Intelligent dance music | |
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Other names | |
Stylistic origins | |
Cultural origins | Early 1990s, United Kingdom |
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Other topics | |
Intelligent dance music (IDM) is a style of electronic music originating in the early 1990s, defined by idiosyncratic experimentation rather than specific genre constraints. [3] It emerged from the culture and sound palette of electronic styles such as ambient techno, acid house, Detroit techno and breakbeat; [4] [5] it has been regarded as better suited to home listening than dancing. [6] [7] [8] Prominent artists associated with it include Aphex Twin, Autechre, μ-Ziq, the Black Dog, the Future Sound of London and Orbital. [6] [7]
The term "intelligent dance music" was likely inspired by the 1992 Warp compilation Artificial Intelligence and is said to have originated in the US [9] [10] in 1993 with the formation of the "IDM list", an electronic mailing list originally chartered for the discussion of English artists appearing on the compilation. [11] The term has been widely criticised and dismissed by most artists associated with it, including Aphex Twin, Autechre, and μ-Ziq. Rephlex Records, a label co-created by Aphex Twin, coined the term "Braindance" as an alternative. In 2014, music critic Sasha Frere-Jones observed that the term "is widely reviled but still commonly used". [12]
In the late 1980s, riding the wave of the acid house and early rave party scenes, UK-based groups such as the Orb and the KLF produced ambient house, a genre that fused house music (particularly acid house) with ambient music. [13] By the early 1990s, the increasingly distinct music associated with dance music experimentation had gained prominence with releases on a variety of mostly UK-based record labels, including Warp (1989), Black Dog Productions (1989), R&S Records (1989), Carl Craig's Planet E, Rising High Records (1991), Richard James's Rephlex Records (1991), Kirk Degiorgio's Applied Rhythmic Technology (1991), Eevo Lute Muzique (1991), General Production Recordings (1989), Soma Quality Recordings (1991), Peacefrog Records (1991), and Metamorphic Recordings (1992).
In 1992, Warp released Artificial Intelligence , the first album in the Artificial Intelligence series. Subtitled "electronic listening music from Warp", the record was a collection of tracks from artists such as Autechre, B12, Black Dog Productions, Aphex Twin and the Orb, under various aliases. [14] This would help establish the ambient techno sound of the early 1990s. [15] Steve Beckett, co-owner of Warp, has said the electronic music that the label was releasing then was targeting a post-club, home-listening audience. [16] [17] Following the success of the Artificial Intelligence series, "intelligent techno" became the favoured term, although ambient—without a qualifying house or techno suffix, but still referring to a hybrid form—was a common synonym. [17]
In the same period (1992–93), other names were also used, such as "art techno", [18] "armchair techno", and "electronica", [19] but all were attempts to describe an emerging offshoot of electronic dance music that was being enjoyed by the "sedentary and stay at home". [20] At the same time, the UK market was saturated with increasingly frenetic breakbeat and sample-laden hardcore techno records that quickly became formulaic. Rave had become a "dirty word", so as an alternative, it was common for London nightclubs to advertise that they were playing "intelligent" or "pure" techno, appealing to a "discerning" crowd that considered the hardcore sound to be too commercial. [17]
In 1993, a number of new "intelligent techno"/"electronica" record labels emerged, including New Electronica, Mille Plateaux, and Ferox Records.[ citation needed ]
In November 1991, the phrase "intelligent techno" appeared on Usenet in reference to Coil's The Snow EP. [21] Off the Internet, the same phrase appeared in both the U.S. and UK music press in late 1992, in reference to Jam & Spoon's Tales from a Danceographic Ocean and the music of the Future Sound of London. [22] [23] Another instance of the phrase appeared on Usenet in April 1993 in reference to the Black Dog's album Bytes. [24] And in July 1993, in his review of an ethno-dance compilation for NME, Ben Willmott replaced techno with dance music, writing "...current 'intelligent' dance music owes much more to Eastern mantra-like repetition and neo-ambient instrumentation than the disco era which preceded the advent of acid and techno." [25]
Wider public use of such terms on the Internet came in August 1993, when Alan Parry announced the existence of a new electronic mailing list for discussion of "intelligent" dance music: the "Intelligent Dance Music list", or "IDM List" for short. [26] [27]
The first message, sent on 1 August 1993, was entitled "Can Dumb People Enjoy IDM, Too?". [28] A reply from the list server's system administrator and founder of Hyperreal.org Brian Behlendorf, revealed that Parry originally wanted to create a list devoted to discussion of the music on the Rephlex label, but they decided together to expand its charter to include music similar to what was on Rephlex or that was in different genres but which had been made with similar approaches. They picked the word "intelligent" because it had already appeared on Artificial Intelligence and because it connoted being something beyond just music for dancing, while still being open to interpretation. [29]
Warp's second Artificial Intelligence compilation was released in 1994. The album featured fragments of posts from the IDM mailing list incorporated into typographic artwork by the Designers Republic. Sleeve notes by David Toop acknowledged the genre's multitude of musical and cultural influences and suggested none should be considered more important than any other. [4]
During this period, the electronic music produced by Warp Records artists such as Aphex Twin (an alias of Richard D. James), Autechre, LFO, B12, Seefeel and the Black Dog, gained popularity among electronic music fans, as did music by artists on the Rephlex and Skam labels. Lesser-known artists on the Likemind label and Kirk Degiorgio's A.R.T. and Op-Art labels, including Degiorgio himself under various names (As One, Future/Past and Esoterik), Steve Pickton (Stasis) and Nurmad Jusat (Nuron) also found an audience, along with bigger-name, cross-genre artists like Björk and the Future Sound of London.
North American audiences welcomed IDM, and by the early to late 1990s many IDM record labels had been founded, including Drop Beat, Isophlux, Suction, Schematic and Cytrax. [30]
In 2007, Igloo Magazine observed that "IDM as we knew it is a distant memory, with reminders from the big names now depressingly infrequent, however IDM as we now know it is very much alive, albeit in a less influential and popular, but still respectable form", with a third wave of artist having become active around 2004. [31]
In 2018, Fact magazine puts the focus on Miami as a central importer/exporter of IDM in the United States. The talent coming out of Miami included the likes of Richard Devine (Schematic/Warp), Alpha 606, Prefuse-73 (Schematic/Warp), Push Button Objects, Otto von Schirach (Schematic) and many more. In 1993, Romulo Del Castillo and Omar Clemetson (Supersoul) began producing both trip hop and IDM. 2 years later Del Castillo and Josh Kay would later form the duo Soul Oddity, which would eventually release their debut album Tone Capsule on Astralwerks (an EMI subsidiary) in 1996. [32]
British electronic music and techno artists, including Aphex Twin, Cylob, and Mike Paradinas (A.K.A. μ-Ziq), have criticised the term IDM. Paradinas has stated that the term IDM was only used in North America. Criticism is dominated by the use of the term "intelligent" in the genre name, and also often calls attention to the fact that artists working under this name often produce music that is not easy to dance to.
AllMusic Guide describes the IDM name as
A loaded term meant to distinguish electronic music of the '90s and later that's equally comfortable on the dancefloor as in the living room, IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) eventually acquired a good deal of negative publicity, not least among the legion of dance producers and fans whose exclusion from the community prompted the question of whether they produced "Stupid" dance music. [33]
In a September 1997 interview, Aphex Twin commented on the 'Intelligent Dance Music' label:
I just think it's really funny to have terms like that. It's basically saying 'this is intelligent and everything else is stupid.' It's really nasty to everyone else's music. (laughs) It makes me laugh, things like that. I don't use names. I just say that I like something or I don't. [34]
Aphex Twin's Rephlex records official overarching genre name is Braindance, of which Dave Segal of Stylus Magazine asked whether it was a "snide dig at IDM's mockworthy Intelligent Dance Music tag?" [35]
Kid 606 has said,
It's a label invented by PR companies who need catchphrases. I like sounds, but hate what people attach to sounds. [36]
Matmos has remarked in Perfect Sound Forever that
I belong to the weblist called "IDM" and occasionally enjoy the discussions there, because I like some of the artists who get lassoed into that category (not to mention that we, occasionally, are lumped into that category too), and because you can occasionally find out about interesting records on that list... Matmos is IDM if that only means "might be talked about on the IDM list"- but I don't endorse that term "intelligent dance music" because it's laughable. [37]
In a 2016 interview with Resident Advisor , Sean Booth of Autechre said that,
All these things about us being "intelligent" and the term "IDM" are just silly. I'm not a particularly intelligent person, me. I'm diligent, I'm pretty hardworking, but I'm not that clever. I ain't got any qualifications, I just pick up stuff that I think is interesting at the time...There was also the "Artificial Intelligence" tag that Warp coined, but to me as a listener that never seemed to be saying "this is more intelligent." It was just a signifier of it being sci-fi music...Thing is, almost all the artists on that first AI compilation are just like us, they were regular kids, they're not intelligent people particularly. Richard [D. James] is a fucking blagger, Richie Hawtin too... I don't know how the fuck he gets away with the things he does! [38]
Responding to some of these criticisms, Mike Brown of Hyperreal.org commented in 2018,
Even in '93 to 4' the word "IDM" wasn't something any of us took seriously. It was just three letters with no particular meaning beyond our little nerdy community's way of referring to whatever music we liked from the fringes of electronic dance music. No one was intending to coin a genre name or to imply the artists and fans were geniuses. [39]
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to refer to electronic music generally.
Rephlex Records was a record label launched in 1991 in Cornwall by electronic musician Richard D. James and Grant Wilson-Claridge. The label coined the term braindance to describe the output of Aphex Twin and fellow artists.
Warp Records is a British independent record label founded in Sheffield in 1989 by record store employees Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell and record producer Robert Gordon. It is currently based in London.
...I Care Because You Do is a studio album by the electronic music artist and producer Aphex Twin. It was released on 24 April 1995 through Warp. Containing material recorded between 1990 and 1994, the album marked James's return to a percussive sound following the largely beatless Selected Ambient Works Volume II (1994), and pairs abrasive rhythms with symphonic and ambient elements. The cover artwork is a self-portrait by James.
Ambient techno is a subgenre of techno that incorporates the atmospheric textures of ambient music with the rhythmic elements and production of techno. It was pioneered by 1990s electronic artists such as Aphex Twin, Carl Craig, The Orb, The Future Sound of London, the Black Dog, Pete Namlook and Biosphere.
Michael Robert Paradinas, better known by his stage name μ-Ziq, is an English electronic musician from Wimbledon, London. He was associated with the electronic style intelligent dance music (IDM) during the 1990s, and recorded on Rephlex Records and Reflective Records. His critically acclaimed 1997 album, Lunatic Harness, helped define the drill 'n' bass subgenre and was also his most successful release, selling over 100,000 copies. Paradinas founded the record label Planet Mu, begun in 1995, where he has championed genres such as juke, IDM and footwork.
Selected Ambient Works Volume II is a studio album by the British electronic music artist and producer Aphex Twin. It was released on 7 March 1994 through Warp Records. Billed as a follow-up to James' debut Selected Ambient Works 85–92, the album differs in sound by being largely beatless ambient music. James said that it was inspired by lucid dreaming, and likened the music to "standing in a power station on acid."
Artificial Intelligence is a series of albums by Warp Records released from 1992–1994 to exhibit the capabilities and sounds of electronic music. Warp described the new music as "electronic listening music" to clarify that it was meant more for the mind than the body. The sleevenote on the 1992 compilation said "Are you sitting comfortably? Artificial Intelligence is for long journeys, quiet nights and club drowsy dawns. Listen with an open mind." The series is remarkable for its inclusion of groups and individuals who would later become leaders in modern electronic music, techno, and ambient, such as Alex Paterson, Plaid, Richard D. James, Richie Hawtin, and Autechre. Every album in the series, aside from Dimension Intrusion, has its name enclosed in parentheses on its cover.
Surfing on Sine Waves is a studio album by the musician and producer Richard D. James under the alias Polygon Window. It is the only album released under this name; James is better known as Aphex Twin. The record was released on 11 January 1993 through the label Warp. It entered the UK Dance Albums Chart at No. 2 on 23 January 1993. James' previous album, Selected Ambient Works 85–92, was then at No. 9 on the chart, and James briefly had two records in the Dance Albums Top 10 under different pseudonyms. The 2001 reissue edition includes the previously unreleased tracks "Portreath Harbour" and "Redruth School".
Jochem George Paap, known by his stage name Speedy J, is a Dutch electronic music producer based in Rotterdam. His breakthrough came with the release in 1992 of the minimal techno track "Pullover". He released music as part of Warp Records' Artificial Intelligence series in the 1990s, including his debut LP Ginger (1993).
B12 are a British electronic music duo consisting of Mike Golding and Steve Rutter. First appearing in the early 1990s under a variety of monikers, including Musicology, Redcell and Cmetric, the duo were often mistaken as hailing from Detroit, their sound being comparable to the so-called second wave of Detroit techno. This was compounded by the signature style of their initial releases on their own imprint B12 Records, limited editions on coloured 12" vinyl with cryptic messages etched into the run-out grooves, and the fact that Golding and Rutter tended to shy away from the press, and rarely gave interviews, which added to the mystery of their identities.
Classics is a 1995 compilation album by the electronic music artist and producer Richard D. James, more commonly known by his pseudonym of Aphex Twin.
Artificial Intelligence is a compilation album released via Warp on 6 July 1992. It is the first release in Warp's Artificial Intelligence series. The album helped birth the genre that would later become known as intelligent dance music (IDM).
Electro-Soma is the debut studio album by British electronic music duo B12. It was released on Warp on 29 March 1993 and is the fourth release in Warp's Artificial Intelligence series. Some of the album's tracks had been previously released on the duo's own B12 Record label under their pseudonyms Musicology, Redcell, and Cmetric. Thus, Electro-Soma functions more as a compilation of some their earliest material than as a proper full-length LP, much like Incunabula by Autechre.
Ginger is the debut studio album by Dutch electronic music producer Speedy J. Released via a joint deal between Plus 8 and Warp in September 1993, the album was the sixth release in Warp's Artificial Intelligence series, which focused on "electronic listening music" by different artists. It peaked at number 68 on the UK Albums Chart and remains Speedy J's most successful album there.
Richard David James, known professionally as Aphex Twin, is a British musician, record producer, composer and DJ. He is known for his idiosyncratic work in electronic styles such as techno, ambient, and jungle. Journalists from publications including Mixmag, The New York Times, NME, Fact,Clash and The Guardian have called James one of the most influential and important artists in contemporary electronic music.
Bogdan W. Raczynski is a Polish-American electronic musician. Associated with the intelligent dance music (IDM) movement, Raczynski's work draws inspiration from the chaotic breakbeats of jungle and hardcore rave as well as traditional Polish music and other sources.
Selected Ambient Works 85–92 is the debut studio album by the British musician Richard D. James under the moniker Aphex Twin. It was released on 9 November 1992 through Apollo Records, a subsidiary of the Belgian label R&S Records. The album consists of ambient techno tracks recorded onto cassette reputedly dating as far back as 1985, when James was fourteen years old. On release it received widespread acclaim and entered the UK Dance Albums Chart at No. 6 on 26 December 1992.
Drill 'n' bass is a subgenre of drum and bass which developed in the mid-1990s as IDM artists began experimenting with elements of breakbeat, jungle, and drum and bass music. Artists utilized powerful audio software programs and deployed frenzied, irregular beats that often discouraged dancing. The style was often interpreted as having a lightly parodic relationship with the dance styles that inspired it.
Hyperreal.org, also known as Hyperreal, was a rave culture website founded by Brian Behlendorf in 1994. It is based in San Francisco.
…use of the idiom was initiated online with the conception of the IDM mailing list in 1993, which functioned as a forum for discussion on leading IDM artists and Artificial Intelligence. Incidentally, when I questioned Mike Paradinas (μ-Ziq) on his feelings towards the term, he bluntly answered: 'No one uses or used it in UK. Only Americans ever used the term. It was invented by Alan Parry who set up the IDM mailing list'.
That said, I belong to the weblist called "IDM" and occasionally enjoy the discussions there, because I like some of the artists who get lassoed into that category (not to mention that we, occasionally, are lumped into that category too), and because you can occasionally find out about interesting records on that list. Like any other community, it allows for networking and exchange of information which is really useful and productive and powerful- but like any community, it always needs to define itself through exclusion, clique-ishness and the fashioning of some "other" excluded terms: rock music, women, noise, "real" dance music. I've noticed that whenever discussions drift towards anything about gender or sexuality on that list the cluelessness factor jumps off the chart. Matmos is IDM if that only means "might be talked about on the IDM list"- but I don't endorse that term "intelligent dance music" because it's laughable.