lost IDM classics

Search Ilkae and Proswell for original, emotional sounds. These guys aren't really cerebral enough to fall under the IDM tag (as it is currently defined, anyway), but it is bleepy bloopy melodic electronic music that you can't dance to.

pretty much the whole of kinesthesia's empathy box, though much of it isn't very D.

Breakbeat-loving IDM fans might also enjoy Electric Highway by C.J. Bolland.

you do that all the time.

I wonder what other goodies were lurking in all those IDM records I liquidated before I left Michigan. I did not go back for Christmas this year. I am dying to see what I have in the three boxes of records I left in storage. I don't remember which ones I kept and which ones I sold. Hell, I don't even remember half of what I bought. ;)

I would also like to give biggups to Jega.

yes on CiM, no on latter-day plaid (pretty much everything after not for threes)

rocketmann! is my nomination. fantastic, prescient shit. everyone who dug kelley polar should listen to rocketmann!.

Not classic, certainly lost and idm.

Does anyone remember an artist who released a bunch of cds circa 97-99ish? One word name - possibly german.

Little to no 12"s but a lot of self releases full length cds.

Very idm, very post autechre. Not funkstorung!

I remember the existence of such an artist from old forced exposure and mdos listings but the name is lost.

self released

Does anyone remember an artist who released a bunch of cds circa 97-99ish? One word name - possibly german.

ha ha oh dear

schlammpeitziger?

Oval?

oh self-released nm

t. raumschmiere?

Joseph Nothing - Disc'o Nostalgia

Markant? Except that was vinyl.

So like, the opposite of what you're saying except the german and self-released part.

Yes, Markant! I had completely misremembered, thanks!

Oh, cool! Happy to help.

wow, gang - we solved that mystery pretty fast!

In the early 2000s I ran an online community for IDM bedroom jerks. We put together some not bad compilations. Eventually we got a nascent 65DaysOfStatic onboard and started getting calls from Rephlex Records, but nothing lasting came from it. Don't know whether they're available online at all anymore, but if you're looking for IDM obscurities, you can do worse than these:

http://www.discogs.com/Various-CcommD-I/release/6867
http://www.discogs.com/Various-CcommD-II/release/6868
http://www.discogs.com/Various-CcommD-III/release/6869
http://www.discogs.com/Various-Ccommd-IV/release/6008
http://www.discogs.com/Various-TEFOSAVOutput/release/469089

http://www.discogs.com/Alex-Cortex-Inward-CTRL/release/142594
this is really good, reminds me of ilkae at times but more chilled and funky. next gen idm is best with short track durations.

the 7 minute track on there is great

the CiM album on Ann Aimee is similarly awesome

never really got into the other two albums they put out (the dribs and lucky & easy) but peeps looking for obscure IDM might dig

not so obscure but seemingly forgotten - jega's spectrum + geometry, astrobotnia i + iii

have u heard the newest aleksi perala stuff? i posted abt it in an ancient astrobotnia thread but that prob dropped off sna immediately

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL05YPqhPmTtJCfPdWzQTOGLgKuJ0mwyqj&v=BjqAbNQakrc&feature=player_embedded

yeah this new aleksi perala stuff is crazy!

http://www.ovuca.com

https://soundcloud.com/milanw/capella

soft serve stuff, i know. this sounds so much like esa ruoho it's crazy, but i like it better than esa's stuff (except for his contribution to merck's ambient comp aurora, which is beautiful and harsh but not in a cliched fenneszy/timhecker way https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFD7wFgurLE

yeah this new aleksi perala stuff is crazy!

I just found out about this guy recently from one of the campus radio stations and it's really cool, interesting stuff. I haven't really broken down his tuning system but I do like how it sounds. I've been listening to his latest release on Bandcamp. He's got a huge catalogue, though. Any tips on where to start with it? I see nakh and clouds were into this five years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpXnWaZfPBo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=EmntypXXGo8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXTqqlsaJ5k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmYlKlOBEyk

Access to Arasaka - Void();

Cepia (2007)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfzyD9fF17s

https://youtu.be/xoRE1PM7Pfs

I don’t know how to embed from zing.

I had a surprisingly hard time finding Pub’s Summer. Surely that one was a classic. Shocked Pub never released anything else.

Also loved Global Goon’s Vatican Nitez - especially Stan’s Slaves. Not sure if it qualifies as lost or classic.

Another favorite of the era is Savath & Savalas’ Folk Songs for Trains, Trees, and Honey which is easy to find on Youtube so again I guess not lost anymore than the genre itself is.

I've got nothing to do with this project, but I was the one who started it coming up to 20 years ago https://tefosav.bandcamp.com/

some of my tracks appear on the earlier comps as dog latin and autofire

Not sure how lost or classic this is, it's only from 2012 but it is a lot like melodic early 90s Black Dog. The album is really nice if a bit unfocussed; The producer's thing is mostly Detroit-inspired techno in funny / shifting time signatures.

https://youtu.be/cbI7JOwkC5A

I did a couple of computer music releases around the turn of the millennium IDM glut era, one of which is very lost, surely only a handful of copies got out there. The production is rough but the ideas still good, I think. Using generative and evolutionary processes for melodies and rhythms (but 'playing' the systems) and lots of granular synthesis and that. Probably slightly more fun than that sounds ;-)

Another favorite of the era is Savath & Savalas’ Folk Songs for Trains, Trees, and Honey which is easy to find on Youtube so again I guess not lost anymore than the genre itself is.

This is a really lovely album and I'm sad it's not on Spotify

myloveilove

o9 - Church of the Ghetto P.C.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsqHfi73l80&list=PLA__S2xSRpHHsY7Xhi23HKmEemtZlWofX

Ooops fixed the link

Guess playlists have issues auto-embedding here

I just found out about this guy recently from one of the campus radio stations and it's really cool, interesting stuff. I haven't really broken down his tuning system but I do like how it sounds. I've been listening to his latest release on Bandcamp. He's got a huge catalogue, though. Any tips on where to start with it? I see nakh and clouds were into this five years ago.

― silent as a seashell Julia (Sund4r)

the stuff as astrobotnia and ovuca is twinkly clicky early 00s

as aleksi perala, the mental union 2CD album is really fantastic, lots of breakbeat and acid references

MU3 (as AP Musik) might be his most perfect album overall, just beautiful minimal compositions

all the colundi sequence albums are worth hearing at least, but there's so many of them that they blur together somewhat. really cool minimalist techno, kind of like a chiller jeff mills.

This Aleksi Perala track finally made me a believer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0XgaIrlMKw

Usually when this thread is bumped I question whether I ever really liked IDM at all. That was pretty good though, except for the people humming tunelessly and groaning grotesquely in the background.

i'm going to get all street-team about dennis busch's work as james din a4/ pop dylan / krieghelm hundewasser etc, which never really seems to get much recognition. goofy mushroomsy kraut skank like MoM / schlammpeitziger but with malfunctioning casio / deep house M & A Oehlen undercurrents. no mean gothy metal minor key "my algorithm beats yours" but crosswired jimmy jam & terry lewis with woozin drones & shit presets. sadly the pingipung "best of" & the jan jelinek mix set on faitiche don't concentrate on the more wayward aspects but hey ho. check some out

thanks for the reminder about christ. bandcamp has HOURS of his stuff that i don't know, all for cheap.

goofy mushroomsy kraut skank like MoM / schlammpeitziger but with malfunctioning casio / deep house M & A Oehlen undercurrents

OK, I'm sold! anywhere good to start if you don't think the "best of"s are, well, the best of?

o9 - Church of the Ghetto P.C. -- otm, totally underrated classic

I had a surprisingly hard time finding Pub’s Summer. Surely that one was a classic. Shocked Pub never released anything else.

didn't he set up Ampoule records and release a bunch of mostly his own stuff on that? maybe you weren't counting that

proswell - carrot dossier for extremely melodic complexly emotional slightly video gamey idm

xp.
you can still sample a few james din a4 / esel releases at decks.de

I absolutely kick myself for not picking up ESEL 03 when browsing in a Copenhagen record shop a few years ago. All Dennis Busch records should be buy on sight. Miss Kittin mixes in his 'Flaming Creature' with Madonna's 'Material Girl (extended mix)' on her '@ Fritz Love Radio - Love Parade 2001' mix.. devastating.

I guess he's sort of a fit for Sonig or A-Musik which I love.

Feeling this solar x reissue. Crazy how all that delay knob tweaking is so all over recent productions

Friend of mine specifically requested idm artists who might be good to collaborate with on a ballet. Out of the ten artists I sent her, she liked one. Her reply started "Yeah, dance is tough ... "

dennis busch's "total youth" on pingipung in his own name virtually indistinguishable from prime vibert, but not in that encroaching fremdschämen falty dl way.

https://img.discogs.com/qwHKuJUI0sQnw7LiLamGHQRgq_s=/fit-in/587x600/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(90)/discogs-images/R-84812-1393549421-7360.jpeg.jpgkinda jeff millsy but w/ a dash of j.moss & a hint of m.fell in 1998.

I know it's been brought up elsewhere but this absolutely fits the bill for me:

Urban Tribe - The Collapse of Modern Culture
https://youtu.be/jsM0c9CnBxA

The sub bass mixing on this record is way way way ahead of its time. Micro Machines is my favorite track.

Who was I listening to a while back? Interloper. I can't remember why. Their/his debut album Augur would have fit right in with Warp's Artificial Intelligence series, albeit that it came out in 1996, so it sounds a bit out-of-date. The later albums were apparently trip-hop / downtempo, but the debut was a bit like Ginger or very early Autechre. But a few years too late, which might be why it's so obscure. Also the discogs photo makes him look like Steve Winwood, which is wrong. If you want to be a successful electronic musician you have to be thin and young. Can I make a Youtube video appear in this post? Let's see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-uwhTw92pM

That was easier than I expected / a complete failure (delete as applicable).

https://soundcloud.com/spectrumspools/by-second-woman
https://soundcloud.com/spectrumspools/by-second-woman-1
https://soundcloud.com/spectrumspools/700358bc5-by-second-woman

just discovered Second Woman.. it's pretty rad

New Proswell for pre-order! First in over a decade apparently.

https://schematicmusiccompany.bandcamp.com/album/gain

(I've only heard that one preview track but I'm excited so I thought I'd give it a plug. Hadn't realised Schematic was still putting stuff out, and looks like it's not all the hypertechnical glitch stuff of old if Proswell and Crash Course In Science are on there - any other recommendations from their bandcamp?)

Looks like there have only ever been three posts on ilm about Wauvenfold, none later than 2002, none more than a mention, so yeah, lost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPHn_VlxqWI

stoked re: Proswell!!

I asked String Theory / Thorny Tigers to put their 2002 ep Anhedonia up on Bandcamp, and they did. For Midwesterners who grew up on 90s alt-rock then found Warp Records:

https://thornytigers.bandcamp.com/album/anhedonia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTb4dlByJfc

Aw this is nice:

String Theory's 2002 Anhedonia EP CD/download available now on Bandcamp.

We found a box of Anhedonia CDs in a dark corner of the basement, and having seen some renewed interest in this album from the internet, we've made it available for purchase and download for the first time in many years.

2002 was an amazing time for Chicago's close-knit electronic/IDM scene. For a brief moment, before the bottom dropped out of the physical record industry, there was magic happening in Chicago every weekend. The epicenter was Bob and Ray-Rod's Monday night "Play" residency at Danny's. Weekend Records and Soap was the lemon-scented retail HQ and a magnetic hub for in-store performers from locals as well as artists from Detroit and Berlin. Pete Toalson and Tom Windish were bringing Warp and Rephlex artists to the Empty Bottle.

Anhedonia (crl002) was the second release from Chicago's much-too-briefly-extant Consumers Research and Development Label. We are still grateful to Geoffrey and Jodi for putting the effort and cash into documenting this wonderful moment in Chicago.

We hope you’ll take a moment to experience this document of a more optimistic time.

ilkae has his/their* entire discography at only $9.15 for Bandcamp Friday and is in a bad housing situation at present so any $$ will help out:

https://ilkae.bandcamp.com/

I know there's always a lot to spend money on these days so thanks and sorry for the vicarious plug.

* used to be a duo and is now just one guy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDAOOH8QGnE

wow that is ill and chill

what was lost is now found - CiM "series two" just got the reissue on delsin

https://youtu.be/KLXxrES2LEo

throwing shapes in my kitchen rn

boulderdash kinda reminds me of push button objects

what was lost is now found - CiM "series two" just got the reissue on delsin

Another Headspace record has just been reissued as well, though not on delsin. This classic from Tom Churchill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsoIT8dyK3c

Thanks for the CiM heads-up, picked it up on bandcamp last night! Not listened properly yet but am a big fan of "Reference" so I'm looking forward to it.

(not IDM but) the new John Beltran also on the Delsin bandcamp sounded good too but I was running out of time to preview things.

Churchill/Desantis is a good vibe, thanks! And I remember checking out that Boulderdash album way back when but it's sounding better today than I remembered, plus I see that after not putting anything out between 2001-2016 there have been 5 new albums since, including one just a week ago, so I've got a lot to catch up on.

wow yeah I got a lot of joy from ilkae in the 00s, was just listening to a remix of theirs on this early machine drum EP


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzOwNkI8AxE

And yeah, <3 CiM and Ann Aimme stuff.. Headspace is a label I need to check out.

Astrobotnia were the act whose name I've been trying to remember for two years now! Thank you ancient thread.

yay, CiM. I still get key tracks from Reference pop into my head on occasion

Churchill/Desantis is a good vibe, thanks!
Headspace is a label I need to check out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pO5pe2ZZY6c

Another classic Headspace/Churchill

https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/73456

idm revival imminent?

ftr i look both of these DJs a lot but this comp seems a bit unnecessary

Astrobotnia were the act whose name I've been trying to remember for two years now! Thank you ancient thread.

Aleksi has been on a tear recently; witness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtfZarN-bdE&list=OLAK5uy_l98u7G0pbtYAGeLo-SqAxSRMkasugHIDw

https://youtu.be/JtfZarN-bdE

thanks for linking that Aleksi album, I'm about to buy it - but it's not recent right? from 2014?

there is no old or new, there is no time ... only infinite colundi

Carpark label had some interesting IDM shit going on for a few years.

Jake Mandell - Love Songs for Machines

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ6k-zHO10s

Marumari - Supermogadon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjfqfkfd6sc

https://farmersmanual.bandcamp.com/album/11840-10-11-1

Buy the new (old) Farmers Manual for €1 and a new edit will be automatically generated - or possibly just automatically snipped out of a 90s recording - and added as a new track on the end, up to a total of 100 tracks (NB this stage seems to involve some manual intervention so I think there's already a backlog).

I assume 100 people were going to buy this whether I went in or not (who knows though!) but it's an interesting concept.

Pub - Summer got reissued if you're interested.

Those unearthed 90s Being jams on Firecracker sounding pretty "classic" in a Detroit-y B12 / Black Dog / early Hawtin sort of way. Need to give it a proper listen.

https://firecrackerrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/firec030-broxburn-funk

This is really, really good.

Those unearthed 90s Being jams on Firecracker sounding pretty "classic" in a Detroit-y B12 / Black Dog / early Hawtin sort of way. Need to give it a proper listen.

https://firecrackerrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/firec030-broxburn-funk

Yeah its a great collection.

Gridlock - Formless

Such a brilliant album, definitely needs its due.

https://ringsounds.bandcamp.com/album/unrest

Kinda cool

unrest. : rei harakami 1st album

that’s a cool album, I love “more elbow”!

nice record

my fave harakami production will always be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMRTkimQJWM

rei harakami is so cool, it's like IDM set in the Katamari Damacy universe

plus he did 2 albums with Akiko Yano

those yanokami records are great. i could maybe do with a few less covers (even tho they do put their own spin on it) but stuff like 瞳を閉じて is beautiful. i might listen to them more than the solo records by either artist? (this is probably weird)

IDM set in the Katamari Damacy universe

:)

Listening to MD - Between the Gaps and being reminded why this record was hyped up in my circles back in the day. Gorgeous album.

https://i.discogs.com/poZATM9XEUmoCBDjs-QL0QO6UYuIzS5An94lnGfMk5A/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:250/w:250/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTI0Nzc1/NS0xMTMyNTA0MTcw/LmpwZWc.jpeg daze maxim - "same place the bot got smashed" 2000. muscular skippety grooves that really go some almost has a herky jerky no-wave feel

I have always felt that Bochum Welt's 90s stuff is woefully underappreciated. Everything he did on Rephlex is solid gold.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxwRhM6COLI

that was just reissued this year on central processing unit. love module 2 too, especially “radiopropulsive”.

that was great. so much Rephlex I have yet to check out.

discussed upthread but on the rephlex tip you should definitely check astrobotnia (aka ovuca / mr colundi aleksi perälä) if you haven't already

thanks, I did get that at the time, although looks like I never ripped it to my iTunes library.

Only ever seen it mentioned once - in Tom Ewing's top 100 singles of the 90s - but this remix is astonishing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAE-TCzFHlU

He has a fair amount of obscure gems. His album with Mike P is excellent, and there's the two late 90s ambient albums on fax which feature some absolutely stellar DX-7 action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_rXLx4mKdQ

non-obscure gems, too! i recently picked up "ginger" and "g spot" on cd (used). hadn't listened in decades, somehow remembered it as much more ... techno? in a luke slater vein or something. they're definitely not what i'd call "idm" but fit in nicely with the rest of the "artificial intelligence" crew. i particularly like the "world music" touches (sort of along the lines of what black dog or ken ishii were up to) and the "speedy j !ive" CD that came as a bonus w/ this particular edition of "g-spot"

i'd never heard that remix. i remember loving "public energy no. 1" when it came out, another one i haven't listened to in decades. i was really really into lfo's "advance" in 96/97 and can recall thinking that he'd clearly been influenced it, or trying to better it. i think at the time i had difficulty telling the difference between the uk electronic music press and what i imagined was a cohesive, global "intelligent techno" scene, so nowadays i'm a lot less likely to buy into the idea that this producer is reacting to that producer or w/e, but there's definite mark bell vibes in that remix!

Ginger is such a lovely album, have in rotation more than any of the other original AI albums

There was a shit four tet remix of this one IIRC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIGNfwcCuMM

Is there a thread where this is already discussed?

https://thedeepark.com

I was a bit sceptical that I needed an 8 hour IDM mix, but I love it.

i'll check it out - where did you hear about it?

yeah this is fabulous

it is excellent.
i got the nudge about this the day before i had to do a 7 hour round trip to brighton to pick up mk2 from university.
dropped this onto a usb stick.
and yeah, it's the perfect soundtrack to a very long day of driving.

good lord just 40 mins into this and it's like heroin in my veins. I can't wait to throw this on for an extended road trip or psychedelic trip

Lot of really nice fx/layers added in on everything I've heard so far - this is pretty ambitious so far! If the quality and ingenuity is sustained to the end, that's quite the accomplishment.

Eight hours is the right length, great stuff

somehow i missed that you can, er, scroll down on the website, to find not only an interview with the creator but a mini write up on every single track.

that’s cool but it’s sort of weak that half the the track list is AFX or AE

I'm actually quite fine with that - Ae and AFX were insanely prolific between 92-98 between their main releases, side projects and remixes, and their respective sounds dominated the scene and influenced other artists in ways that often evoked "copycat" labels. What this mix does is somewhat accurately reflect my own listening habits of the era, and when I wanted to scratch the IDM itch it mostly contained releases that housed the tracks in this mix. It also seemingly has like 90% of what I would consider "essential tracks" of the era too, regardless of artist, and in that context it's understandable why RDJ and Booth/Brown dominate here.

There are some notable absences though. While Cylob has one track in the mix, there's no Kinesthesia tracks to speak of, no Jega, Speedy J, Plastikman, or Arovane (maybe a reach but his first two LPs are all time IDM classics to me). No mix is perfect, and certainly some core artists here are underrepresented (Boards of Canada, FSOL, Global Communication, Plaid/Black Dog), but in terms of adhering to a vibe and the core sources of those vibes, it hits a home run.

in the unlikely event anyone doesn't know this, itunes has a "remember playback position" option which is helpful for this mix

Speaking of "copycat" artists and staying on topic with this thread, I kinda feel Brothomstates album Claro is an IDM classic and oft overlooked, despite getting released on Warp.

The closer, Viimo is seriously all time imho. Big Cichli vibes, but much more accessible and catchy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbsNuSBByz4

my friend made me a dope brothomstates mix cd-r in college

where my Merck heads at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjJdLGJOmDo

whaddup - my first post to this thread was repping MD's Between the Gaps!

Correction! It's "Between Gaps". Damn, I think I've been adding the "the" in there since I first heard it 25 years ago

Ah nice!

That said, because of you I went a bit in a Merck hole. Lot of stuff I overlooked on that label and will happily visit in the coming weeks, so thanks!

Also - apparently one of my favorite "lush" electronic albums of all time, Kettel and Secede's glorious When Can, got a remaster release in May with 2 extra tracks! The remaster is actually really lovely, and sounds quite a bit clearer and crisper. Both are Merck vets iirc

https://kettelandsecede.bandcamp.com/album/when-can-deluxe-edition

Oh shit. I love Born In A Tropical Swamp but haven't heard much else.

oh wow i've been enjoying that record for years but didnt expect anyone else on this board to know it

Listening to the Brothomstates album "Claro" now, haven't listened or even thought about this in years. I own it on CD, one of the few albums I bought after only hearing a couple of tracks at the record store while browsing, what a cool discovery that was

really like this Deep Ark mix but I enjoy it most when I hear something new (like whatever's playing at 4 hours 43 minutes)

Role Model album by Cex is still classic..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQFZF-RwURA

also this Tigrics album is pretty nice:
https://exiles-electronics.bandcamp.com/album/muzzle-soul

Love that Cex album.

Back in the early days of 'post-dubstep' I did a remix for him on Kid606's label - nowhere near 'lost IDM classic' status but I was pretty happy with it at the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWc9C4RIOIU

Nice!