Intelligent Dance Music

16Jul09

Wikipedia says that “Intelligent dance music (commonly IDM) is a popular name for an electronic music genre that emerged in the early 1990s at the end of the British rave era. The genre is influenced by a wide range of musical styles particularly electronic dance music such as Detroit Techno.^[1]^[2]Stylistically, IDM tends to rely upon individualistic experimentation rather than on a particular set of musical characteristics.^[3] The range of post-techno^[4] styles to emerge in the early 1990s were described variously as art techno,^[5] ambient techno, intelligent techno, andelectronica (sp). In America the latter term is now used by the music industry as a catchall to describe electronic dance music and its many derivatives. (NOTE: This is untrue. IDM is still IDM: Syncopation.)

The term IDM is said to have originated in the United States in 1993 with the formation of the IDM list, an electronic mailing list originally charted for the discussion of music by (but not limited to) a number of prominent British artists, especially those appearing on a 1992 Warp Records compilation called Artificial Intelligence. The term is still seen by some as being peculiar to the U.S.^[6]^[7] but it is routinely used by music journalists, record labels, and fans on both sides of the Atlantic. (Remember hyperreal.org, old folks?)

Anyhow, here’s a good playlist of Aphex Twin, a prominent IDM musician who it’s good to have IDM neophytes listen to to help them broaden their horizons.