Anyone that follows us on Instagram knows we find great joy in posting lo-fi videos (if you don’t follow us then get right and follow). But what is lo-fi? Is it a LOnely-FIsh?
Lo-Fi aka Low-Fi aka low fidelity music can be manipulated to fit into almost any genre. Think of Lo-Fi as a stylized version of (hip-hop) or (rock) or (electronica) music. The songs we feature combine a diverse pool of genres to create funky, beat driven, tracks that uses two distinctive sound elements: “phonographic” and “non-phonographic”
Phonographic sounds are perceived as ‘mistakes’ or ‘impurities’ in a recording that are facilitated by either technique or technology. By traditional audio recording standards these are unwanted sounds and are created purposefully by inadequate equipment (or modifiers that replicate a particular hardware defect/effect). The most common type of phonographic sound is distortion – aka undesirable sound quality. Distortions can be anything from static, imperfect tones, and muffling to simulated record skips, fuzziness and tone saturation.
We’ve pulled some examples from our IG page below:
Did you catch those phonographic effects?
Non-Phonographic sounds are generated during recording or added to the track in post-production and are a key features in lo-fi style music. These kinds of sounds can include, but are far from limited to: coughing, crying, grunting, laughing, car engines, etc.
Basically, non-phonographic sounds are anything that could audibly happen in the ‘real world’. Here’s a great example of non-phographic Lo-Fi:
You probably noticed that this tracy by Idealism actually uses both types of phonographic sounds, and that’s totally normal. Concentrate and try to identify as many genres of music as possible.
If you’re curious about Lo-Fi and want to explore some great artists then peep our suggestions below:
- Idealism
- Jinsang
- Tomppabeats
- Oui Lele
- o k h o & Saito
- Aimless
- Mishaal