MrDougDoug

MrDougDoug is the alias of Doug Kaplan, co-founder of Chicago-based experimental label Hausu Mountain. Similar to his work with label co-founder Max Allison in the duo Pepper Mill Rondo, Kaplan's solo material embraces plunderphonic techniques, twisting sound sources like pop songs and YouTube clips into fragmented compositions, overwhelming noise collages, and everything in between. Some releases, such as 2016's These Magical Numbers, react to the American political cycle and satirize over-the-top patriotism. With 2016's SOS Forks AI REM and its 2023 sequel, MrDougDoug deconstructs MIDI files gathered from online archives, transforming them into scattered, hyperkinetic pieces resembling mutated video game soundtracks and corrupted karaoke backing tracks. Doug Kaplan and Max Allison launched Hausu Mountain in 2012. The label's earliest releases included albums by their psychedelic groups the Big Ship and Good Willsmith. Under respective monikers MrDougDoug and Mukqs, the two released a split cassette, Mugen, Vol. 1, in 2013. In 2016, Kaplan released SOS Forks AI REM, an album of manipulated MIDI compositions. Following the results of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Kaplan released These Magical Numbers, which contained a 33-minute collage of numerous overlapping renditions of "The Star Spangled-Banner" recorded from YouTube. Member the Election? Yeah, I Member., an even noisier release recorded from YouTube clips before and after the election results were announced, appeared in 2017, a week after the presidential inauguration. In 2018, Kaplan and Allison released E.D.M., the debut release by their gleefully overwhelming plunderphonic duo Pepper Mill Rondo. Holiday-themed release It's Christmas Time! followed a year later. In 2023, MrDougDoug released I Am Sitting in a Cloud, a continuation of a piece from E.D.M. in which samples of pop songs are rearranged to form lyrics inspired by Alvin Lucier's I Am Sitting in a Room. For this version of the piece, the collage was re-uploaded and downloaded from low-quality audio hosting platforms, repeating the cycle until only high frequencies were left. Also in 2023, MrDougDoug released SOS Forks AI REM II, another album of MIDI mutations, this time utilizing AI techniques, machine listening, software-based randomization, and extreme tempo automation.
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