| Glitch | |
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| Stylistic origins | |
| Cultural origins | 1990s, United Kingdom, Germany, Japan |
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Glitch is a genre ofexperimentalelectronic music that emerged in the 1990s, which is distinguished by the deliberate use ofglitches in audio media and othersonic artifacts.[1]
The sounds featured in glitch tracks usually come fromaudio recording device ordigital electronics malfunctions, such asCDskipping,electric hum, digital or analogdistortion,circuit bending,bit-rate reduction, hardwarenoise,software bugs,computer crashes,vinyl record hiss or scratches, and system errors, as well as abstractsound design produced from the intended use of these technologies. Devices that were already broken are often used, while other times devices are broken expressly for this purpose.[2] InComputer Music Journal, composer and writerKim Cascone classified glitch as a subgenre ofelectronica and used the termpost-digital to describe the glitch aesthetic.[1]
The origins of the glitchaesthetic can be traced to the early 20th century withLuigi Russolo'sFuturist manifestoL'arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises, the basis ofnoise music, published in 1913)[citation needed]. He constructed mechanical noise generators, which he namedintonarumori, and wrote multiple compositions to be played by them, includingRisveglio di una città (Awakening of a City) andConvegno di automobili e aeroplani (Meeting of Automobiles and Airplanes). In 1914, a riot broke out at one of his performances inMilan,Italy.[3]
Later musicians and composers who made use of malfunctioning technology include the 1968 song "The Best Way to Travel", byMichael Pinder ofThe Moody Blues, and works byChristian Marclay, who began in 1979 to use mutilated vinyl records to createsound collages.Yasunao Tone used damaged CDs in hisTechno Eden performance of 1985, while 1992 albumIt Was a Dark and Stormy Night byNicolas Collins included a composition featuring astring quartet playing alongside the stuttering sound of skipping CDs.[4]Yuzo Koshiro andMotohiro Kawashima'selectronic soundtrack for the 1994video gameStreets of Rage 3 used automatically randomized sequences to generate "unexpected and odd"experimental sounds.[5]
Glitch music properly originated as a distinct movement inGermany andJapan during the 1990s,[6] with musical works and labels (especiallyMille Plateaux) of Achim Szepanski in Germany,[7][8] and works ofRyoji Ikeda in Japan.[6]
Nuno Canavarro's albumPlux Quba, released in 1988, incorporated pristineelectroacoustic sounds that resembled early glitch.Oval's albumWohnton, published in 1993, helped define the genre by addingambient aesthetics.[9]
The earliest uses of the termglitch as related to music include electronic duoAutechre's song"Glitch", released in 1994, and experimental electronic groupELpH's albumWorship the Glitch, published in 1995.
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 ofYasunao 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] SkippingCDs, scratched vinyl records,circuit bending, and other distortions resemblingelectronic 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 productionsoftware 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 includestrackers likeJeskola Buzz andRenoise, as well as modular software likeReaktor,Ableton Live,Reason,AudioMulch, Bidule,SuperCollider,FLStudio,Max/MSP,Pure Data, andChucK. Some artists also use digital synthesizers like theClavia Nord Modular G2 andElektron's Machinedrum andMonomachine.
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