Brendan Ormsby (aka Kappa) is sure to end up on the federal government's no-fly list. During the Republican convention last October, Ormsby stirred up trouble in New York's East Village by hawking remixes of George W. Bush speeches to a nation at war. The casual passerby may have (mistakenly) concluded that Ormsby was stumping for the commander-in-chief, but those who listened more closely discovered a far darker tone. What had started as a simple cut-and-paste satire, soon took on a life of its own as Ormsby realized that, "the things [Bush] says and the things you can make him say are strangely similar."


Before the Republicans left town, Ormsby's remixes had been broadcast on radio stations from New York to Seattle. Even the real Slim Shady, Eminem, would get in on the action. The rap star's management reportedly signed a deal to open Eminem's October concert (billed as the Shady National Convention) with Ormsby's "presidential address."

Ormsby credits childhood attention deficit disorder for opening the door to his love of music. "To help focus my energy," he recalls, "my mother sat me in front of her pots and pans with a couple of wooden spoons." With the banging from the kitchen growing ever louder, she soon offered her rambunctious son a drum pad and enrolled him in music lessons. He went on to study jazz in college with drum guru, Ed Soph, but was disillusioned by the long hours in a cramped practice room. His desire to make music outside of the cubicle led him to earn a degree in music therapy.


For the past four years Ormsby has worked on the acute child and adolescent psychiatric ward of a South Bronx hospital where he uses music to help children connect with their feelings—and with each other. By inviting them to participate in drum circles, he hopes they will feel a sense of community. "Each kid comes to this hospital from a different place, with a unique set of issues," Ormsby says. "Drumming helps them find a common beat that creates cohesion." Ormsby has also developed a form of multimedia music therapy where he encourages his patients to choose music that speaks to their particular situation. He has helped several kids compose their own songs, where they often deal openly with such intense issues as abuse and abandonment.

But the music doesn't stop when he leaves the hospital. Ormsby has created a studio in his apartment where he indulges on his own form of music therapy. In April 2004 Ormsby's work was released on the widely acclaimed compilation Project > Soundwave. His piece on the CD is an arrangement of sound samples from ordinary objects in his home: a Coke bottle, a toy gun, a drum, and a radio.


Ormsby is fascinated by the concept of recycling sound. "My music comes from things that are already there," he confides. "To me, sound is as recyclable as glass or plastic." In his work he often samples radio airwaves and distresses the recaptured sounds, or reduces them until they are virtually unrecognizable.

Ormsby's latest project takes recycling to new heights. He recently recovered a hundred old vinyl records, cut them into pieces and then jumbled them together in a bag. Now he is randomly gluing them back together and recording the reconfigured tracks to create a sort of post-consumer sound track.

Much of Brendan Ormsby's music is focused on creating new meaning from what surrounds him. And while it might be tempting to engage in armchair psychoanalysis, he prefers to let his listeners find their own meaning in the work, like a sort of audio Rorschach.

by David Krantz ()  


George W. Bush: Remixed (2004)





"No Comprendo" (excerpt) Click here and press the play button to listen.