Regarded as a subset of
IDM or
Intelligent Dance Music,
Glitchcore deals with the more
arcane sounds that artists could now utilise with the advent of home
computers and easily aquired sampling equipment. Add to this the music community's love of adding a '-core' suffix (
Hardcore,
Emocore,
Slowcore,
Snorecore) and a new (sub)
genre is born. Contrary to popular belief however, good examples Glitchcore are
not Aphex Twin and the like; the music, while being bizarre, is missing some key elements which make up Glitchcore. In
layman's terms,
Glitchcore is music that sounds like it's fucking up.
Glitchcore comes from the newest wave of
electronica - there was no 80's Glitchcore. In the 1970's,
Kraftwerk experimented with various
keyboards,
drum machines and
synthesizers, sometimes constructing their own
instruments, but always using
analogue equipment. From there we can see bands such as
Stereolab and
Add (n) to X continueing to use analogue-synth. Enter Aphex Twin and
Autechre (a better example of Glitchcore, but not great) in the early-to-mid 1990s, experimenting with computers in ways that had not been thought of yet. Though giving rise to a multitude of new genres like
Drill & Bass (classic IDM signiture style - where the drums seem to be falling over themselves;
Squarepusher can't help himself but overuse it) and
Experimental Ambient, there was still more to be discovered.
Enter artists such as
Detroit's
Robert Hood/
Rob Noise, who concentrated on the experimental and soul in IDM, and
Berliners
Basic Channel in the early 1990s, who stripped Electronica to it's bones. Thinking that Electronica had become all show and no substance, these artists heralded new ideas in the scene, giving rise to extreme
minimalism and
avant experimental
techno. These groups were not to define or invent Glitchcore however, it was only the next wave of IDM enthusiasts, using computers and
programmed software who were able to expand on the basic ideas already set forward.
Now we come to the well-known Glitchcore figureheads like
Oval,
Pole, and
Vladislav Delay, who involuntarily formed a community. Interested in
digital noise collages, glitch sounds, and minimalist techno, it was not until
German techno-head
Achim Szepanski's label
Mille Plateaux released the
Clicks_+_Cuts compilation that Glitchcore finally reached the public. Showing the versatillity of the genre in it's range of different approaches, the
aesthetic was bolstered by
California's
Cytrax label, and was then pronounced a new electronica movement.
Some Glitchcore Artists: