Clicks & Cuts
Clicks & Cuts is a minimal post-glitch electronic style built from tiny clicks, clipped samples, micro-loops, dry digital ticks, dub bass traces, and sharply edited fragments. Its sound is more restrained than breakcore and more rhythmic than pure microsound: the beat may be reduced to dust, but the dust still grooves. It often has a cool, post-techno feel, with negative space as important as the clicks themselves.
History
Clicks & Cuts became a recognized style around the Mille Plateaux compilations of the same name and the late-1990s overlap of glitch, minimal techno, dub techno, laptop music, and microsound. SND, Pole, Jan Jelinek, Alva Noto, Farben, Vladislav Delay, Thomas Brinkmann, and Kit Clayton all explored fractured rhythm, reduced surface noise, and microscopic sample movement. The style influenced minimal techno, microhouse, experimental dub, laptop performance, and a generation of producers who made digital artifacts feel elegant rather than accidental.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Mille Plateaux Clicks & Cuts compilations
- AllMusic
- minimal techno histories
- Discogs