I don't recall hearing the word "turntablism" back in 1989 when this album was released, but that's what this is. Needless to say, this ain't no "wiki-wiki-scratch" type stuff. I saw Marclay in performance with Tom Recchion and Toshio Kajiwara in 2003 and it was quite a sight to see records being so creatively abused, e.g.: 8 'tables all playing copies of the same record, with stickers placed on the vinyl so the records would skip at certain points. I wanna do that! The performance was part of an exhibit of his visual art, which is quite spectacular as well. Witness his giant, useless accordion, or his album cover collages (but what's the middle album in this one, the one in between Michael Jackson and Roxy Music?).
From the liners:Each piece is composed entirely of records by the artist after whom it is titled.
"John Cage" is a recording of a collage made by cutting slices from several records and gluing them back into a single disc.
In all other pieces the records were mixed and manipulated on multiple turntables and recorded analog with the use of overdubbing.
A hand-crank gramophone was used in "Louis Armstrong".
Christian Marclay – "More Encores"