, "memecore" for the bastardised breakcore pop-destruction, "megabastard" for my megamixed-multi-bastard-pop music, while "docubreaks" and "audiodocumentaries" are the terms I most often use for my more overtly political stuff. But, as I am fully aware that all humyn words are fabrications superimposed on the "real,” I try to come up with as many new terms as I can. New words = new brain paths = mind-freedom from the reptilian- grey agenda. My little intro-phrase on my myspace page at the moment calls me the "p!nk of hard hyperpop memecore docubreaks"... So there you go.
*Location: Australia. America's lil geek brother who'll do anything to get big bro on-side.
*What is your creative/artistic background: Sampling. With media-sampling, instruments are obsolete. If you hate your tv, make your own. If pop is trying to destroy your mind with jingles, use those jingles to create art. My art is a battle. My music is a weapon. Is this the kind of answer yr after? My background is that I've been doing it for ages.
*History: I started doing tape stuff a decade ago... forever ago!
*Born: Let's just say my physical being was born in the mid seventies, and my creative being was born about ten years ago.
*Motivations/Philosophy: Again, it's the necessity of it all. Basically, sampling IS existence. We ARE BIOLOGICAL SAMPLERS. When a child learns a word, it is sampling the word (sound/image/etc) into its biosampler, for use later on: When we speak, we are recontextualising old samples. Creativity of any sort is sampling: When Michaelangelo painted, he wasn't inventing the brush, or the paint, or the idea of applying chemicals to a surface to alter that surface's perceptual-colour to the humyn brain: He was just using all that had come before to rehash in a new way. All culture is sampling! I'm probably ranting here, but it seems so clear to me, and so unmentioned by anyone else. LIFE IS RE-USE! THOUGHT IS SAMPLING! There, I've said it again. So, that said, I do what I do because it's all anyone can do. But the BATTLE aspect of what I do is a choice. Basically, when we interact with the greater world, we make a choice: Do I accept what is there already, or do I use it to make something else? When a song has been designed to be “catchy,” or "popular" (as all "pop" music is), it has been designed to take control of your brain! To brainwash you! To get stuck in your mind and repeat itself again and again - this is what the notion of "catchy" is! It uses psychology and trend-analysis and basic brain-washing techniques to lodge itself in your brain and LIVE there. So, do I accept this? Or do I use this and try to free my neurones? I can't help but choose the recontextualising path of freedom. This is a battle of the mind, and it's a battle I'm determined to win.
*How would you like to be remembered: I don't think I will be remembered! In the geological scale of things, when this planet has been eaten by the expanding sun, and humyns (as they currently exist) no longer inhabit the solar system, I doubt ANY of us will be remembered. But, as far as short-scale humyn memory goes, I'd like to be remembered as someone who was on the side of ACTUAL freedom, a bio-anarchist, post-feminist, grrlcore electroactivist who did her best not to succumb to the reptiles.
*Web address: myspace.com/buttressokneel
www.some-assembly-required.net
