Zarathustra Mixtape

Zarathustra Mixtape is exactly how it sounds: taking fragments of Richard Strauss’s masterful tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra from 1896 and splicing, stretching, shifting, layering, reorganizing, and most importantly recontextualizing the remains into a condensed form similar to that of a broken playlist. The intent was to rediscover a dirtied and scratched recording of an extremely influential piece—reminiscent of a now defunct disk that was spun too times as a teenager—and further alter the source by means of contemporary sampling techniques. The objective was to toy with memory and assemblance, paying homage to Strauss’s uniquely dense orchestration and form.