As distant and close as can be. Lo-fi recording: site-specificity and (in)authenticity

Nowadays most popular music is directly made in recording studio's. Yet, both the producers and musicians still hold to the illusion that a sound recording has to reproduce what a listener should experience under optimal conditions in a real-life setting. Recorded music, as is said, should adhere to the established standards of high-fidelity: "hi-fi." By keeping to these standards, the studio itself has become a non-place, a place of transience like a parking place or an airport. Lo-fi artists deliberately counter this concept by recording under poor conditons and adding noise to their productions. In the end, however, as Melle Jan Kromhout here argues, even they cannot escape the fact that the technique of recording has severed the direct link between the musician and his audience.