Biography
A figure long celebrated in plunderphonics circles, Jon Leidecker—widely recognized under the moniker Wobbly—works out of San Francisco as a composer, sound-collage practitioner, and live improviser. Years before he became an official member of Negativland in 2011, he had already been reshaping found audio and exploring appropriation both independently and alongside People Like Us, Matmos, Lesser, and Thomas Dimuzio. While hosting radio shows throughout the 1990s he began to attract broader notice with Wild Why (2002), an album that turned commercial broadcast recordings into frenetic glitch constructions. Subsequent projects shifted away from dense sampling: Monitress (2019) and Popular Monitress (2021) document real-time improvisations performed on handheld devices, whereas Additional Kids (2023) presents a prismatic set of glitch-oriented pop songs populated by an array of guest musicians.
Experimenting with audio and contributing to Negativland’s Over the Edge broadcasts since the mid-1980s, Leidecker began using the name Wobbly in 1990. His first full-length, Greetings, surfaced in 1999, followed the same year by Radio, a three-disc collection of live radio improvisations issued on Ovenguard Music. He contributed tracks to various plunderphonics anthologies—sometimes credited as Brindle Spork—and self-released the mini CD-R Regards in 2001. A cluster of widely noted Wobbly titles arrived in 2002: Playlist on Illegal Art, Wild Why on Tigerbeat6, Live 99>00 on Phthalo, and the KFJC broadcast collaboration There Goes Nothing with People Like Us. The following year Tigerbeat6 documented a country-and-western performance at the San Francisco Art Institute that united the pair with Matmos under the title Wide Open Spaces. In 2004 he issued the remix-focused 12-inch Multiple Peady and, with Blevin Blectum, Lesser, and video artist Ryan Junell, inaugurated the Sagan project via the album Unseen Forces; Sagan’s single “Resting Pleasures” appeared on 333 Recordings in 2006.
A split single with Bulbs on the Canadian imprint Ache and a joint CD-R with Thomas Dimuzio both emerged in 2008. That same period saw Radio Web MACBA commission the Variations podcast series on sampling and collage history, which launched in 2009. Two further collaborative releases followed in 2010—Music for the Fire with People Like Us and Simultaneous Quodlibet with Lesser and Matmos. After working informally with Negativland’s members for several years, Leidecker formally joined the ensemble in 2011. Additional partnerships with Dieter Moebius and Tim Story yielded Snowghost Pieces in 2014 and its 2017 successor Familiar.
When Negativland co-founder Don Joyce died in 2015, Leidecker assumed leadership of the long-running program. He also recorded with the improvising ensemble Animals & Giraffes (Landlocked Beach, 2018) and joined pianist Tania Chen, Thurston Moore, and David Toop for a realization of John Cage’s Electronic Music for Piano. Around the same time he entered the Thurston Moore Group, contributing to their 2019 double album Spirit Counsel. Relative Pitch Records issued Triplicates, a collaboration between Zeena Parkins and Wobbly, in 2019, the same year Hausu Mountain released Monitress, Leidecker’s first solo outing since 2002. That album captured live improvisations generated by multiple mobile devices running pitch-tracking software and synthesizers; Popular Monitress, a more composed investigation of the same techniques, arrived in 2021. Additional Kids, issued in 2023, foregrounds vocals and features contributions from Pamela Z, John Oswald, and Blectum from Blechdom.
Experimenting with audio and contributing to Negativland’s Over the Edge broadcasts since the mid-1980s, Leidecker began using the name Wobbly in 1990. His first full-length, Greetings, surfaced in 1999, followed the same year by Radio, a three-disc collection of live radio improvisations issued on Ovenguard Music. He contributed tracks to various plunderphonics anthologies—sometimes credited as Brindle Spork—and self-released the mini CD-R Regards in 2001. A cluster of widely noted Wobbly titles arrived in 2002: Playlist on Illegal Art, Wild Why on Tigerbeat6, Live 99>00 on Phthalo, and the KFJC broadcast collaboration There Goes Nothing with People Like Us. The following year Tigerbeat6 documented a country-and-western performance at the San Francisco Art Institute that united the pair with Matmos under the title Wide Open Spaces. In 2004 he issued the remix-focused 12-inch Multiple Peady and, with Blevin Blectum, Lesser, and video artist Ryan Junell, inaugurated the Sagan project via the album Unseen Forces; Sagan’s single “Resting Pleasures” appeared on 333 Recordings in 2006.
A split single with Bulbs on the Canadian imprint Ache and a joint CD-R with Thomas Dimuzio both emerged in 2008. That same period saw Radio Web MACBA commission the Variations podcast series on sampling and collage history, which launched in 2009. Two further collaborative releases followed in 2010—Music for the Fire with People Like Us and Simultaneous Quodlibet with Lesser and Matmos. After working informally with Negativland’s members for several years, Leidecker formally joined the ensemble in 2011. Additional partnerships with Dieter Moebius and Tim Story yielded Snowghost Pieces in 2014 and its 2017 successor Familiar.
When Negativland co-founder Don Joyce died in 2015, Leidecker assumed leadership of the long-running program. He also recorded with the improvising ensemble Animals & Giraffes (Landlocked Beach, 2018) and joined pianist Tania Chen, Thurston Moore, and David Toop for a realization of John Cage’s Electronic Music for Piano. Around the same time he entered the Thurston Moore Group, contributing to their 2019 double album Spirit Counsel. Relative Pitch Records issued Triplicates, a collaboration between Zeena Parkins and Wobbly, in 2019, the same year Hausu Mountain released Monitress, Leidecker’s first solo outing since 2002. That album captured live improvisations generated by multiple mobile devices running pitch-tracking software and synthesizers; Popular Monitress, a more composed investigation of the same techniques, arrived in 2021. Additional Kids, issued in 2023, foregrounds vocals and features contributions from Pamela Z, John Oswald, and Blectum from Blechdom.
Albums
Singles
