Piers Whyte

For many, the golden age of glitch electronica ended sometime around 2001, when the German school that included Oval and Gas took a still active hiatus from releasing albums and irony-dripping jokers like Kid 606 and Chicks on Speed began acquiring sizable notice and fan bases for the flurry of mediocrity they unleashed upon the downloading public. It seemed as though ear-perking exploration of electronic sound had run its course and paved the way for a multitude of computer-savvy kids to fuck around with to no end, had it not seeped into mainstream rock (Radiohead, Björk) and underground hip-hop (Antipop Consortium, Cannibal Ox) right around then to keep sine waves bouncing. These days anyone with a laptop can construct a glitch symphony, which is perhaps why the genre seems to have faded considerably in relevancy (and quality) over the years. Enter Piers Whyte, a British Columbia resident whose debut is as refreshing as it is nostalgic. Whyte knows how to construct something uniquely interesting and exciting out of not-all-that-original sounds, whether it’s in a randomised array of noisy slices ("Chilly Fountain Warp”), a slow-burning digital fire that’s eventually stoked to cinder ("Winter, ’03”) or a violently fizzling crowd pleaser from a forbidden dimension ("Pioggia Viola”), this debut of intensely noisy but always beautiful orderly chaos offers an exciting reminder that glitch’s picture hasn’t yet completely degraded to white noise.