Plunderphonics
Plunderphonics is music made by taking existing recordings and cutting, altering and recombining them into a new piece.
Canadian composer John Oswald coined the word in 1985. Unlike ordinary sampling, where a borrowed snippet supports a new song, here the borrowed material is the whole point and is usually meant to be recognized. Results range from dense sound collages to albums built almost entirely from samples, such as The Avalanches' 'Since I Left You', and because the samples are usually uncleared the approach has often led to legal disputes.
Artists it is known for: John Oswald, Negativland, The Avalanches.
- Family
- Electronic & Dance
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- Canada, 1980s
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 1,500 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have plunderphonics among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
Plunderphonics artists
Devon Hendryx
The Avalanches
George Clanton
ESPRIT 空想
J Dilla
Lil Ugly Mane
DJ ShadowThe plunderphonics artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.