Comments on: Recommend me some good glitch!

Question: Recommend me some good glitch!

grateful — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:10:00 -0800

I think I love glitch, but I know absolutely nothing about it. What albums / bands should I start with?

By: benzenedream

benzenedream — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:12:21 -0800

Prefuse 73, Kid606.

By: gnutron

gnutron — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:19:02 -0800

2nd Prefuse 73, also suggesting Edit "Certified Air Raid Material" & Bassnectar "Mesmerizing the Ultra"

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:20:35 -0800

Oval's Ovalprocess, Proem, post-Chiastic Slide Autechre, Pomassl, Fennesz, Pole, Si-Cut.db.

By: phrontist

phrontist — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:35:10 -0800

Autechre, Prefuse 73, The Books, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Modeselektor

similar post

By: infinitywaltz

infinitywaltz — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:36:08 -0800

For early ambient glitch, Coil vs. Elph's Worship the Glitch. Incidentally, Elph isn't a separate artist; it's actually sort of the "spirit in the wires," the noncorporeal entity that lived in Coil's studio, causing the glitches that Coil then assembled into the album.

For more contemporary artits that haven't yet been mentioned, Terre Thaemlitz and Pan Sonic have both done some interesting glitch-oriented music.

By far my favorite, though, is Dave Wright, a.k.a. Not Breathing, whose music incorporates glitch, circuit-bending, homemade synthesizers and drum machines, dark ambient, and electro.

By: mediareport

mediareport — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:44:12 -0800

Wow, you're in for a treat. Autechre pretty much defined the genre for me with the amazing LP5, but Oval's stuff - esp 94 Diskont - is pretty close to seminal.

By: highfidelity

highfidelity — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:47:02 -0800

Dntel!!! Quite possibly one of my favorite artists to play as background music when reading or working. Great stuff.

By: davebush

davebush — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:48:52 -0800

Shuttle358 (Dan Abrams)

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:50:53 -0800

Terre Thaemlitz

Her work is glitchy, but I'm not sure it fits in the genre though. It's a bit more about the politics than the style.

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:54:36 -0800

That said, I wouldn't discourage you from listening to some Thaemlitz. I'd rate Means From An End and Couture Cosmetique at the glitchier end of her work.

By: Jaltcoh

Jaltcoh — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:06:25 -0800

Warning: I may have a broader definition of "glitch" than others -- I don't think it has to be ambient...

Sign up for eMusic, buy a few of these dozen glitch albums (eMusic is so cheap that it's easy to buy a bunch of music without being sure you like it), then look for more recommendations on eMusic based on the ones you like.

Mouse on Mars - their albums are very different from each other. Varcharz is their brutal/harsh side.

Dntel - his work is pretty uneven, but the piece called Last Songs (on this album) is excellent glitch. (FYI, Dntel is the guy in the Postal Service who's not Ben Gibbard. I would suggest that even the Postal Service has glitch elements, but I don't want to be pelted by rotten fruit.)

Four Tet's album Rounds has some glitchy elements -- check out the first song, "Hands."

Daedelus - sort of like Amon Tobin but weirder, with samples that sound like they were taken from old vinyl recordings of Disney movie soundtracks. I especially recommend his first two albums, Invention and Of Snowdonia. (His older stuff is quirkier and, I would say, glitchier, so the songs you're likely to find online might not be representative.)

By: Blazecock Pileon

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:10:50 -0800

Oval's Ovalprocess, Proem, post-Chiastic Slide Autechre, Pomassl, Fennesz, Pole, Si-Cut.db.

To pad out some of these recommendations:

Oval, Ovalprocess
Proem, Negativ
Autechre, Chiastic Slide, Confield
Pomassl, 2001, Clicks and Cuts 3
Fennesz, Hotel Paral.lel
Pole, 1, 2 and 3
Si-Cut.db, Find Some Shade

By: RGD

RGD — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:01:29 -0800

Anything on the Raster-Noton label.

Especially CoH Plays Cosey, Alva Noto's Transspray, Atom (TM)'s new album, and Ryoji Ikeda's albums.

By: whiskeyspider

whiskeyspider — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:29:55 -0800

Most Oval needs to be mentioned: Ovalcommers, 94diskont, Systemisch.

By: whiskeyspider

whiskeyspider — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:59:19 -0800

Also, So.

By: subtle-t

subtle-t — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:06:18 -0800

The Clicks and Cuts series is well curated and provides representative works from the heavy hitters (Vladislav Delay, Farben, Alva Noto, Kid606, Kit Clayton, and so forth).

Also, Luomo has productively mined the intersection between disco, minimal techno, and glitch music.

By: jtron

jtron — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:44:21 -0800

Hrvatski, especially the Oiseaux 96 - 98 album on Reckankreuzungsklankewerkzeuge.

By: orme

orme — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 19:49:26 -0800

Does Matmos count as glitch? They sound kind of glitchy to me.

By: pombe

pombe — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:42:02 -0800

The Glitch Mob, featuring the aforementioned Edit.

By: Señor Pantalones

Señor Pantalones — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 00:50:11 -0800

This is a tough question to answer for a few reasons, the first of which is that "glitch" means something different to everyone responding in this thread, much like the meanings of "minimal" and "electro" have changed over the past 20 years. So it would help if you started with what you've come to believe "glitch" is.

I would agree with the recommendations of Blazecock, RGD and subtle-t above: glitch being a term for music made through exploring the capabilities, quirks, and limitations of modern electronic hardware and software — ikeda's TCP/IP dump electro, fennesz's grain sweep pads, oval's defective CD beats, and so on...basically, everything ever on Raster-Noton, or any label touched by the people who release on it. And to that list of awesome things you can find already listed here, I'd add soundhack.

By: benzenedream

benzenedream — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:15:45 -0800

Not so glitchy, but try out Dan Deacon.

By: vernondalhart

vernondalhart — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:49:32 -0800

I'm not sure this is glitch, but Los Sampler's Descargas is ridiculously good.

By: mkb

mkb — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 06:58:45 -0800

Glitch-house!

Anything from Akufen, specifically "Quebec Nightclub" and "Hawaiian Wodka Party". His "Musique pour 3 femmes enceintes" (as Marc Leclair) is also excellent.

Crackhaus' ...spells disaster

Stephen Beaupre's Foe Destroyer

The Montreal Smoked Meat compilation.

By: Hutch

Hutch — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 07:38:33 -0800

Definitely Autechre (post Amber), Kid606, Prefuse and Modeselektor.

A glitch touchstone for me is Funkstorung's Appetite for Disctruction. An underappreciated work (IMO) that I quite like is Machine Drum's Urban Biology, although it is fairly non-adventurous as glitch goes.

By: dubitable

dubitable — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 11:36:17 -0800

Ditto Raster-Noton label, especially Ryoji Ikeda and Alva Noto/Carsten Nicolai. That shit'll glitch you up but good.

Umm...Markus Popp (Oval and Microstoria) as others have mentioned. Great stuff.

I do love me some Autechre too, and Hrvatski (Keith Fullerton Whitman's breakbeat-craziness handle) is great. What am I forgetting...hmm...someone mentioned Los Sampler's Descargas which is great and I think is pretty freaking glitchy.

I mean, it's sort of a weird genre category. I think the artists that fall under it wouldn't really categorize themselves as such, and they all have interesting and thoughtful musical philosophies, but it's hard to deny a sort of consistent sonic theme running through all of these bands that have been mentioned.

There's someone I'm forgetting that I want to mention but I can't for the life of me pull it out of my brain...I'm sure I will in an hour or so...

By: GilloD

GilloD — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:25:13 -0800

Hudson Mohawke and Breakfast Mountain are absolutely worth your time.

By: grateful

grateful — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:25:58 -0800

Thanks for all the suggestions - I'll start exploring this afternoon!

By: Dean King

Dean King — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 14:34:22 -0800

+1 for Microstoria
Kim Cascone, post '98 or so.
Tetsu Inoue, same era (Waterloo Terminal, Field Tracker, Object & Organic Code, etc.).

By: Rinku

Rinku — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:51:50 -0800

Fennesz' Endless Summer is more melodic than some other glitch music, but it's absolutely amazing. An all time favorite of mine, in any genre.