Dequantization, maximalism and forced errors. Analysis of the three dominant codes of post-digital music by extracting their main practical coding factors

Analysis of the three dominant codes of post-digital music by extracting their main practical coding factors

Abstract

In this essay, I have developed an analysis that argues the practical coding factors in post-digital music –which can be defined through the ideas of 'excess', 'overload', or 'digital indigestion'–, aiming to reveal the practical and technical structure of the main three codes of post-digital music: the dequantised sounds (Harper, 2011), the digital maximalism (Reynolds, 2011) and a concrete notion of the glitch music (Cascone 2000). These codes are extracted from three musical pieces produced by myself, and published as Bngrmstr. Starting from the musical code concept, announced by Jacques Attali (1977), and using the tetradic structure proposed in Laws of Media by Marshall and Eric McLuhan (1999), I have developed an analysis that takes the post-digital musical code as an overheated medium; this review allows us to understand the abrasive nature of post-digital music, produced by the continued presence of technology, both in its forms and its methods of composition.