Re: [microsound] microsound as pop music

[gbach@xxxxxxxxx (Glenn Bach)]

Andrei <andrei@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>What I meant by direct connections is that a lot of microsound artists
>used to be regular techno, house or ambient producers or rock musicians
>before becoming serious glitch artists :-).

This brings up something I've wanted to ask everyone.  I used to think that
"glitch" was a sub-genre of microsound, in that all glitch was microsound,
but not all microsound was glitch.  Then I realized that glitch isn't
always microsonically oriented.  In microsound there is music that focuses
on the microscopic realms of audible/inaudible sounds in time frames
approaching infinitesimally short moments, which to me is conceptually
different than work that is concerned primarily with the aesthetics of
failure, the interruption of the normal digital flow, malfunction, a
failure of the utopian promise of the computer.  And I know that there is
"microsound" music that borrows from both, incorporates the deep listening
of lowercase, or is simply techno with some clicks in place of high hats. 

My question, then, is what are you all thinking when you use the terms
"glitch" and "microsound"?  Is "glitch" simply shorthand for "microsound"? 
If we simplified things by dividing this list into two camps, on one side
the Roads microsonic spelunking camp, and on the other the Oval-esque
stuttering plunderphonics of the digital mediascape, then what might be the
ratio of list members lining up to be counted?	From where did you arrive
here, and once you got here, what new discoveries did you make, what
previously unknown directions did you follow?

I know this topic has been tossed around in previous discussions, but since
I'm writing this paper on mysticism in microsonic composition, I wanted to
get my head around the auras surrounding the names of the genre(s).

Personally I came from the pop camp, coming to microsound from the
techno/ambient/post-rock side of things, only to discover in microsound
entirely new (for me) roots in western art music.  Has anyone outlined a
formal family tree?  And, as a visual artist, the contortions I've put
myself through in updating my historiographic knowledge are especially
twisted!


> I don't think popular culture is interested in what they have to
>give, for whatever reasons. 

I agree with this, unless it is someone from popular culture (Bjork,
Madonna?) who co-opts elements from edge culture for its cachet.  Hasn't
this been going on for a long time?  Should we be using the terms
"mainstream" and "underground" rather than/in addition to "pop" and
"academic/avantgarde"?	

Is microsound "hip"? 

G.