Glitch (music)

Glitch (also known as clicks and cuts) is a genre of electronic music that became popular in the late 1990s with the increasing use of digital signal processing, particularly on computers. Glitch is influenced by musique concrete, techno, industrial and ambient music, is usually extremely minimal and rhythmic and is sometimes considered a sub-genre of IDM. (The term "clicks n cuts" comes from a representative compilation series by the German record label Mille Plateaux called Clicks and Cuts.)

Glitch is often produced on computers using modern digital production software to splice together small cuts of music from published songs, with beats made out of short clicks and bits of noise. The genre is thus named after the use of digital artifacts and noise-like distortions, often very short, in place of traditional percussion or instruments. However, not all artists of the genre are working with erroneously produced sounds or even digital sounds.

Notable artists working within the genre include Pan Sonic, Noto, Oval, F.X. Randomiz, Vladislav Delay, Gescom and Terre Thaemlitz. Popular software for creating glitch includes Cycling '74's MAX/MSP and Miller Smith Puckette's Pure Data.