Electronic music genre
Glitch
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Stylistic origins
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Cultural origins
| 1990s, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan
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Glitch
is a genre of
electronic music
that emerged in the 1990s which is distinguished by the deliberate use of
glitch
-based audio media and other
sonic artifacts
.
[1]
The glitching sounds featured in glitch tracks usually come from
audio recording
device or
digital electronics
malfunctions, such as
CD
skipping
,
electric hum
, digital or analog
distortion
,
circuit bending
,
bit-rate reduction
, hardware
noise
,
software bugs
,
computer crashes
,
vinyl record
hiss or scratches, and system errors. Sometimes devices that were already broken are used, and sometimes devices are broken expressly for this purpose.
[2]
In
Computer Music Journal
, composer and writer
Kim Cascone
classified glitch as a subgenre of
electronica
and used the term
post-digital
to describe the glitch aesthetic.
[1]
History
[
edit
]
The origins of the glitch
aesthetic
can be traced to the early 20th century with
Luigi Russolo
's
Futurist
manifesto
L'arte dei rumori
(
The Art of Noises
)
(1913), the basis of
noise music
.
[
citation needed
]
He constructed mechanical noise generators, which he named
intonarumori,
and wrote multiple compositions to be played by them, including
Risveglio di una citta (Awakening of a City
) and
Convegno di automobili e aeroplani
(
The Meeting of Automobiles and Airplanes
). In 1914, a riot broke out at one of his performances in Milan, Italy.
[3]
Later musicians and composers who made use of malfunctioning technology include
Michael Pinder
of
The Moody Blues
in "
The Best Way to Travel
" (1968) and
Christian Marclay
, who used mutilated vinyl records to create
sound collages
beginning in 1979.
Yasunao Tone
used damaged CDs in his
Techno Eden
performance of 1985, while
Nicolas Collins
's 1992 album
It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
included a composition featuring a
string quartet
playing alongside the stuttering sound of skipping CDs.
[4]
Yuzo Koshiro
and
Motohiro Kawashima
's
electronic soundtrack
for the 1994
video game
Streets of Rage 3
used automatically randomized sequences to generate "unexpected and odd"
experimental
sounds.
[5]
Glitch originated as a distinct movement in
Germany
and
Japan
during the 1990s,
[6]
with the musical work and labels (especially
Mille Plateaux
) of Achim Szepanski in Germany,
[7]
[8]
and the work of
Ryoji Ikeda
in Japan.
[6]
Nuno Canavarro
's
Plux Quba
, released in 1988, incorporated pristine
electroacoustic
sounds that resembled early glitch.
Oval's
Wohnton
, produced in 1993, helped define the genre by adding
ambient
aesthetics.
[9]
The earliest uses of the term
glitch
as related to music include electronic duo
Autechre
's song
"Glitch"
(1994) and experimental electronic group
ELpH
's album
Worship the Glitch
(1995).
Production techniques
[
edit
]
In the latter half of the 20th century, the experimental music that served as the precursor to glitch contained distortions that were often produced by manual manipulation of audio media. This came in the form of
Yasunao Tone
's "wounded" CDs; small bits of semi-transparent tape were placed on the CD to interrupt the reading of the audio information.
[10]
Other examples of this manual tampering include Nicholas Collins' modification of an electric guitar to act as a resonator for electrical signals, and his adaption of a CD player to allow recordings played on it to be altered during live performance.
[11]
Skipping
CDs
, scratched vinyl records,
circuit bending
, and other distortions resembling
electronic noise
figure prominently into the creation of rhythm and feeling in glitch; it is from the use of these digital artifacts that the genre derives its name. However, glitch today is often produced on computers using digital production
software
to splice together small "cuts" (
samples
) of music from previously recorded works. These cuts are then integrated with the signature of glitch music:
beats
made up of glitches,
clicks
, scratches, and otherwise erroneous-sounding noise. The glitches are often very short, and are typically used in place of traditional percussion or instrumentation. Popular software for creating glitch music includes
trackers
like
Jeskola Buzz
and
Renoise
, as well as modular software like
Reaktor
,
Ableton Live
,
Reason
,
AudioMulch
,
Bidule
,
SuperCollider
,
FLStudio
,
Max/MSP
,
Pure Data
, and
ChucK
. Some artists also use digital synthesizers like the
Clavia
Nord Modular G2 and
Elektron
's Machinedrum and
Monomachine
.
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"The glitch genre arrived on the back of the electronica movement, an umbrella term for alternative, largely dance-based electronic music (including house, techno, electro, drum'n'bass, and ambient) that has come into vogue in the past five years. Most of the work in this area is released on labels peripherally associated with the dance music market and is, therefore, removed from the contexts of academic consideration and acceptability that it might otherwise earn. Still, in spite of this odd pairing of fashion and art music, the composers of glitch often draw their inspiration from the masters of 20th century music who they feel best describe its lineage."
THE AESTHETICS OF FAILURE: 'Post-Digital' Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music
, Kim Cascone,
Computer Music Journal 24:4 Winter 2000 (MIT Press)
Archived
2017-06-08 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Cascone, Kim (2004).
"The Aesthetics of Failure: 'Post-Digital' Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music"
. In Cox, Christoph; Warner, Daniel (eds.).
Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music
. Continuum Books. pp. 392?398.
- ^
Flora Dennis. "Russolo, Luigi." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web.
- ^
1995
Interview with Nicolas Collins
Archived
2023-03-06 at the
Wayback Machine
, by Brian Duguid
- ^
Horowitz, Ken (February 5, 2008).
"Interview: Yuzo Koshiro"
.
Sega-16
. Archived from
the original
on 21 September 2008
. Retrieved
6 August
2011
.
- ^
a
b
Christoph Cox & Daniel Warner (2004),
Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music
, page 396
Archived
2023-10-22 at the
Wayback Machine
,
A&C Black
- ^
"First championed by the ideological German techno figure Achim Szepanski and his stable of record labels?Force Inc, Mille Plateaux, Force Tracks, Ritornell?this tight-knit scene of experimental artists creating cerebral hybrids of experimental techno, minimalism, digital collage, and noise glitches soon found themselves being assembled into a community."
Allmusic
- ^
"Random Inc.", "Allmusic"
- ^
"Although Oval are perhaps more well-known for how they make their music than for the music they actually make, the German experimental electronic trio have provided an intriguing update of some elements of avant-garde composition in combination with techniques of digital sound design.[...]"
Allmusic
- ^
Stuart, Caleb. “Damaged Sound: Glitching and Skipping Compact Discs in the Audio of Yasunao Tone, Nicolas Collins and Oval”. Leonardo Music Journal 13 (2003): 47?52. Web.
- ^
Kyle Gann. "Collins, Nicolas." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Andrews, Ian,
Post-digital Aesthetics and the return to Modernism
Archived
2016-03-28 at the
Wayback Machine
, MAP-uts lecture, 2000, available at author's
website
Archived
2020-02-15 at the
Wayback Machine
.
- Bijsterveld, Karin
and Trevor J. Pinch.
"
'Should One Applaud?': Breaches and Boundaries in the Reception of New Technology in Music."
Technology and Culture
. Ed. 44.3, pp. 536?559. 2003.
- Byrne, David. "What is Blip Hop?"
Luakabop
, 2002. Available
here.
Archived
2014-10-28 at the
Wayback Machine
- Collins, Adam, "Sounds of the system: the emancipation of noise in the music of Carsten Nicolai",
Organised Sound
, 13(1): 31?39. 2008. Cambridge University Press.
- Collins, Nicolas. Editor. "Composers inside Electronics: Music after David Tudor."
Leonardo Music Journal
. Vol. 14, pp. 1?3. 2004.
- Krapp, Peter,
Noise Channels: Glitch and Error in Digital Culture
Archived
2013-05-23 at the
Wayback Machine
. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2011.
- Prior, Nick, "Putting a Glitch in the Field: Bourdieu, Actor Network Theory and Contemporary Music",
Cultural Sociology
, 2: 3, 2008: pp. 301?319.
- Thomson, Phil, "Atoms and errors: towards a history and aesthetics of microsound",
Organised Sound
, 9(2): 207?218. 2004. Cambridge University Press.
- Sangild, Torben: "Glitch?The Beauty of Malfunction" in
Bad Music
. Routledge (2004,
ISBN
0-415-94365-5
)
[1]
Archived
2014-12-05 at the
Wayback Machine
- Young, Rob: "Worship the Glitch",
The Wire
190/191 (2000)
- Noah Zimmerman,
"Dusted Reviews, 2002"
Archived
2015-02-21 at the
Wayback Machine