IDM - does it still exist? What's good?

OTM. And I hate to say it, I really do but I think a lot of this came from Come To Daddy making the crossover to the American market.

Has anyone heard the AFX Analord series? Some of it's great, but if the best The Daddy can come up with nowadays is an acid notalgia fest then there's not really much hope.

Thing is it's not as if the best of the older albums have aged that badly compared to more recent stuff. I can still listen to LP5, Restproof Clockwork, Music Has The Right To Children and still hear a lot fo new sounds out of them.

i've never heard a full Plaid album either but 'Squance' is one of my favourites by them (and another from this decade).

there's a new Chris Clark out now isn't there?

There's been a massive slow-down in software which might be contributing, there's not so many new-wow plugins and the like appearing. A lot of what was the impressive production tricks of the sacred era of Our Richard now are quicker and easier to do and have lost the novelty in the main. Plus it's all based on finding and doing the new which by a process of gravity just becomes less stunning the more it waddles on.

When all these little tricks and such are discarded you're left with a lot less for people to play with. Nicer textures? Tighter drums? All of these things have been plugged away at by everyone involved for so long that it's like kicking shit uphill. The Venetian Snaresy end is long passed its logical conclusion of a 4000bpm squall with triplet fills and a different drill sample for every quarter note. And as that sort of stuff makes for a horrifically demanding night out theres very little chance of picking up a speedmetalesque cult following.

So, so OTM. When I was writing IDM tunes I was using the cheapest software possible to the greatest effect and trying to push my DOS tracker to the limit, cutting and splicing loops by hand. Now programs like ACID Pro can do all the hard stuff for you. Developments in music tech are now all about polishing things up and making them sound clearer but this doesn't necessarily make it better for the artist. Half the fun with IDM was trying to work out for instance if the strings on Arch Carrier were samples or if Autechre had built some kind of crazy synth to pull it off. Now with virtual instruments being what they are pretty much any monkey with Cubase SX can do this.

What I want to know more about is what the olde IDM faithful have moved onto. I've actually been listening to a lot more rock-ish stuff the last year. Some people have mentioned microhouse but I'm not sure I'm even clear on what that is right now. Is something like Crackhaus considered microhouse? What's worth checking out?

Sorry, I can't let this one go without comment: Jungle started as Hardcore x Ragga, and it was only when the ragga was taken out that it became Drum'n'Bass.

Not really IDM per se, but Nathan Fake's - "Dinamo" on 'Traum Schallplatten' has very Warp/IDM textures, but in a minimal-house context - and is very good indeed.

The last IDM recording to truly blow me away both musically and production-wise was Telefon Tel Aviv's Fahrenheit Fair Enough.

Ye olde IDM faithful who weren't dance-phobic (i.e. me, you, everyone else on this thread) have moved onto stuff like Crackhaus, Akufen, Villalobos. The dance-phobic faithful, like fezaffe said, moved onto stuff like Lali Puna because that's what Radiohead told them to do following the release of "Kid A".

(note: that was only partly a joke)

As I say, try your hand at noise/psych stuff like Boredoms, Animal Collective, Black Dice etc.

Sorry, I can't let this one go without comment: Jungle started as Hardcore x Ragga, and it was only when the ragga was taken out that it became Drum'n'Bass.

I think he meant "distorting the Jungle template AND adding ragga bits" not "BY adding ragga bits".

not sure but i like that on 'OK Cowboy' Vitalic hints at some very odd tangents with things like 'Polkamatic' - that idea of messing around with extremely ancient, traditional styles linked to Euro/Eurasian heritage. it may not blow the mind but it does sound wonderfully odd. he needs to integrate Russian church bells more tho probably < /ambrose/gareth >

xpost

Yes, the term IDM came from the IDM Mailing List back in the day but I picked it up from posting on the Warp message board back in 1999 and it was used as a term on TEFOSAV which was my own music-making board/soc from 2000-2004. Of course it's well documented that no-one likes the term and maybe it is the conception of having to ascribe a label to the genre which killed it. Before then I think the bands on Warp just called themselves Techno acts. Once the term had been described it let a lot of people attach themselves to it and start making stuff which was only "intelligent" if you see what I mean.

The cooler-than-thou schtick was what dragged it down it the end - I remember going to the Warp/London Simfonietta (sppp?) thing which made Squarepusher and Jamie Liddell look like a couple of insolent kids while the orchestra blew them off the stage inbetween with 200 year old classical pieces and Reich stuff. Warpers and etc were really going for the credible bit, more so as they went on and when it comes down to it Squarepusher's too hit-and-miss and RDJ's too derivative to bat at that level and so on.

Also I think a lot of people got bored trying to keep up. There's been a huge shift over to fun and accessibility which was hardly their strong point and people have left them behind. Trip hop and then IDM became the philately of music until they lost people.

nah, half of em got girlfriends and started into microhouse

I think I just threw up in my mouth

for all current IDM the listeners ARE producers! its a genre which is totally self contained! so the producers make things that appeal to producers, but not to ordinary ol' listeners. this has had the unfortuante effect of making it incredibly boring. The removal of laymen funsters from the scene (eg people who wanted to dance) made it hermetically sealed and cut off from vitality or outside influence. Eg, removing the dance aspect of it. all the breakcore stuff is designed not to make you dance, or to challenge you to dance (although its wrong to assume that you cant dance to it). i think that overriding ethos, of "you will NOT have fun!" has killed the whole scene

i know that i migth be overstating the case here, but i think the dramtic rise in bedroom producers within this scene has definately had an effect

yeuch, what a nightmare idea! especially "splat"

That said, the ease with which the newly accessible, easier than ever to use software packages have allowed a lot of people to swiftly create watered-down versions of bands/artists/records that they like has had an impact. I don't think it's anyone's fault- people are going to try to sound like the records that they like, and software developers are going to make and sell tools that will allow consumers to do that (and ease of use is not a bad thing either).

Furthermore, I don't think the "either play by the dancefloor's rules [whatever those are] or fuck off" attitude is warranted. There are still many situations where people want to listen to electronic music at home. Decent IDM records made to occupy that niche shouldn't be slagged off for fairling to be the party rockin' jams that they were never meant to be in the first place.

However . . . genres have lifespans. They must mutate or die, and they must earn their right to exist by continuing to provide pleasure, formal rewards, surprises, comfort . . . something. If "IDM" was a mirage sustained by hype about the futuristic "next level" sound design rhetoric surrrounding some of its key players, and as a generation has cottoned on to 20th century classical, concrete, shoegaze, free improv, etc and realizes that the textures and tactics of IDM can also be heard elsewhere by people who aren't as shackled to certain stylistic templates endemic to the genre, it's only natural and just that some of the borrowed finery of hype and "complexity" and "advancement" that IDM enjoyed will be stripped away.

Fair enough. I, uh, don't even remember who I stole my dis from.

That's not meant to be an insult, I know I haven't exactly sold it here. It's just far more direct and vaguely 'song-like' than previous releases ever have been. More Plaid basically! Except I can't call it that, it doesn't have the same lightness of touch really. It's a solid release worth a download though. Which again doesn't convey much positivity, oh well.

I kind of like the second disc of "Trainer" as oddly funky ambient music. It reminds me of Fila Brazillia more than anything(!) I don't much care for the nu-electro bits, and taken as a whole it's very monocolour & not hugely memorable... but it has made me more interested in checking out other Plaid* full-lengths than I was before.

*I have heard "Not For Threes" didn't leave much of an impression (and it has Björk on ffs! how can that be I didn't love it??) but possibly worth a revisit.

I'm gonna check out the new album now though :-)

The vibe of likely inconsistency, vagueitude & nicey niceyness, plus the (to me) deeply ugly artwork has always put me right off! I'm prepared to admit being wrong though. That said, the "Spokes" cover is ace, but I know the music won't live up to it!

It's like they knew they were going to split so filled the CD with everything they had. It's the only one that drags a bit for me. I could happily lose a couple of the tracks near the end of the disc.

What I have heard of Spokes just didn't have ... anything I liked. But it does take a while to sink in with BD/Plaid I'll admit.

I'd LOVE to have heard a version of "Temple Of Transparent Balls" with a mix/bolts to tie the tracks together. That shit is just unreal. It's EASILY the equal of Bytes creatively, if a bit less 4/4 techno friendly. Sometimes I even think it's the real best. And the most 'far out', I've heard almost nothing else like it in electronic music.

It's also much less harsh on the ears than "Bytes". The digitalism of the drums is a major barrier to enjoying that particular record. And weird because the "Parallel" material isn't really afflicted that way.

Dog Latin I can't believe you haven't heard Bytes!

-- terry lennox

Well yeah. This is why I like to call it all techno ;-)

(except Derrick Carter is house isn't he?)

And it's not as if they have the get-out clause that in a DJ set another record wold get mixed in before the end comes.

This is interesting. I'd like to argue that firstly, a lot of Autechre is about "waiting for the really great bit to happen" and without the long intro, it wouldn't have quite the same impact. Also Boothe and Brown do still treat their music as if it were breaks or hiphop (albeit on the most distorted and skewed level) so I think they really do wish a DJ would mix their stuff into a set. I think I tried to mix a track off Draft7.30 in with Funkadelic once and it worked pretty well.

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-549-001.jpg

I'm a bit perplexed by this thread. I'm not full of ire like Mr 'Idle Idle' up there, but I do not understand how you folks cannot see that what IDM (note: in my opinion) was meant to be has continued on quite nicely. I believe it has indeed mutated and changed, but is that not part of the evolution of music in general? I mean, I used to DJ at raves, etc, playing hard techno and (gasp) trance, and during those days (early to mid 90s) I was all over the IDM stuff on Warp, etc. But there's no way I could imagine that music staying exactly the same, and I'm glad it didn't.

Maybe my confusion is a cross-Atlantic divide or something, but it seems you UK people think of IDM as a sealed time capsule of abstract (and at time hard or abrasive) music made by Aphex, uziq, Squarepusher, or anyone 1 or 2 degrees of seperation from them. To me, IDM was essentially electronic music that was simply more suitable for listening at home than in a huge club/rave. That is not do say that IDM can't be played in clubs, nor that 'club' music can't be enjoyed at home (I do both), but for simplicity's sake, I find it a useful definition. Hate on this all you want, but it's true. And what the hell is so wrong with enjoying music you can't really dance to anyway? I'm not the 'pimply kid with greasy hair' - I like to get out and dance to house/techno/electro/d'n'b/etc like mad, but sometimes I just can't listen to that stuff when I'm reading at home or something, and a lot of people I know are like this too.

To me, I would consider all the amazing stuff on Morr, Ulrich Schnauss, stuff on Suction Records here in Canada, etc, to be 'IDM' in theory, although I suppose people now try on labels like 'electropop' or simply 'electronic music' or whatever.

To me, what this comes down to is nothing more than semantics. Some people see IDM locked into a certain group of artists at a certain time, others might see it as more of an aesthetic, like punk (pardon the cliche).

I must say i never really cared about IDM not being so hot these day´s. There is a lot interesting stuff going on in the ambient field with Julien Neto, William Bassinski, Max Richter, Colleen etc. And i recognize some IDM aspects in this genre as well.

He's certainly 'intelligent' and conceptual, yet manages to remain danceable (argue about it) or at least retaining a relationship with 4/4 whilst applying all kinds of ripped & crazy beat patterns.

Haven't heard Station 55 (or indeed any of his full-lengths) yet though.

bodenstandig 2000 - maxi german rave blast hits 3
bogdan raczynski - samurai math beats
cylob - "foid" (off of cylobian sunset)

Genre Name:
IDM
Root Genre
Electronica

Years
1990-present

Description
IDM, or Intelligent Dance Music was a term first coined from an internet mailing list in the mid-90s to describe a style of Techno music that concentrates on experimentation and an emphasis on home-listening rather than the dancefloor.

Whilst many of it's detractors and fans criticise the term - the argument being that it is hard to dance to and it implies that other dance genres are "stupid" - the term IDM has stuck fast and is now widely recognised.

Probably the first true IDM music to be released were the Artificial Intelligence compilations from the early nineties on Warp Records. Taking the minimalist sounds of Detroit House and Sheffield "Bleep" Techno, the compilation featured the now legendary acts Black Dog, Speedy J and of course, Aphex Twin (under the alias of "Dice Man").

Throughout the early nineties, IDM became the soundtrack to every post-rave comedown - something to put on after a night of hard revelling. But rather than becoming mere chillout music to mong about to, artists like Andrew Wetherall, Richard D James and Autechre began experimenting with their equipment, trying to push their machines to the limit. In many cases artists would often completely rewire their synths and mixers in order to create even more outlandish sounds. Certain techniques such as "snare rushes" (the rapid triggering of a percussive noise) led to micro-genres like Drill'n'Bass and Glitch.

The scene climaxed around the early 00's, after which IDM had either splintered into so many different subgenres that it became lost in a sea of never-ending headuparsery. Geekinness took over where originality once was and Aphex Twin's disappointing yet long-awaited Druqks album heralded the death knell of IDM. The Warp record label all but stopped signing new electronic acts in favour of post-rock bands, while other labels floundered or faded away.

The development of better and better computer software and music hardware also meant that it was easy for producers to recreate a lot of the once inexecutable sounds of earlier pioneers, making these commonplace in other kinds of music from House to R'n'B, thus making IDM an increasingly out-dated genre.

IDM as we know it may be dead, but it was always seen by it's fans as the sound of the future and if this is true then they were correct. Many techniques and sounds which debuted on Autechre and Aphex albums can be heard in genres as diverse as Grime, Electro, Dancehall, Post-Rock, Noise and even in the charts today.

The genre continues in some form or another but very few artists and labels continue succesfully in making pure-IDM. Newer artists such as Khonnor, Digitonal and Venetian Snares prefer to add guitars, vocals, orchestras or elements from other genres to spice up this now defunct style. Veteran acts like Two Lone Swordsmen seem to have gone the same way.

Artists
Aphex Twin, Autechre, Venetian Snares, Plaid, Boards of Canada, µ-ziq, Squarepusher, Bola, Two Lone Swordsmen, Autofire*, MDK, Metamatics, CiM

Essential Tracks
Aphex Twin: Bouncing Bucephalus Ball
Squarepusher: Cooper's World
Boards of Canada: In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country
Joseph Nothing: Disc O'Nostalagia
Chris Clark: Diesel Raven
Autechre: Arch Carrier
Coba: After Dinner (Plaid Mix)

Essential Albums
Autechre: LP5
Boards of Canada: Geogaddi
Aphex Twin: I Care Because You Do
Plaid: Restproof Clockwork
µ-ziq: Royal Astronomy
Digitonal: 23thingsfallapart

In the original, six-month old discussion, I think most of us were in agreement with you about this. Part of the old crowd moved on to dancier, club-oriented stuff and those who didn't want to dance stayed home and bought Lali Puna records (I am paraphrasing one of my posts upthread).

also gotta second Ai, Toytronic, Spezial Material labels, lots of good stuff there.