More about: clipping.

Noise music takes everything that we think we like about music and flips it on its head, creating some totally inaccessible and un-listenable sounds. So, why does it exist? And why are so many people obsessed with it? 

"My first reaction to noise music was 'this is fraudulent, this isn’t music, I hate it...also I’m now going to listen to as much as I can to understand it'", producer and one third of clipping. Jonathan Snipes told us. "I was just angry listening to all these records and suddenly it was like 'wait, I have a whole record collection of this stuff now and I have taste in it and I’m not as angry as I used to be.'"

Luigi Russolo, who is considered one of the first noise musicians, published an article in 1913 titled The Art of Noises. Here he spoke about how the world was changing following the industrial revolution: so much so, he argued, that it would affect the music we listen to. He said that “music originally sought purity, limpidity and sweetness of sound,” before continuing, “musical evolution is paralleled by the multiplication of machines… the machine today has created such a variety and rivalry of noises that pure sound, in its exiguity and monotony, no longer arouses any feeling.”

"Bill [William Hutson] and I used to joke that it’s easier to be a noise musician in an apartment complex because people will assume that whatever the sound is, isn’t music" Jonathan says. "They’ll think it’s construction or a malfunctioning appliance and they don’t bang on your door and ask you to turn the music down, they just assume it will go away because something’s gone wrong and you’re gunna fix it. The sounds of a harsh noise set are more like the sounds of everyday life than a symphony is."

Russolo’s theory behind the evolution of music, though prescient, was not entirely accurate: over 100 years later and the majority of people when asked what they look for in the music they listen to, will likely say something that amounts to “sweetness of sound.” 

Jonathan disagres: "you talk about 100 years as if it’s a long time, I think it’s actually still just a blip. If someone doesn’t really listen to classical music and doesn’t have a sense of music history, [then] if you play them Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, they might not be able to tell the difference, even though they’re like years and years apart."

Despite the fact inaccessible music never became mainstream, composers continued to make it. During World Wars I and II, given it was such a bleak time, people made music that was a reflection of that bleakness. The same can be said for free jazz of the 50s and 60s, which was a form of jazz improvisation that dismantled chords and tempos in order to create discordance and chaos in music. The idea behind this was all about rejecting politically-neutral music and making sounds that replicated the times people were living in. 

As technology developed, so too did the way that people began to make this chaotic and disorientating music. Japan became huge players in the evolution of noise with artists like Merzbow coming onto the scene, creating albums such as Venereology and Pulse Demon, that remain some of the most famous projects of the genre. "It was hard to get into noise in the 90s and not have a Merzbow record be one of the first things you heard" Jonathan nods.

So, that’s how we got to where we are today, but the question remains, why do people continue to make noise music? What is supposed to be an inaccessible and unlistenable genre of music clearly isn’t that way to the many people who listen to it, identify with it and take it upon themselves to make it.

"The noise music scene is like a non-academic version of something that was academic" Jonathan muses. "You get the feeling that with a lot of early noise music there wasn’t a language to judge whether it was good or not: it was about the process and the act of doing this unlistenable thing and any result was acceptable. Then the next generation heard those recordings, developed taste in them and said 'oh let’s cut these together and make them beautiful'".

Noise is also getting incorporated into other genres like rock, heavy metal and even hip-hop, perfectly displayed by the music that clipping. make. 

"I love the idea that our contemporary music - which is so specifically-genred and sub-divided - that in 300 years you play somebody Philip Glass, Lil Wayne and Merzbow and they’re like, oh yeah that’s 20th Century music… To me it’s funny. People say 'oh isn’t it funny that these two worlds have nothing to do with each other', whereas really they do have something to do with each other. And to me it’s more about pointing out similarities, trying to speed that future along where nobody can tell the difference anyway."

Noise is one of the most subjective genres in the world. Torben Sangild put it best when he said “what is noise to one person can be meaningful to another; what was considered an unpleasant sound yesterday is not today.” In other words, noise - like music as a whole - can be used to convey anything. Whether you’re living by the old-school rules and attempting to make music that listeners can’t engage with, or you operate similarly to newer noise musicians who have developed taste in the genre and try to convey emotion using it. 

In the end, some people will listen to noise music and think it’s garbage; not music; the worst thing in the worl...while others will hear it and consider it the most beautiful thing ever recorded - and they’re both right. And besides, if anybody tries to emphasise that their take on what the genre means is superior to someone else’s - that it falls short of other genres of music that incorporate melody and tempo - just tell them that’s irrelevant. Because in 300 years people aren’t going to be able to tell the difference anyway.

More about: clipping.