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Lo-fi (from the term "low fidelity") is lower quality of sound recordings than the usual standard for music. The qualities of lo-fi are usually achieved by either degrading the quality of the recorded audio, or using certain equipment. Recent uses of the phrase have led to it becoming a genre, although it still remains as an aesthetic in music recording practice. Many lo-fi artists use inexpensive cassette tape recorders. The term was adopted by WFMU DJ William Berger who dedicated a half hour segment of his program to home recorded music throughout the late '80s under the name lo-fi.

Pre-1980s[link]

Lo-fi's roots can be dated as far back as a set of live cylinder recordings created in 1900–04 by Lionel Mapleson from a catwalk 40 ft (12 m) above the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. The sound quality of these "Mapleson Cylinders" is very poor (more so since they are one-of-a-kind artifacts that have been further worn down by being played over the last century); the aesthetic quality, though, partakes in the electric, authentic feeling of an unedited event being captured in real time.^{[citation needed]} In the same historical period, commercial field recordings of folk music had begun to be created in many nations of the world, recorded catch-as-catch-can by early record producers such as Fred Gaisberg of HMV. The description of "lo-fi", however, would be slightly amiss, since the recordists used the best available equipment of the era in order to capture and reproduce the sound as faithfully as possible. With technology being what it was however, the resulting recordings would be considered quite crude, or "low-fidelity", by today's standards.

A later era, Buddy Holly recorded some songs in a converted garage. Some posthumous Hank Williams demos were also overdubbed for commercial release. However, it was not until Bob Dylan decided in 1975 to officially release a set of The Basement Tapes, first recorded as music publisher demos in 1967, that the first lo-fi pop music milestone was reached. The music was really not originally intended for general release, the recordings, made on a consumer-quality Ampex quarter-track machine with two microphones set up for "dual mono", made a virtue of their flaws; with their asides, laughter and unselfconscious looseness, they defined the authenticity of the lo-fi experience. As a historical matter, in the years between the production and the official release, the popularity of these particular recordings also created the first market for pop bootleg records, which as a listening experience came to include seemingly every scrap of certain rock artists' off-the-cuff and unreleased work, including home recordings. Seminal early examples of this were the 1976 home-made debut album Phonography by pioneer DIY popster R. Stevie Moore and the 1976 debut album Carcass by lo-fi pioneer Sean Terrington Wright. Also, famed songwriter Lou Reed produced a version of the self-titled 3rd album by his band, The Velvet Underground. Its lo-fi, cramped sound became known as the closet mix. It was highly influential to up-and-coming indie lo-fi groups.

Lo-fi recordings became more commonly heard in the late seventies to early eighties with many electronic acts. In Monte A. Melnick's biographical book, On the Road with the Ramones, Thomas Erdelyi considers the band's first record to be a "great lo-fi album". Suicide's debut album is a large collection of lo-fi classics, which Bruce Springsteen took inspiration from on his 1982 lo-fi album Nebraska. Other classic lo-fi's to appear around this time include Throbbing Gristle's "United", Thomas Leer's "Private Plane", The Normal's "TVOD/Warm Leatherette" single, and The Human League's "Being Boiled". Another UK classic lo-fi band is the Young Marble Giants.

1980s onwards[link]

Pavement singer/guitarist and lo-fi music innovator Steve Malkmus

As a term to describe a musical genre, lo-fi is mainly associated with recordings from the 1980s onwards, when cassette technology such as Tascam's four-track Portastudio became widely available. Prime early exponents included Daniel Johnston, New Zealand band the Tall Dwarfs who recorded on Chris Knox's 4-track and released on Flying Nun Records, The Bilders (period 1978-81), who recorded in a bedroom, Beat Happening and the Olympia, Washington label K Records. In the early-mid 1990s (1991–1998), lo-fi found a wider audience with the success of such acts as Beck, Blur, Sebadoh, Guided by Voices, Smog, Spookey Ruben, Mercury Rev, Pavement, Modest Mouse, Neutral Milk Hotel, Operation Ivy, Liz Phair, Will Oldham, Yo La Tengo, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Ween, David Kilgour and later (1999–2003) Elliott Smith, The Apples in Stereo, Dr. Dog, The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, Beulah, Of Montreal, Mike Rifone, Sufjan Stevens, Iron & Wine, and The Shins.

Often lo-fi artists will record on old or poor recording equipment, ostensibly out of financial necessity but also due to the unique aural association such technologies have with "authenticity", an association created in listeners by exposure to years of demo, bootleg, and field recordings, as well as to older pop studio recordings produced more simply. The growth in lo-fi coincided with the growth of extreme slickness and polish associated with the multitrack pop recording techniques of the 1980s. Lo-fi can therefore been seen as a counterculture movement, though exponents rarely identify themselves with any political persuasion.

Many artists associated with the lo-fi movement, such as Bill Callahan, or Bob Log III, have frequently rejected the use of finer recording equipment, trying to keep their sound raw instead, whereas others such as Guided by Voices and The Mountain Goats slowly moved to using professional studios.

The black metal genre embraced the lo-fi idea during the late 1980s and early 1990s as it strived to distance itself from pop music. Most bands recorded their albums on extremely low budgets, using four-track recorders and any other equipment they could use. The greatest example is the Darkthrone album Transilvanian Hunger, though almost all of their albums have an intentionally "lo-fi" sound quality. The band started as a clean, well produced technical death metal band before evolving their style and almost singlehandedly producing the low quality production style that would become common place in the black metal scene. Varg Vikernes of black metal band Burzum was also known to purposely use extremely lo-fi recording techniques on his albums. On the album Filosofem, Varg was said to have intentionally asked a local store for the cheapest microphone they had, and they sold him a headset, which he used to record vocals on the album. For guitar he was said to have used a distortion pedal to drive a stereo receiver, which made the extremely fuzzy, buzzing guitar tone found on the album. The term "raw" is generally preferred to "lo-fi" in black metal circles.

Currently, there is a growing scene of lo-fi bands in the United States and Canada. Notable bands and solo artists include Two Gallants, Wavves, No Age, Times New Viking, Rogue Wave, Best Coast, Ty Segall, Gonjasufi, Vivian Girls, Former Ghosts, Zola Jesus and Glass Graves.

There is also an even newer trend of lo-fi goth bands, which incorporate influence from noise music, deathrock, new wave, and hardcore punk. This scene grew out of an influx of ex-deathrock revivalists into the indie music scene.

Digital lo-fi[link]

Lo-fi music can also refer to low fidelity music created with low end synths, 8-bit computers, and circuit bending.

See also[link]

• Cassette culture
• Indie rock
• List of lo-fi bands
• High fidelity
• No-fi
• DIY culture

References[link]

External links[link]

• Allmusic entry for lo-fi
• Lo-Fi: In Search of an Honest Aesthetic by Jonathan Maier
• Lo-Fi music group at last.fm
• GetLoFi.com
• Low Fidelity Living - Free Online Lo-Fi/Noise Compilation
• Lo-fi on Avant-Avant

Lo
—  Deelgemeente  —
Coordinates: 50°58′49″N 02°44′54″E / 50.98028°N 2.74833°E / 50.98028; 2.74833Coordinates: 50°58′49″N 02°44′54″E / 50.98028°N 2.74833°E / 50.98028; 2.74833
Country	Belgium
Province	West Flanders
Municipality	Lo-Reninge
Area
• Total	15.69 km2 (6.06 sq mi)
Population (2002)
• Total	1,173
• Density	75/km2 (190/sq mi)
	Source: NIS
Postal code	8647

Lo is a town in Lo-Reninge, a municipality of Belgium. It is notable as the location of Caesarsboom, an ancient European Yew designated a national monument of Belgium.^[1]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Lo @ City Review

This West Flanders location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Sophie Koh is a singer and songwriter based in Australia. In the Pop category.

Brief Biography[link]

Born in New Zealand, Sophie Koh grew up both there and in Singapore. After finishing university in Melbourne, Australia, she headed north to Darwin, where she won Triple J's Unearthed contest in 2003. Returning to Melbourne, she launched her debut album "All The Pretty Boys" in 2005. Sophie is regularly asked to play high profile events in Melbourne and around Australia. She released her follow-up album "All Shook Up" in 2008. Having learnt piano since age 6, Koh later spent two years majoring in classical piano at Melbourne Conservatory of Music. Koh is also a qualified optometrist and an official ambassador for Optometry Giving Sight's World Sight Day. Between 2005 and 2011 Sophie was managed by Tom Collins. She resides in Melbourne but is currently recording her 3rd album in Los Angeles with producer Brad Wood. The new album is due for release in July 2012.

Achievements[link]

Sophie Koh signed to the In-Fidelity Recordings label after winning Triple J's Unearthed Contest in 2003. In 2005 she appeared on rage on the ABC TV channel. She became a successful breakthrough female artist by reaching as high as #3 on Triple J's Net 50 and remaining in the chart for 8 consecutive weeks. Her single "Anywhere" from her debut album All The Pretty Boys has been played all over Australia on Triple J radio stations and scored a slot on rage playlists in successive weeks during July and August 2005.

In early 2005, Sophie Koh appeared on Australian TV show RockWiz performing her song Anywhere and then singing a duet with legendary Australian singer Jimmy Little. They performed a cover of The Turtles song, "Happy Together". In 2008, she appeared on Rockwiz again. This time, the male, counterpart musician was Steve Kilbey from Australian band, The Church. The song they performed together at the end of the show was a cover of The Go Betweens, "Streets of Your Town".

In August 2006, Sophie Koh and 2006 ARIA Female Artist of The Year Clare Bowditch performed together live on JJJ Radio in an outside broadcast from Darwin, Northern Territory. For the event,which was hosted by Robbie Buck and Jay, Clare and Sophie were known as the "Children of the Evolution House Band" and played a version of the T-Rex song as the theme for the day. Sophie also performed a live version of her song "Honey I will Buy You A Mercedes Benz".

She performed the national anthem live from Caulfield Raceway (Super Saturday) in March 2007. It was broadcast live on Channel 7, and syndicated on many other networks.

Sophie has supported acts such as The Eels, The Go-Betweens, Paul Kelly, Betchadupa, Pete Murray, Alex Lloyd, Paul Dempsey, Howie Day 2010 and Mick Thomas. She was the Go-Between's national support in 2006.

Sophie contributed a cover of the Split Enz song "Charlie" for the double platinum album She Will Have Her Way: The Songs Of Tim & Neil Finn;;. Tim Finn later called Sophie’s cover his favourite song on the album.

Sophie Koh's second album "All Shook Up" (produced by J Walker(Machine Translations)) was released in Australia on 9 August 2008. She toured around Australia in 2008 and 2009, playing all states and territories.

In 2008 Sophie won the category Best Female Artist in The Age EG 2008 Music Awards.^[1] In 2009 Sophie Koh appeared on Spicks and Specks, taking over co-hosting duties from Adam Hills for a section of the show. It was the most watched ABC TV show of the year to date^[2]

In 2009, Sophie had a cameo role on Neighbours. She appeared on the show performing live with her band in Charlie's Bar.^[3] Her current live band includes guitarist Tim Reid, D.Rogers on keys/synthesizer, Ivan Jakic on bass and Phil Collings on drums.

In 2011, Sophie is writing her third album with producer Brad Wood and musician Ben Lee in Los Angeles. She launched her new single 'Lo-Fi' in October. The Video clip for Lo-Fi was ABC RAGE 'Indie Clip of the Week' and InPress Street Mag's 'Clip of the Year 2011'. The Lo-Fi Clip also voted no. 29 in RAGE's Top 50 clips of 2011.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

• All The Pretty Boys (2005)
• All Shook Up (2008)

EPs and singles[link]

• Anywhere (2005) #3 Triple J Net 50
• Silly Thing (2006) EP
• Objects In This Mirror (2008) single iTunes only
• Lo-Fi single (2011)
• I Understand ^{[disambiguation needed ]} single (2012)

Compilations[link]

• She Will Have Her Way - "Charlie" (2005)
• Like A Version 2 - "Creep"(Radiohead) (2006)
• Lazy Sunday - "Silly Thing" (2006)
• Acoustic 2 - "All The Pretty Boys" (2006)
• Rockwiz - Two For The Show with Jimmy Little- "Happy Together" (2006) - DVD

External links[link]

• Sophie Koh Official Site
• Sophie Koh clip on JTV 'Honey I Will Buy You A Mercedes Benz'
• Sophie Koh video clip on youtube 'Anywhere'
• Sophie Koh on myspace

References[link]

1. ^ http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/12/04/1228257228861.html
2. ^ http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tvradio/2009/05/28/1243456660937.html
3. ^ http://perfectblend.net/news/spoiler/index2.htm