Glitch (music)

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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]

Contents

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

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, the basis of noise music, published in 1913)[ citation needed ]. He constructed mechanical noise generators, which he named intonarumori, and wrote multiple compositions to be played by them, including Risveglio di una città (Awakening of a City) and Convegno di automobili e aeroplani (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 the 1968 song "The Best Way to Travel", by Michael Pinder of The Moody Blues, and works by Christian Marclay, who began in 1979 to use mutilated vinyl records to create sound collages. Yasunao Tone used damaged CDs in his Techno Eden performance of 1985, while 1992 album It Was a Dark and Stormy Night by Nicolas Collins 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 music properly originated as a distinct movement in Germany and Japan during the 1990s, [6] with musical works and labels (especially Mille Plateaux) of Achim Szepanski in Germany, [7] [8] and works of Ryoji Ikeda in Japan. [6]

Nuno Canavarro's album Plux Quba , released in 1988, incorporated pristine electroacoustic sounds that resembled early glitch. Oval's album Wohnton, published 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", released in 1994, and experimental electronic group ELpH's album Worship the Glitch , published in 1995.

Production techniques

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

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glitch</span> Short-lived fault in a computer system

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Nicolas Collins is a composer of mostly electronic music, a sound artist and writer. He received his BA and MA from Wesleyan University, and his PhD from the University of East Anglia. Upon graduating from Wesleyan, he was a Watson Fellow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luigi Russolo</span> Italian Futurist artist and composer (1885–1947)

Luigi Carlo Filippo Russolo was an Italian Futurist painter, composer, builder of experimental musical instruments, and the author of the manifesto The Art of Noises (1913). Russolo completed his secondary education at Seminary of Portograuro in 1901, after which he moved to Milan and began gaining interest in the arts. He is often regarded as one of the first noise music experimental composers with his performances of noise music concerts in 1913–14 and then again after World War I, notably in Paris in 1921. He designed and constructed a number of noise-generating devices called Intonarumori.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yasunao Tone</span> Japanese-American multidisciplinary artist

Yasunao Tone is a multi-disciplinary artist born in Tokyo, Japan and working in New York City. He graduated from Chiba University in 1957 with a major in Japanese Literature. An important figure in postwar Japanese art during the sixties, he was active in many facets of the Tokyo art scene. He was a central member of Group Ongaku and was associated with a number of other Japanese art groups such as Neo-Dada Organizers, Hi-Red Center, and Team Random. Tone was also a member of Fluxus and one of the founding members of its Japanese branch. Many of his works were performed at Fluxus festivals or distributed by George Maciunas’s various Fluxus operations. Relocating to the United States in 1972, he has since gained a reputation as a musician, performer and writer working with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Senda Nengudi, Florian Hecker, and many others. Tone is also known as a pioneer of “Glitch” music due to his groundbreaking modifications of compact discs and CD players.

Kim Cascone is an Italian American composer of electronic music who is known for his releases in the ambient, drone, industrial and electro-acoustic genre on his own record label, Silent Records.

<i>The Art of Noises</i> Futurist music manifesto

The Art of Noises is a Futurist manifesto written by Luigi Russolo in a 1913 letter to friend and Futurist composer Francesco Balilla Pratella. In it, Russolo argues that the human ear has become accustomed to the speed, energy, and noise of the urban industrial soundscape; furthermore, this new sonic palette requires a new approach to musical instrumentation and composition. He proposes a number of conclusions about how electronics and other technology will allow futurist musicians to "substitute for the limited variety of timbres that the orchestra possesses today the infinite variety of timbres in noises, reproduced with appropriate mechanisms".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intonarumori</span> Experimental musical instruments built by Luigi Russolo

Intonarumori are experimental musical instruments invented and built by the Italian futurist Luigi Russolo between roughly 1910 and 1930. There were 27 varieties of intonarumori built in total, with different names.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glitch art</span> Practice of using technological errors in art

Glitch art is an art movement centering around the practice of using digital or analog errors, more so glitches, for aesthetic purposes by either corrupting digital data or physically manipulating electronic devices. It has been also regarded as an increasing trend in new media art, with it retroactively being described as developing over the course of the 20th century onward.

References

  1. 1 2 "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
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ Flora Dennis. "Russolo, Luigi". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web.
  4. ↑ 1995 Interview with Nicolas Collins Archived 2023-03-06 at the Wayback Machine , by Brian Duguid
  5. ↑ Horowitz, Ken (February 5, 2008). "Interview: Yuzo Koshiro". Sega-16. Archived from the original on 21 September 2008. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
  6. 1 2 Christoph Cox & Daniel Warner (2004), Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, page 396 Archived 2023-10-22 at the Wayback Machine , A&C Black
  7. ↑ "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
  8. ↑ "Random Inc.", "Allmusic"
  9. ↑ "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
  10. ↑ 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.
  11. ↑ Kyle Gann. "Collins, Nicolas." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Web.

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