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Re: [microsound] Composers using "glitch" need to just do it!



> Call it art, call it music, call it
> electronic, call it electro acoustic but why voluntarily succumb to such a
> restictive term as "glitch?"

"glitch" is a term, coined most famously in the wire, which was meant to
describe the "first wave" of what this list refers to as "microsound"
(itself a more "global" term), which is why we sometimes confuse the two
of them.  initially it refers to a coincidence of methods: cd skipping
(oval, disc), broken hardware (pole) & so on.  more metaphorically,
artists such as those on the mego label were included in that aesthetic
as their methods & processes "felt like" glitch: hence granular
synthesis which includes a certain amount of random operations.  but
with that term now let loose, it now doesn't mean very much: where do
you find the "glitch" in the exacting works of chartier or cascone?

on the other hand, "microsound" (or fdw's "microwave"), rather than
being an opposition of "glitch", was introduced as an assimilatory term,
encompassing glitch, lowercase, minimalism & other forms of
electroacoustics.  as per "idm", the term is imprecise & can only be
used to identify a scene rather than an actual musical genre.

"glitch", nowadays, is more of a genre term, although it is still
vague.  being a genre, it is restrictive; but, it is also
_descriptive_.  "electroacoustic" is not.  neither is "microsound".

> The sub sub sub genre phenomenon in electronic
> music confounds me (tech house, tech step, dark step, deep house, etc...).
> Please someone help me understand why as an artist you would actually want
> to take on such a label.

without getting too deep: labels have their traditions & histories, &
not every artist will want to reinvent the wheel.  i have actually
touched on that topic on the idm list (speaking of the devil!) a few
months ago.

more subgenres is actually much, much better than just a few really
vague ones ~ insofar, that is, that "outsider music", existing outside
genres, is still an acceptable exit & that genres are seen as
descriptions rather than scenes.  certain singular artists literally
invent genres that are sometimes named after themselves: hence,
autechre: i have used "angular" to describe their post-_tri repetae_
output, & that of musik aus strom, schematic, chocolate industries, dub,
etc.  sure, those are "idm", but they are far from the original
"artificial intelligence" sound (black dog, speedy j, polygon window,
_incunabula_...), or from the "ninja" sound (luke vibert included), u.s.
harsh beats (early kid606, hrvatski, lesser), the lucky kitchen axis...

to conclude: "microsound" or "idm" says more about who you hang out with
than what the music actually sounds like.

(this message may contain some historical glitches as i'm no expert...
feel free to correct me.  i believe the bulk of it is valid regardless.)

~ david