Clean Error: A Story-Driven Label in a Time of Change

April 3, 2025 Uncategorized

We know AI art doesn’t have a lot of lovers—and honestly, I understand why. As a creative, it’s becoming harder to tell what’s authentic anymore. When I decided to explore a new direction for Clean Error and invest in its visual identity, it came from a place of genuine interest and love for the dystopian aesthetic. I’ve always thought that experimental music often sounds like it comes from a different world—and I wanted the visuals to reflect that.

I’m a developer at heart. Some of the earliest Clean Error releases were accompanied by glitched images I liked and other artists provided and I glitched the visuals using JavaScript and others I used Detund’s Glitch App (shout out to KERO) and various others. When I released, Errormatic Vol.2 (which will get re-released on Bandcamp soon), there were features of coding elements I built specifically for it. These roots are important, and they’re part of why I embraced the name Clean Error to begin with—logging code, translating glitch, and finding beauty in mistakes. This universe, this story, was 100% my creation, not an AI’s.

Why the Art Changed in 2024

In fall 2024, Clean Error began shifting into something more narrative-driven. Not because we had to—but because I wanted to try something new. Music has always been storytelling, and many of our artists—past and present—create from that same belief. When I decided to rebrand the label, I reached out to a phenomenal Indonesian artist who specializes in mecha-style logos. He goes by OSCURA. Real artist. Real exchange. No AI there.

In fact, most of our logo work has been done by real artists we support and admire. Some by OSCURA, some by others, and some by myself. While I do use AI tools for visuals and marketing, it’s never hidden. We don’t deny it. It’s part of the creative toolbox now, and like all tools, it depends on how you use it.

If experimental music has always sounded like the future, why fear the tools that help shape it?

AI and the Creative Landscape

Generative AI in music and art is here—and it’s polarizing. I’ve seen demos from artists that feel raw and organic, some of them use generative processes in small ways (they’re honest about it). Some don’t. Clean Error never demands one way or the other—we embrace creativity however it shows up, as long as the work resonates.

The assumption that everything we release is fake because it sounds different or uses AI art is a huge oversimplification. IDM is a genre that thrives on abstraction and synthetic textures—it’s meant to sound “otherworldly.”

Let’s not forget: glitch art, sample-driven IDM, and algorithmic composition were always experimental. Some of our influences—SKAM, Warp, Rephlex, Mille Plateaux—pushed boundaries using custom software, code-driven composition, and generative methods decades ago. The only difference now is the accessibility of the tools.

We don’t use AI to replace the artist. It helps spark ideas, helps tell stories visually, helps fill in gaps. Our artists aren’t bots. They’re real people—some of whom prefer to remain pseudonymous, as is common in experimental circles. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

A Changing Industry and PR

We’ve been promoting Clean Error releases through various PR outlets and even started our own: Port Rhombus (Big Squarepusher fans here 🙂 ). Like many indie labels, we’ve experimented with small ad campaigns to reach audiences who’d genuinely appreciate what we do.

With that comes visibility—and sometimes spam. Yes, advertising can trigger bot engagement.

When you run ads — particularly interest-based targeting or broad PR campaigns — your content is exposed to massive, mixed digital traffic. That traffic includes:

– Real human users (your actual target).
– Bots and click farms (automated accounts or paid interactions used to simulate engagement).
– Dormant accounts that behave erratically (often flagged as suspicious).

These bots may “like” a post, follow a page, or even comment generically, giving the illusion of interest — but they’re not real fans, and they can dilute your audience quality, affect credibility, and skew performance metrics.

We’ve noticed it too. When Clean Error started doing broader outreach — through PR firms, targeted posts, and Bandcamp ad rotations — a small percentage of that engagement clearly looked off.

To be transparent:

– We don’t purchase fake followers, ever.

– If we notice suspicious activity (comments with weird symbols, broken grammar, generic hype phrases), we block or restrict when possible.

– We’ve scaled back on some paid promotions, and are now focusing more on organic community building and direct storytelling (like this one).

But we’ve also reached a lot of real people, fans, and artists who’ve been with us for years. If you’ve supported us, listened, bought, shared, or even just watched—we see you. Thank you.

We’re not backed by a massive marketing machine. Our budget goes back into building the label, the platform, the music, and our community. Every bit of support helps.

A Response on AI in Music & Art

AI Music/Art… The conversation we are avoiding.
byu/Sadzillaa inmusicmarketing

I recently came across a video and commentary that touches on something we’ve been thinking about deeply at Clean Error. It doesn’t argue for or against AI in music or art, but rather just observes — honestly — where things are going. And we appreciate that approach.

The creator’s takeaway? AI isn’t replacing everything, but it is becoming part of the creative toolkit. Not as the full painting, but as the underlay — the texture, the primer, the light source. It’s not the voice, but maybe it’s the reverb on the tail end of it. That’s a sentiment we understand well here, especially when it comes to the sounds and textures of IDM, glitch music, and the visual world Clean Error operates within.

So much of IDM has always embraced the mechanical and the algorithmic — unpredictable machines doing strange things with beautiful outcomes. Artists like Autechre or early glitch pioneers were using generative systems long before AI became mainstream. It wasn’t about shortcuts — it was about process, about interacting with systems in new ways to generate new art. Today, AI tools are becoming part of that same process for some artists. Not to replace creativity, but to accelerate or recontextualize it.

As for visuals, I’ve always seen the Clean Error Universe as a dystopian canvas — a narrative world where fragments of memory and synthetic elements collide. Does AI play a role in rendering that world? Yes. But that world is still imagined by a human mind. The storylines, the sonic landscapes, the strange zones and artifacts I reference — they’re all born from thought, refined with tools.

We agree with what the video points out: this isn’t about purity or gatekeeping. It’s about recognizing that the creative world is changing — and that the tools we use don’t have to dictate whether something is meaningful or not.

Thanks to the original poster for sparking the conversation. We think these are exactly the discussions worth having.

We’ll be launching a new artist page soon to highlight some of artist roster—so people can see who we are. Maybe even host interviews or podcast logs with artists down the road (Something I’ve always wanted to do, if artists agree to it).

I also built a custom script in Python, a glitch tool that scrambles and deciphers text for Clean Error’s story. Expect that tech to be embedded in future releases—alongside our continuing narrative arcs, which are fully written by me, not a machine.

This label isn’t trying to fool anyone. We’re not here to sell you perfection. Clean Error exists to celebrate imperfection, experiment, and explore what it means to be human and digital.

If the music, the art and the story isn’t for you, that’s okay. It won’t be for everyone. But for those who have followed, listened, joined FRGMNT, bought our releases, clicked the stories, or even criticized us with genuine thought—we respect you.

Thank you for riding this signal with us.

— James / enabl.ed
Clean Error