Medium, brud i nostalgia, czyli niska wierność współczesnej kultury muzycznej

This article seeks to reconstruct and redefine the low fidelity (lo-fi) musical culture – the music(-related) discourse and aesthetics of the unfavourable signal-to-noise ratio. Today, the term applies to the dynamically growing genre, production methods, styles and conventions in the broadly defined popular music, as well as the distribution and consumption practices related to the growing popularity of the analogue medium. The genesis of the latter is explored on the example of case studies illustrating the changes in and the reception of the relationship between music and technologies for the recording, editing, modification and reproduction of the audio signal. The case studies are confronted with the critical and philosophical approaches to noise, sound and cultural industry, allowing us to put forward the thesis that the lo-fi culture emerges as a gesture of resistance to the dehumanising acceleration of modern culture. As such it is an attempt to reproduce the aura of authenticity and search for contact with another human being through music.