Bob Ostertag

American sampler artist Bob Ostertag embodies the sociopolitical conscience of late 20th century avant-garde music. An activist in human rights, anti-nuclear, anti-war, and gay causes, he infuses his compositions with an emotion, depth, and subtlety found nowhere else in either political works or electronic/sampler music. A key musician in the development of the N.Y.C. Lower East Side scene of the late '70s (which pushed John Zorn to near-stardom level), he became a respected artist in the field of mixed media performance in the '90s. As a teenager, Ostertag played the electric guitar. In 1976, he attended Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music, where he built a Serge modular synthesizer, his main instrument for the next six years. After a tour of Europe with Anthony Braxton's Creative Music Orchestra in 1978, he settled in New York City and quickly befriended Zorn, Eugene Chadbourne, Wayne Horvitz, and Fred Frith. Ostertag's first album, Early Fall (with his trio Fall Mountain), came out in 1979 on Chadbourne's Parachute label, followed the next year by the solo LP Getting a Head. The latter premiered the artist's knack for unusual contraptions and experimental technology, featuring a tape loop device linked with helium balloons. It caught the attention of the music press, but by then he was already spending more time in activism than music, campaigning in anti-nuclear power movements. A trip to Nicaragua in July 1980 to make field recordings of the Sandinista revolution turned into an epiphany. Back home, he spoke in public on behalf of the guerrilla movement in El Salvador. After the release of Voice of America (1981, with Frith and Phil Minton), he completely retired from music. From 1982 to 1988, he worked as an expert on Central America politics. By 1988,...