Glitch Hop | Keyboard Magazine

Glitch started as a fringe movement in the IDM (intelligent dance music) scene about ten years ago, and has since moved more into the electronica mainstream. Artists like Telefon Tel Aviv and Prefuse 73 have carved out a niche in the world of downtempo by infusing their tracks with crunchy, atonal textures that push the limits of what defines musicality. Since then, elements of glitch have found their way into pretty much every modern dance style in one form or another.
Consisting of 34 construction kits, Glitch Hop is a grab bag of twisted rhythmic elements that defy easy description. Each kit includes tempo and key information (huzzah!), along with all its elements broken out as both loops and hits. Granted, for a genre like glitch, the actual "key" of many of these elements is purely academic, but it's nice to have anyway. Despite being a mostly downtempo library, Glitch Hop can transcend that category, thanks to the modern time-stretching algorithms found in most contemporary DAWs.
Standout kits include "Busted," which evokes essential IDM vibe without completely biting anyone's tracks. In fact, the musical content is so blurred that the kit is essentially a nifty 80 BPM groove. "Mozqito" has a more decidedly hip-hop feel, anchored by TR-808 claps on the backbeats, interwoven with skittering, bit-crushed elements and an ambient drone or two. If Timbaland and Shakira were trapped on an abandoned space station, they'd probably come up with a track along these lines. "Trac" is an R&B-inflected groove that combines a few pitched rhythms with flanged and granular sweeps. Its elements translate beautifully to faster tempos, yielding results that would sound right at home on an electro house jam.
"Frolic" goes to the farthest extreme - no drum kit or groove here, just an ebb and flow of various digital noise elements that gradually swell into controlled chaos. Imagine the sound of a swarm of nanotech insects crawling across an expanse of disintegrating silicon and you might get the idea. This library includes some awesome soundtrack material, to be sure.
Producer David DeLaski did a solid job of capturing the essence of glitch. For those who want to sprinkle a pinch of dirty binary mayhem on their mixes, Glitch Hop is a terrific resource.