Otto Von Schirach

For a few years now, a handful of musicians have been trying to translate DNA codes as directly as possible into electronic music. Letting biology itself sing is an interesting enough concept, but the results so far have been a little placid. On his third album, Chopped Zombie Fungus, Otto Von Schirach has set aside such a literal approach -- his digital beat music sounds like it has merged with the chaotic natural world and lost complete control of its genetic makeup.

Related Content

• Otto Von Schirach and Dino Felipe Headlining Miami New Times' Artopia Party on March 8
  January 16, 2012
• Rocky Horror Picture Show Miami-Style With Otto von Schirach and Mr. Feathers
  October 26, 2011
• Dammit, Janet!
  October 20, 2011
• Otto Von Schirach remixes Gloria Estefan's "Wepa"
  September 1, 2011
• Otto Von Schirach's Private Tour of Wynwood's Dorsch Gallery, Celebrating Its 20th Anniversary This Saturday
  November 18, 2011

More About

• Otto Von Schirach
• Madame Queef Blizzard
• Arnold Steiner
• Brooklyn
• Visual Arts

The Florida-based Cuban-American Von Schirach veritably sprays normal dance-music arrangements with a sticky foam of gurgling, whooping electronics and his own Dadaistic vocals. "Laptops and Martinis," for example, wraps a sheen of electro-bestial grunts and belches around a Miami booty-bass techno rhythm as Von Schirach chants commands to "Touch your booty/Lick the floor/Let your butt grind buttah/Gimme some more." But Chopped isn't all mutant-ass-in-your-face: The mangled exotica of "Pelican Moondance" and burbling Latin shades of "Madame Queef Blizzard" bring nicely paced respites from the otherwise dizzying barrage.

Von Schirach has enriched the Chopped experience by commissioning some astounding Brueghel-like illustrations for the album's artwork by Brooklyn-based digital artist Arnold Steiner. His richly detailed nightmare visions feature suit-and-tie figures supporting snake and fox heads and acne-ridden giraffe faces festooned with bird beaks, crocodile teeth, and extra ears and horns. These mutants linger in normal-looking parlor rooms and stroll through post-nuclear cityscapes, making the pieces perfect visual companions to Von Schirach's freaky hybrids of spliced animalistic sound and careening rhythm. DNA may sound nice on its own, but with depleted uranium and bio-threats part of the global scene, Chopped Zombie Fungus offers a more surreal and all too relevant soundtrack.