The definition of genres within electroacoustic music, electronic music or computer music is extremely difficult. In recent times it seems that, for some, the term electroacoustic music has become a euphemism for acousmatic composition; computer music has so many different categories that it has become a generic term hardly used at all but replaced by interactive, algorithmic and the many other sub-genres which now predominate. This is probably a natural and expected evolution through the development and globalisation of technologies and the dissemination of aesthetics, but when Organised Sound issued a call for articles relating to the use and application of computers and technology in ‘popular music’, we may have, inadvertently, guaranteed that no one would understand what we meant. We had imagined that there were many people using what to date had been seen as largely academic research tools and applications and applying them in exciting ways to new forms of commercial experimental music and electronica. We had imagined that the potential of ‘glitch’, ‘électroacoustique’ or ‘microsound’ and the many other genres of contemporary electronica would yield articles about the desires, methods and techniques of young composers and laptop performers.

Contrary to the hi-tech reputation of pop, the most innovative pop musicians often use traditional, old-fashioned equipment, ignoring the latest technological developments. Musical innovation tends to precede technological innovation rather than the other way round. This article presents a birds eye view of pop experimentalism, grouping a number of influential or otherwise interesting examples into four main categories based on the type of equipment that is subject to experimentation: (i) abusing musical instruments, (ii) abusing amplification, (iii) abusing effects and mixing equipment, and (iv) ‘pop concrète’, or experiments involving tape montage techniques. The examples suggest that technological innovation may be relatively unimportant to the most innovative and musically adventurous pop musicians. Rather, they appear to need to have established some kind of relationship with their equipment before they find radically new ways of using it. Pop experiments involve the critical use of well-established typical pop machinery. This places them in an old tradition of artistic innovation.

This article discusses the compositional strategies of turntablist DJs working within the hip-hop genre, focusing on processes developed by these musicians such as mixing, scratching and beat juggling, all of which are carried out on turntables. Since the development of the gramophone at the turn of the century, the turntable has become an instrument of creation as well as reproduction, resulting in the ground-breaking compositional strategies of hip-hop music. Hip-hop DJs create original music from a range of existing musical texts and in doing so, raise questions concerning originality and authorship as well as questioning the division between composer and performer. Hip-hop music is regarded by authors such as Poschardt (1998) as one of the final avant-gardes of the twentieth century; this article will explore and discuss the ground-breaking nature of the genre with reference to new compositional strategies and the turntable technology with which they are carried out.

Starting from a distinction between music creation and sound or pre-established methods of form and sound manipulation, this paper discusses the use of some typical procedures in computer-aided composition. A critique of common-sense procedures sets out to show that musical creativity may be threatened and put at risk in the name of a community's immediate acceptance of what is considered to be of musical value.

Through a discussion of the installation piece, The Trade / Oro por Baratijas, we address the theoretical issues behind the development of ecologically based compositional work. We discuss whether ecologically based music can be studied using linguistic tools. The concepts of potentiality and actuality are situated within the perspective of individual–environment interactions. A process that describes the relationship between an individual and his specific social context is proposed: the personal environment. Consistency is discussed in relation to environmental sound listening processes and ecological modelling work. The first part of the paper concludes by suggesting that form-creation is dynamically determined by a process of mutual adaptation between listener and environment. The second part focuses on compositional methods and contextual elements as they are used in The Trade. This work has been developed through a multilevel approach where visual and sonic materials stem from social and historical issues. The organisational processes of the sound piece are based on the micro-temporal and spectral properties suggested by the visual elements in the installation. The meso-temporal dynamic is organised through ecologically constrained events. The macro-structural shape and the sources used in the piece make reference to a specific historical context, i.e. the conquest of the American continent by the European armies during the first half of the sixteenth century.

Chaosynth is a cellular automata-based granular synthesis system whose capabilities for producing unusual complex dynamic sounds are limitless. However, due to its newness and flexibility, potential users have found it very hard to explore its possibilities as there is no clear referential framework to hold on to when designing sounds. Standard software synthesis systems take this framework for granted by adopting a taxonomy for synthesis instruments that has been inherited from the acoustic musical instruments tradition, i.e. woodwind, brass, string, percussion, etc. Sadly, the most interesting synthesised sounds that these systems can produce are simply referred to as effects. This scheme clearly does not meet the demands of more innovative software synthesizers. In order to alleviate this problem, we propose an alternative taxonomy for Chaosynth timbres. The paper begins with a brief introduction to the basic functioning of Chaosynth. It then presents our proposed taxonomy and ends with concluding comments. A number of examples are provided on this volume's Organised Sound CD.

In this review of Jonathan Harvey's In Quest of Spirit: Thoughts on Music, special attention is given to the question of how the musical domain may be related to the spiritual one, e.g. by representation (‘giving a picture’, ‘portrayal’), symbolism, parallelism, mediation and ‘overlap’. Harvey's sources and personal experiences are discussed, and the relationships between the different parts the author plays in his book assessed: the spiritual seeker, the thinker about music, and the composer. A possible conflict between spiritual search and professional music composition is pointed out, given an implicit tendency in the former to surrender, and in the latter to mastery and control. One of the questions looked into is how music, especially by articulating contrasts, may convey insight into ‘unity’. Other issues discussed are the possible addiction to music as a spiritual means at the expense of the spiritual quest itself; the alleged special role of electronics and spectrality in the composition of spiritual music; the possibility of developing spiritual listening; and possible modernist overtones in the notion of making progress as a composer while mediating spiritual insights and experiences.