Fuzz

austinkleon.com

I’ve long been a fan of distortion. I like a basement recording, a flyer that’s been xeroxed a few times too many. I like grit and grain and the evidence of effort. There’s a little chart that Austin Kleon shared that resonated with me, although a lot of those things that I love fall into the unintended imperfection category, at least originally. Trying to capture that feel now, like adding grain to a digital photo, is aiming for deliberate imperfection. I’ve never seen this feeling put into better words, though, than this Brian Eno quote –

““Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable, and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit… all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure… the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.” ”

There’s a Comeback Kid song that I love, where the singer pushes so hard he goes a little sharp, and it sounds better that way. The sound of failure. Beautiful.