No-Fi is a term used to describe music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 or media created outside conventional technical standards.

The name

Where "Hi-fi" and "Lo-fi" are short for "High Fidelity" and "Low Fidelity", respectively, "No-fi" is a play-on-words intended to be interpreted as meaning "No Fidelity".

The sound

No-Fi is an extraordinarily diverse aesthetic, covering many mediums other than just music, though the music holds a central role in the foundation, definition and formation of the genre. It has been suggested that No-Fi music is: on the edge of losing control or collapsing into non-music, nihilistic

Nihilism

Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...

 to the standards of acceptable composition, bastardizing, mocking of convention, unclean, containing "natural" noises and various sonic artifacts, such as natural reverb and echoes, distortion

Distortion

A distortion is the alteration of the original shape of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. Distortion is usually unwanted, and often many methods are employed to minimize it in practice...

, tape-hiss and/or feedback, lack of sound-picture clarity, improvisation suggesting the lack of a separate "truth" behind the origins of a piece, and the use of noise as an "instrument" (Similar to Noise

Noise music

Noise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...

 artists).

Though according themselves other stylistic titles the bands Slicing Grandpa

Slicing Grandpa

Slicing Grandpa is an experimental music/noise rock band based in Seattle, Washington. The group formed in the spring of 1993 in Elmira, New York, by John Laux and Lance Tarr. The group's sound is minimalistic, repetitive and harsh, with recordings tending to be produced at high volume on...

, Eric's Trip

Eric's Trip

Eric's Trip is a Canadian indie rock band from Moncton, New Brunswick. Eric's Trip achieved prominence as the first Canadian band to be signed to Seattle's flagship grunge label Sub Pop in the early 1990s...

, Bone Awl, Nailed Down, Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

's early work, much of Darkthrone

Darkthrone

Darkthrone is a Norwegian black metal band. They formed in 1987 as a death metal band, but after embracing the black metal style in 1991, they became a driving force in the Norwegian black metal scene. For most of this period Darkthrone has consisted of just two musicians, Nocturno Culto and...

's work (particularly Transilvanian Hunger

Transilvanian Hunger

Transilvanian Hunger is the fourth studio album by Norwegian black metal band Darkthrone, released in 1994 through Peaceville Records. It was the band's first album to be recorded with just two members, Nocturno Culto and Fenriz, following the departure of Zephyrous...

 and F.O.A.D.

F.O.A.D.

F.O.A.D. is the twelfth album by the Norwegian band Darkthrone. Released in September 2007, the album is a further shift from Darkthrone's black metal roots, expanding on the punk-oriented style introduced on their previous album, The Cult is Alive. It also features some parts that are similar to...

), and the more "raw" forms of punk

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 especially the crust punk

Crust punk

Crust punk is a form of music influenced by anarcho-punk, hardcore punk and extreme metal. The style, which evolved in the mid-1980s in England, often has songs with dark and pessimistic lyrics that linger on political and social ills...

 scene would exemplify some or all of No-Fi's aesthetic.

History

Though existing beforehand in underground music culture, and used by several bands and artists to describe their work, the term was popularized by No-Fi "Magazine" in the mid-nineties

1990s

File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...

. Originating from compulsory lo-fi recordings as said earlier due to the quality of the equipment used at the time.

External links

• No Fidelity, a website with bands, art and other No Fi material
• No-Fi "Magazine"
• No Fidelity Culture, a No-fi and Lo-fi blog.