You never knew you loved... Getting into glitch
Music production is moving increasingly away from analog systems and into the digital age. Anyone who embraces technology knows that it doesn't always perform perfectly, and removing, cleaning up, or hiding mistakes can be a large part of the process.
Unless you want it that way.
The 90s were a banner decade for technology as computers made tremendous progress in becoming household staples. As the technology became more common, certain sounds became easily recognizable, such as the pop of a skipping CD, or the harsh oscillation of a dial-up Internet connection. While many considered these sounds to be acceptable annoyances, others saw them as an untapped source of musical inspiration.
The result is glitch, a subgenre of electronica that uses sounds most people would pass off as mistakes as the basis for its music. In fact, mistakes are made deliberately with digital distortion, noise, and techniques known to reduce sound quality, like bit rate reduction. These sounds can either stand alone in a minimalist fashion, or be layered over other tracks, which are generally also computer-generated.
The captured sounds can be used percussively to provide a beat in the hip hop inspired glitch hop style, as an ambient compliment as in oceanic glitch, or as an art onto itself as in minimal glitch.
The style can be traced back to the experimental composers of the early twentieth century's noise music, atonal serial music, and experiments into what the definition of music itself actually is.
Over the past decade and a half the sound has evolved to include not only digital artifacts but also digitally produced sounds common to many styles and genres, even those well beyond the definition of “electronica.” Glitch hop especially also occasionally remixes other songs and reinvents them in its own image.
Apart from standalone tracks, glitch is also prominent in movies, where the rarity of lyrics makes it ideal for background music. Here is a quick sampling:
Oval - originally a three-piece, Oval is now the solo project of Markus Popp, who favours physically damaged CDs over conventional synthesizers and is considered a pioneer of glitch music. Check out Do While, a 24 minute epic off of 1995's 94 Diskont.
Kid606 - Leaning far more into glitch hop, Miguel Trost De Pedro uses the stage name Kid606, and feeds off his industrial and death metal origins moreso than his electronica contemporaries. His hip hop feel can be heard on Dodgy, the first track off of GQ on the EQ++, released in 2001.
Autechre - More often classified as IDM, or Intelligent Dance Music, Autechre is a two-man group that formed in 1987 and is still releasing albums. Their ambient aesthetic is evident on tracks like Kalpol Intro that was released in 1998 on the Pi soundtrack.
Unless you want it that way.
The 90s were a banner decade for technology as computers made tremendous progress in becoming household staples. As the technology became more common, certain sounds became easily recognizable, such as the pop of a skipping CD, or the harsh oscillation of a dial-up Internet connection. While many considered these sounds to be acceptable annoyances, others saw them as an untapped source of musical inspiration.
The result is glitch, a subgenre of electronica that uses sounds most people would pass off as mistakes as the basis for its music. In fact, mistakes are made deliberately with digital distortion, noise, and techniques known to reduce sound quality, like bit rate reduction. These sounds can either stand alone in a minimalist fashion, or be layered over other tracks, which are generally also computer-generated.
The captured sounds can be used percussively to provide a beat in the hip hop inspired glitch hop style, as an ambient compliment as in oceanic glitch, or as an art onto itself as in minimal glitch.
The style can be traced back to the experimental composers of the early twentieth century's noise music, atonal serial music, and experiments into what the definition of music itself actually is.
Over the past decade and a half the sound has evolved to include not only digital artifacts but also digitally produced sounds common to many styles and genres, even those well beyond the definition of “electronica.” Glitch hop especially also occasionally remixes other songs and reinvents them in its own image.
Apart from standalone tracks, glitch is also prominent in movies, where the rarity of lyrics makes it ideal for background music. Here is a quick sampling:
Oval - originally a three-piece, Oval is now the solo project of Markus Popp, who favours physically damaged CDs over conventional synthesizers and is considered a pioneer of glitch music. Check out Do While, a 24 minute epic off of 1995's 94 Diskont.
Kid606 - Leaning far more into glitch hop, Miguel Trost De Pedro uses the stage name Kid606, and feeds off his industrial and death metal origins moreso than his electronica contemporaries. His hip hop feel can be heard on Dodgy, the first track off of GQ on the EQ++, released in 2001.
Autechre - More often classified as IDM, or Intelligent Dance Music, Autechre is a two-man group that formed in 1987 and is still releasing albums. Their ambient aesthetic is evident on tracks like Kalpol Intro that was released in 1998 on the Pi soundtrack.
