Kraftwerk are a German electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre. The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. Wolfgang Flür joined the band in 1973 and Karl Bartos in 1975, expanding the band to a quartet. Since the band's formation, it has seen numerous lineup changes, with Hütter as its only constant member.
They Might Be Giants, often abbreviated as TMBG, is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a musical duo, often accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG expanded to include a backing band. The duo's current backing band consists of Marty Beller, Dan Miller and Danny Weinkauf. They have been credited as vital in the creation and growth of the prolific DIY music scene in Brooklyn in the mid-1980s.
The Chemical Brothers are an English electronic music duo formed by Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands in Manchester in 1989. They were pioneers in bringing the big beat genre to the forefront of pop culture.
The Black Dog is a British electronic music group, founded in 1989 by Ken Downie along with Ed Handley and Andy Turner. The group are considered pioneering figures of techno's ruminative "home-listening" aesthetic in the early 1990s.
Plaid are an English electronic music duo composed of Andy Turner and Ed Handley. They were founding members of The Black Dog and used many other names, such as Atypic and Balil, before settling on Plaid. They have collaborated with female singers Mara Carlyle, Nicolette and Björk, and have released records on the labels Clear, Peacefrog, Black Dog Productions, and Warp.
Tom Holkenborg, also known as Junkie XL, is a Dutch composer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, producer, and engineer. Originally known for his trance productions, he has moved to producing electronica and big beat music and film scores. His remix of Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" became a worldwide hit in 2002.
Within ghost hunting and parapsychology, electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are sounds found on electronic recordings that are interpreted as spirit voices. Parapsychologist Konstantīns Raudive, who popularized the idea in the 1970s, described EVP as typically brief, usually the length of a word or short phrase.
The Cuban Boys are an English electronic group and production team, currently composed of Skreen B and Ricardo Autobahn; the band formerly also included B.L. Underwood ("Blu") and Jenny McLaren. Their music is characterised by fast electronic beats, heavy reliance upon samples and the repetition of the name drop "the Cuban Boys" in the background of many of their tracks. They achieved success after being aired on John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show with sample-heavy dance tracks and cut-ups and were responsible for the UK No. 4 hit single "Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia" which was released through EMI.
Accelerator is the debut studio album by British electronic group the Future Sound of London. It was released in April 1992 by the record label Jumpin' & Pumpin'. It includes the hit single "Papua New Guinea".
Everytime We Touch is the first album by German Eurodance trio Cascada. It was released on 5 March 2006. Recording sessions for the album took place from Autumn 2004 through January 2006, most of which was recorded after the third single from the album "Everytime We Touch" rose to popularity; the final recording session was completed in three weeks. The entire album was produced by Yanou and DJ Manian, containing heavily of up-tempo Eurodance tracks, many of which are covers of hit songs from the 1980s and 1990s of the synthpop, Eurodance, and rock genres. Musically, the album is composed of dance tracks with thick Euro synths, trance beats that clock in at over 140 beats per minute and Europop lyrics. Lyrically, the album is composed of songs about love and dance floor euphoria.
Kicking a Dead Pig is a remix album from Scottish band Mogwai consisting of remixes of previously released tracks by various artists, including Alec Empire, My Bloody Valentine, and Max Tundra.
Aaron Albano, better known by his stage name Ming, is a Grammy Award-nominated American record producer, song writer and DJ. MING rose to prominence during the American drum and bass and turntablist movements in the late 1990s alongside DJs such as Z-Trip, DJ Spooky, The Beat Junkies, J-Boogie and DJ Craze.
Music for Adverts (and Short Films) is the fourth studio album by English electronic music project The Black Dog, released in 1996 on double vinyl, cassette, and CD. It was the first without participation by Ed Handley and Andy Turner who left to continue their work as Plaid.
Unsavoury Products is the fifth full-length studio album by The Black Dog featuring the Parisian spoken word artist Black Sifichi. It was released in 2002 on CD.
Silenced is the sixth full-length studio album by The Black Dog released in 2005 on CD. It's the first album Ken Downie recorded and produced together with Martin and Richard Dust, owners of the label Dust Science Recordings.
It harks back to Black Dog's debut Bytes, a record that remains a landmark album in electronic music's development. Martin Dust explained: "We never set off to make it like Bytes. My idea was to create something that you could come home to after you'd just been to a club or gig, that would start at the right pace and then just wind down into a great album and just chill out."
Martin Dust had been "friends with Ken for probably nine or ten years. The main connection is that we both had an interest in internet bulletin board systems and punk. I used to run a bulletin board with an old style modem and communication and information file exchange and hacking and stuff, so right from the beginning I've always been talking to Ken, about that, about music, about everything really. We just struck a friendship up like that and swapped music and ideas and continue from there."
Further Vexations is the eighth full-length studio album by The Black Dog released in 2009 on CD and vinyl. It was written and produced by Ken Downie, Martin and Richard Dust.
There is a political dimension to the album, which is revealed through some of the track titles. "'Biomantric L-if-e' and 'You’re Only SQL' hint at the powerful information databases being used by governments in the name of security, while 'CCTV Nation' spells out unequivocally how Britain especially has become a nation under constant surveillance. To complete the picture, the cover shows part of a fingerprint on a backdrop of video surveillance images and electronic voices can be heard saying, among other things, "ID card," "biometric measures," and "computer world" at the end of 'Northern Electronic Soul '.
Music for Real Airports is the ninth full-length studio album by The Black Dog released in 2010 on CD, vinyl and as FLAC file download. It was written and produced by Ken Downie, Martin and Richard Dust. The album's title and concept of sound reference the 1978 ambient release Music for Airports, created by Brian Eno. Despite the similarities, the band mentions in a press release: "Airports have some of the glossiest surfaces in modern culture, but the fear underneath remains. Hence this record is not a utilitarian accompaniment to airports, in the sense of reinforcing the false utopia and fake idealism of air travel. Unlike Eno's Music for Airports, this is not a record to be used by airport authorities to lull their customers. ... While on tour, the Black Dog made 200 hours of field recordings, much of which was processed and combined with new music in the airport itself, waiting for the next flight. This vast amount of content has been slowly distilled into a set of particularly evocative pieces of music."
Liber Dogma is the tenth full-length studio album by The Black Dog released in 2011 on CD and vinyl. It was written and produced by Ken Downie, Martin and Richard Dust.
The album "represents a radical shift toward dry minimalism, where the beat is pushed to the fore, served by pulsating bass lines and only a sprinkle of additional sounds for each piece. Closer by nature to Berlin’s minimal and hypnotic techno than to Detroit’s more luxurious sound, Liber Dogma has been devised with one aim and one aim only: the dance floor."
The title of the final track is in Japanese, read as "Kā Kurasshu Majutsu" and meaning loosely "car-crash sorcery". On streaming services, the title has been translated to "Car Crash Magick".
Future bass is a style of electronic dance music which developed in the 2010s that mixes elements of dubstep and trap with warmer, less abrasive rhythms. The genre was pioneered by producers such as Rustie, Hudson Mohawke, Lido, San Holo and Cashmere Cat, and it was popularised in the mid to late-2010s by artists such as Flume, Martin Garrix, Illenium, Louis the Child and Mura Masa. 2016 was seen as the breakout year for the genre.
"Wave" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor, featuring the producer Mike Sabath, from her third major-label studio album Treat Myself (2020). The track, which was written and produced by the duo, was released on September 27, 2019, as the second single from the album. Backed by panoramic piano and ostentatious background vocals, the electropop and house song lyrically tells the story of the emotional fallout of a failed relationship.
