Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music is an interactive online guide to electronic music created by Kenneth John Taylor, aka Ishkur. [1] The website consists of 153 subgenres and 818 sound files. [2] Genres include little-known ones like terrorcore and chemical breakbeat, and more popular genres like house or techno, diagrammed in a flowchart style. [1]
The guide was originally posted in 1999 as a Flash website and continually updated until 2001. [3]
On December 11, 2016, Ishkur announced on Twitter that a new version of the guide would be released in 2017. [4] Due to delays, Version 3.0 of the guide was instead released on August 20, 2019. [5] [6] Unlike the first two versions of the guide, the updated version no longer uses Adobe Flash. [7]
CMJ New Music Monthly praised the website for its "...ease of navigation, pithy genre descriptions, and fairly accurate audio accompaniment..." [1] Oliver Hurley of The Guardian referred to the site as an "epic online endeavour", but pointed that several of the genres were made up by Ishkur, such as "Buttrock Goa". [2]
Drum and bass is a genre of electronic music characterised by fast breakbeats with heavy bass and sub-bass lines, sampled sources, and synthesizers. The music grew out of breakbeat hardcore. The popularity of drum and bass at its commercial peak ran parallel to several other homegrown dance styles. A major influence was the original Jamaican dub and reggae sound that came into London in the 1980s. By the 1990s, this had grown into the jungle/drum and bass sound which the UK is famous for. Another feature of the style is the complex syncopation of the drum tracks' breakbeat.
Trance is a genre of electronic music that emerged from the British new-age music scene and the early 1990s German techno and hardcore scenes.
Psychedelic trance, psytrance or psy is a subgenre of trance music characterized by arrangements of rhythms and layered melodies created by high tempo riffs.
Electroclash is a genre of music that fuses 1980s electro, new wave and synth-pop with 1990s techno, retro-style electropop and electronic dance music. It emerged in the later 1990s and is often thought of as reaching its peak circa 2002/2003. It was pioneered by and associated with acts such as I-F, Miss Kittin and The Hacker and Fischerspooner.
Electronic body music is a genre of electronic music that combines elements of industrial music with dance music. It developed in the early 1980s in Germany and Belgium and came to prominence at the end of the decade. The style has been characterized by relentless, programmed electronic beats, repetitive bass lines, and sequenced instrumentation. Typical EBM rhythms alternate between the 4/4 beats of disco and more abrasive rock-inspired backbeats.
Illbient is a genre of electronic music. The term was allegedly coined by DJ Olive to describe the music being produced by a community of artists based in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York in 1994. The word "Illbient" combines the hip hop slang term "ill" and "ambient".
Goa trance is an electronic music style that originated during the late 1980s in Goa, India. Goa trance often has funky, drone-like basslines, similar to the techno minimalism of 21st century psychedelic trance (psytrance). Psychedelic trance developed from Goa trance.
Microhouse, buftech or sometimes just minimal, is a subgenre of house music strongly influenced by minimalism and 1990s techno.
Breakcore is a style of electronic dance music that emerged out of jungle, hardcore, and drum and bass in the mid-to-late 1990s. it is characterized by very complex and intricate breakbeats and a wide palette of sampling sources, played at high tempos.
Hardcore is a subgenre of electronic dance music that originated in the Netherlands and Germany in the 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos, the intensity of the kicks and the synthesized bass, the rhythm and the atmosphere of the themes, the usage of saturation and experimentation close to that of industrial dance music. It would spawn subgenres such as gabber.
Deep house is a subgenre of house music that originated in the 1980s, initially fusing elements of Chicago house with 1980s jazz-funk and touches of soul music. Its origins are attributed to Larry Heard's track "Mystery of Love" in 1984.
Electro is a genre of electronic music and early hip hop directly influenced by the use of the Roland TR-808 drum machines, and funk. Records in the genre typically feature drum machines and heavy electronic sounds, usually without vocals, although if vocals are present they are delivered in a deadpan manner, often through electronic distortion such as vocoding and talkboxing. This is the main distinction between electro and previously prominent genres such as disco, in which the electronic sound was only part of the instrumentation. It also palpably deviates from its predecessor boogie for being less vocal-oriented and more focused on electronic beats produced by drum machines.
Skam Records is an independent electronic music record label based in Manchester, England, founded by Andy Maddocks around 1990. Skam also runs a smaller sub-label called 33.
Liquid funk, liquid drum & bass, liquid DnB, liquid or sometimes just melodic drum & bass is a subgenre of drum and bass. While it uses similar basslines and bar layouts to other styles, it contains fewer bar-oriented samples and more instrumental layers, harmonies, melodies and ambiance, producing a sentimental atmosphere directed at home listeners as well as nightclub and rave audiences. Music genres such as jazz, soul and sometimes blues have a pivotal influence on liquid funk.
Electronic dance music (EDM), also known as dance music, club music, or simply dance, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres made largely for nightclubs, raves and festivals. It is generally produced for playback by DJs who create seamless selections of tracks, called a mix, by segueing from one recording to another. EDM producers also perform their music live in a concert or festival setting in what is sometimes called a live PA.
DI.FM is an Internet radio broadcaster consisting of over 90 channels dedicated exclusively to electronic music, such as house, trance, techno, drum and bass, and dubstep. DI.FM broadcasts handpicked selections consisting of classic, new and up-and-coming hits, as well as weekly and monthly mixed shows from professional DJs. It was founded in December 1999 as a hobby project by Ari Shohat in his Binghamton University dorm room and was one of the first Internet radio stations. It has often been listed as one of the top internet radio stations.
Boogie is a rhythm and blues genre of electronic dance music with close ties to the post-disco style, that first emerged in the United States during the late 1970s to mid-1980s. The sound of boogie defined by bridging acoustic and electronic musical instruments with emphasis on vocals and miscellaneous effects later evolved into electro and house music.
Electro house is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by heavy bass and a tempo around 130 beats per minute. Its origins were influenced by tech house and electro. The term has been used to describe the music of many DJ Mag Top 100 DJs, including Benny Benassi, Daft Punk, Skrillex, and Steve Aoki.
Big room house is a subgenre of electro house that gained popularity in the early 2010s after artists like KSHMR, Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Hardwell, Nicky Romero, Blasterjaxx, Martin Garrix and R3HAB began infusing it into their musical style.
EDM trap is a style of electronic dance music (EDM) that originated in the mid-2000s and early 2010s. It blends elements of trap music, an offshoot of Southern hip hop, with elements of EDM like build-ups, drops, and breakdowns. A variety of artists spurred trap's move into pop and EDM.
The epic online endeavour visually maps 153 (sub-)sub-genres, from those that you've actually heard of (disco, rave, garage) to ones that the eponymous Ishkur has almost certainly made up. (Buttrock Goa, anyone?)...there is a total of (presumably not entirely legal) 818 sound files.