Pitchfork

How appropriate that as U2 loudly re-enters our public consciousness, theur arch-enemy Negativland subversively prepares to once again say "Hola!" as well. The multimedia prankster savants are approaching their 25th (!) birthday, and for a bunch of hype-eviscerating culture critics, the occasion will be marked with a not inconsequential amount of activity and fanfare.

First up was the recent reissue of 1989's Helter Stupid. The album detailed a bizarre media hoax in which the band claimed an earlier tune, "Christianity Is Stupid", had somehow become entangled in an axe murder and gotten the whole band placed under house arrest. Or, to let Negativland describe it, " a little prank involving real-life tragedy and wholly unsubstantiated 'facts' on side one, and side two contains everything you once needed to know about radio's selling of the past in a future which hadn't happened yet, but is now old news." Call it sound-collage art rock at its finest.

And there's a lot more on the way.In early 2005, Negativland will unveil their latest project, No Business, a CD/essay hybrid that tackles the most modern of technological evils: file-sharing. Also in the works: a DVD entitled Our Favorite Things, which comes packaged with a "top-secret bonus CD"; a West Coast tour; a solo disc from founding member Mark Hosler; and, in fall 2005, a "mid-career retrospective" of visual art and audio/visual shenanigans in NYC.

If the anticipation is unbearable, you'll be happy to know that a couple other Negativland-related projects are floating in the ether. Band collaborator/satellite member Jonathan Land (DJ Dr.) is proudly offering The Spam Letters, a chronicle of wise-ass correspondence that "taunts, prods, attacks, mocks, and parodies the faceless salespeople in your electronic inbox." And for the more academic, Hosler will conduct a trio of New England college lectures in early December: Coolidge Corner Theater on the 6th, MIT on the 7th, and Yale (complete with a DJ Spooky set) on the 9th. Rhe band helpfully explains: "The presentation covers pranks, media hoaxes, media literacy, the art of collage, creative activism in a media saturated multi-national world, file-sharing, intellectual property issues, evolving notions of art and ownership and law in a digital age, artistic and funny critiques of mass media and culture, and so-called 'culture jamming.'"