ABSTRACT

In a local music store, I recently picked up a copy of In MemoriamGilles Deleuze, a two-CD set of experimental electronic musicrecordings influenced by the French philosopher by that name. The rare pair of CDs was quite cheap, and a tag on the package explained the reason: “The surface of this disc is scratched.” The irony is that this particular CD was one of the first to bring critical attention to the glitch artist Oval, whose contribution to contemporary music consists entirely of the sounds of skipping CDs. Though the economic value of the music was lessened because of a presumed defect, the aesthetic value of the CD inhered in its artful usage of this very same defect. Such apparent double standards expose the discrepancy between concepts of “high fidelity” and the type of music representation made possible by the technology behind the tapes and discs to which we listen. However, it also shows that the creative work of contemporary composers does not echo the fidelity criteria honored by music stores. What in one context is considered a poor representation of music, in another, becomes music itself.