Boards of Canada: Classic or Dud?

someone like djp will probably show up and school me on my (mis)use of music terms

Yeah I should have been clear that I was referencing IDM all up rather than specifically Aphex Twin who mostly certainly has some memorable melodies and very exciting work. But he also has a ton of the kind of IDM-like compositions in his catalog (especially the releases since he's returned to public presence) that fit the bill of the stuff I don't enjoy at all.

imo comparing autechre / aphex / BoC is a three-way apples to oranges thing, they're each quite distinct

Agreed. I was just suggesting that BoC is what I put on way more than the other two. ;)

there is so much bad IDM!

i hate the word IDM by the way and have stopped using the term. now i call everything "electronica".

It's always been one of the worst genre names. I mean, just think about what it means: not only is it pretentious and judgmental, it also backfires because anyone who says "I want some INTELLIGENT dance music" is probably someone you would never, ever want to party with. :D

This said, everyone hates Electronica, Progressive House, Chillwave, and just about any other name you can think of so IDM isn't exactly unique but the class distinction built into the term elevates into the need fop a special level of derision.

i like electronica because 1) it's corny as hell and funny to use and 2) it is at least accurate in describing the common thread (electronic instruments) and 3) makes clear the connection to exotica and other hi fi music (inventive production, emphasis on mood, designed for listening and contemplation rather than dancing or singing along to)

i realize w/ #3 that i'm kind of out on a limb

and i use exotica v loosely (i would call, say, delia derbyshire and pierre henry a type of "exotica")

I also love "electronica" as a genre name. Agree with IDM, chillwave and almost every genre that has -core or -step suffix

Plone had great melodies but yeah they were more in tune with exotica/library music than IDM

I love Plone.

Anyway ... there have been times in my life where I'd have said Autechre were my "favourite band" and I have lots of time for Aphex, too. If I was told I could only listen to one of Boards/Aphex/Autechre ever again, it would be Boards, though.

I'm a sentimental guy and BoC is definitely a sentimental band so they'll always be my favorites. But apples and pears really

Objectively? Bullshit.

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), domingo 20 de agosto de 2017 8:06 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah I know music is subjective not objective yadda yadda I was tired and I fucked up I meant to say that GEOGADDI seems to be the consensus pick. I personally think In a beautiful place is their best one but it's an EP so I guess it doesn't count. MHTRTC is my favorite LP of them.

EPs should count as best albums iMO

Rhythm in Autechre's music plays the same role that melody does for most other artists. That's why they are special to me. BOC are unique because they create emotion with texture, maybe.

Not being 'funny', but it's kind of amusing that we're still discussing IDM vs house/techno and also moaning about the term 'IDM' in a 2017 thread. 'IDM' is like the Godwin's Law of electronic music discussion. Once invoked, it's a rabbithole you can't back out of.

But whatever, I'll bite:

The case for 'IDM':
- Yes, it's a gross term and comes with way too many trappings
- That said, yes, all genre terms are shit. 'EDM' might not be so haughty but 'Electronic Dance Music' to describe a very specific brand of US-centric turn-of-the-decade brostep/bro-house crossover is also ridiculous
- For better or worse, there is often a need to distinguish between the kind of music made by Autechre/Aphex/BoC and co, and say the Prodigy, Todd Terje, Royksopp, Air, Rusko, Deadmaus or whoever, all of whom could be described as 'electronica' or 'electronic music'
- Therefore, for better or worse, I use the term 'IDM'. It is bollocks, but it's the commonly recognised (if not the commonly agreed) term

As for IDM vs house - I came to the latter from the former. I didn't understand 'regular' dance music because I came from a rock background and didn't enjoy clubs or dancing very much. But as 'home listening' music, the Warp Records stuff was what opened my eyes to the possibilities of electronic music beyond the dancefloor. The melodic element was a big part of that, but mostly it was the ideas. Each track had some sort of central 'hook', or more often a gimmick (a rhythm that sounds like a bouncing ball for example), and that's what I liked. I also liked how, especially in the case of Autechre, it often sounded like aliens or machines trying to communicate emotions that only they could feel, that human beings would have difficulty understanding, and therefore you'd have to meet them halfway. In essence, you had to 'work' a bit to get the most out of it.

Later in my life I started going to decent clubs and parties and discovered dance music, largely through techno, electro and minimal house, finding out that this music could be just as sophisticated and emotional as anything by Autechre or Aphex, but in quite a different way. It was more indulgent in that this music wasn't designed to make you do mental gymnastics. It was still 'intelligent' in its design; still brimming with cool ideas, but this was more in the way it tapped into the psychology of the dancefloor, in the way it worked for DJs and dancers. I don't want to use the word 'spoon-feeding' here, but ultimately club-style dance music comes to the listener and the listener meets it back through her emotional and physical response. IDM rewards deep listening - it usually doesn't work that well as a backdrop. As I say, you have to channel a certain amount of your concentration in order to get the most from it.

So perhaps 'Intelligent Dance Music' isn't such a misnomer, in that it relates to the active mental response required by IDM listener as opposed to a passive physical response typically desired by a house dancer.

Great post

Generally OTM but - Each track had some sort of central 'hook', or more often a gimmick (a rhythm that sounds like a bouncing ball for example) I not sure this is true at all. What are some other examples?

*I'm not sure

Maybe not EACH track, but very often there's a clear central device or concept to the best IDM tracks.
For me, peak IDM was when composers worked a bit like writers of short stories, asking themselves 'What if...?' and executing the results in just a short space of time.

Autechre and Aphex were especially good at this. Here are just a handful off the top of my head:

Autechre - Vose In: Squelchy harmonic pads fading in and out like someone turning the volume knob up and down really fast
Autechre - Fold4, Wrap5: Time is like water in a bucket
Aphex - Nannou: An impossible musical box
Aphex - Milkman: A 'proper song', and a rude one at that
Squarepusher - Cooper's World: A funky, chase-scene pastiche
Autechre - Arch Carrier: what if Knightrider, but with a an epic string quartet?
Aphex - Alberto Balsalm: 'Bet this wooden chair makes a cool noise. Oh wait, it does!'
Boards of Canada - Aquarius: 'Now I want you to count for me while I drill into your frontal lobe'
Aphex - 4: 'Richard?' 'Yeah'
Mu-Ziq - The Hwicci Song: Ravel goes big beat
Aphex - Ventolin: 'Now you know how much asthma sucks'
Aphex - Logon Rock Witch: Trapped in the toy cupboard

There's quite a wide remit here. In some cases it's just a sample or a strange noise that disrupts the track and makes it unique ('ROYGBIV', '4') It could be the pastiching of a genre ('Red Hot Car, 'Windowlicker') for the length of one track, to signify (ir)reverence to that genre or play about with its parameters. Or speaking of parameters, in the case of Autechre it's an interesting algorithm that shows a through line from the idea to the execution (a lot of stuff around the LP5 / EP7 era does this).

I dunno seems like you're taking vibes or images the tracks give you and reading those as 'gimmicks', which is not a way I've ever interpreted this music! The playfulness is cool, but with the best 'IDM' artists it's always subservient to a greater (often quite serious) vision and not the raison d'etre of the tunes.

"IDM" is like "prog", you could write a book about why the term is dumb and pretentious but if you describe something as "IDM" I have a good idea of what it'll sound like already which is all a genre label needs to do

i dunno if Aphex had a big, serious vision. felt more like his tracks were self-contained ideas, or at least until more recently where he seems to have collated his 'style' into something more cohesive (which is where I started losing interest). Seems to have happened to a lot of these acts - BoC being a case in point where the last two albums seem to go for a more sustained mood with few great shifts in style between tracks. Maybe that's a subjective perception, but I never thought of IDM as a set 'sound' (like electro or trance) and more an electronic genre in its own right, quite apart from (but still clearly influenced by) dance-music. I couldn't tell you what IDM sounds like, it's more the functionality behind it, in that one would treat it more as a form of art-rock or art-pop than a dance subgenre

The label 'home listening electronica' was proposed as an alternative to 'IDM' but that's just a cumbersome, and I've listened to IDM stuff outside of a domestic setting. I've seen it performed live and in clubs etc (and likewise I've listened to dance music at home, while walking around etc), so that's not quite right, although 'home listening electronica' gets closer to the essential difference between IDM and dance music

Oh, there's a very definite set of 'sounds' I associate with IDM. It has wider parameters than most other electronic genres, by its very nature, but its producers have more in common stylistically than just a spirit of experimentation or whatever.

disagree!

yeah, i have to say i disagree too. Boards of Canada don't sound like Kid606 doesn't sound like Plaid don't sound like Two Lone Swordsmen, all of whom I associate with IDM to one extent or another. I Think one of the reasons the genre started to flag a bit c2003 was that a glut of producers had started to do precisely this by mimicking their heroes and forebears and making music that sounded generically 'IDM'; kind of in the same way Nickelback and Puddle of Mudd took all the hallmarks of grunge and mashed them together into something 'grunge-sounding' but beige and not half as interesting as Nirvana or Pearl Jam or Alice In Chains, all of whom sounded pretty distinct from each other.

i disagree w some of what you said too but yr posts were essay length and i don't have time for detailed response rn

soon though i promise

;-)

i'm not gonna post a rebuttal because obviously a lot of it is personal but i approach it in a different way

what's funny is i think of FSOL as totally "electronica" rather than IDM, although you just know they would rather ppl labeled them the latter hahaha

For better or worse, there is often a need to distinguish between the kind of music made by Autechre/Aphex/BoC and co, and say the Prodigy, Todd Terje, Royksopp, Air, Rusko, Deadmaus or whoever, all of whom could be described as 'electronica' or 'electronic music'

... why? especially when we've already established that autechre, boards and aphex don't have much in common except label and fans?

wouldn't it be more accurate to say there is a continuum of electronica, w/ artists like prodigy, royksopp, air, terje, autechre, aphex, BoC at different points?

Each track had some sort of central 'hook', or more often a gimmick

this is why i like comparing electronica to exotica or other hi fi novelty music

It was more indulgent in that this music wasn't designed to make you do mental gymnastics. It was still 'intelligent' in its design; still brimming with cool ideas, but this was more in the way it tapped into the psychology of the dancefloor, in the way it worked for DJs and dancers. I don't want to use the word 'spoon-feeding' here, but ultimately club-style dance music comes to the listener and the listener meets it back through her emotional and physical response. IDM rewards deep listening - it usually doesn't work that well as a backdrop. As I say, you have to channel a certain amount of your concentration in order to get the most from it.

ok i'm not trying to flame you here but we're largely having the same discussions about IDM because you're still saying some silly stuff i thought we'd moved past

club-style dance music comes to the listener and the listener meets it back through her emotional and physical response.

well you can't have it both ways. the music can't come to the listener AND the listener meet it back

IDM rewards deep listening - it usually doesn't work that well as a backdrop.

i don't know wtf u are doing in the club but when i am dancing i am way more attuned to the music than when i put on autechre in the background. as tim finney used to say, the dancer listens w every muscle in their body

It was more indulgent in that this music wasn't designed to make you do mental gymnastics.

why is music that forces you to do physical and spiritual gymnastics more indulgent than music designed to make you do mental gymnastics?

also why are we even privileging the idea of any sort of gymnastics here? since when was music about doing taste gymnastics? and why NOT be indulgent when listening to music? isn't it a sensual pleasure? or is it just a masochistic test of who can do the most rigorous mental gymnastics in reaction to a sound? (just remembered we're on ILM so don't answer that)

As I say, you have to channel a certain amount of your concentration in order to get the most from it.

also i forget that europeans don't actually dance

before you flame me back I'VE WATCHED BOILER ROOM all you all do is bop aimlessly in place

active mental response required by IDM listener as opposed to a passive physical response typically desired by a house dancer.

active mental vs passive physical

sigh

NERD ALERT

It could be the pastiching of a genre ('Red Hot Car, 'Windowlicker') for the length of one track, to signify (ir)reverence to that genre or play about with its parameters.

which is something that music producers of all genres have been doing forever in all sorts of music (pick a genre if you want examples)

The label 'home listening electronica' was proposed as an alternative to 'IDM' but that's just a cumbersome

i am surprised you have a problem w/ more words as opposed to fewer

. I couldn't tell you what IDM sounds like, it's more the functionality behind it, in that one would treat it more as a form of art-rock or art-pop than a dance subgenre

now this i actually agree w/ which is why i am so surprised that you would draw a sharp dividing line between, say, BoC and Air

Yeah, definitely not feeling this mind-body dichotomizing of electronic musics.

For me, peak IDM was when composers worked a bit like writers of short stories, asking themselves 'What if...?' and executing the results in just a short space of time.

Autechre and Aphex were especially good at this. Here are just a handful off the top of my head:

this is gross and unmusical

But also yes to the idea of defining the difference by their respective *functions*. I think that's fair. Just as chamber music has different characteristics from orchestral music, because one is designed to be listened to in a chamber and the other in a concert hall, so house music and IDM are going to have different characteristics because one is designed for the club and the other is for headphones, although of course there is going to be blurring and overlap. And there is IDM that's stupid as shit, and house that's smart as shit.

I couldn't tell you what IDM sounds like, it's more the functionality behind it, in that one would treat it more as a form of art-rock or art-pop than a dance subgenre

I've seen it performed live and in clubs etc (and likewise I've listened to dance music at home, while walking around etc),

ok so here you contradict yourself by first making it about the author's intention and then making it about the reader's response, you have to pick one or accept that both are insufficient to draw genre lines

i'm totally against using intention or use to put music in categories, it just creates social hierarchies and turns criticism into faux sociology

i'd rather focus on formal properties

which is partly because i don't know a whole lot about formal properties of music so it frees me from the pressure to interpret while also focusing me back on appreciating the actual music rather than judging the scene / culture / listeners that produced the music

sorry DL i guess i did end up doing a rebuttal

nothing personal, please forgive my playful digs

which is partly because i don't know a whole lot about formal properties of music so it frees me from the pressure to interpret while also focusing me back on appreciating the actual music rather than judging the scene / culture / listeners that produced the music

this is pretty much my relationship with all things on earth. it's pretty cool except the part where no one takes you seriously about anything (not a sick burn, i'm right there with you). and even the warm feeling of appreciating the actual music in a primordial way eventually runs into problems because there will be some professor of Appreciating music in a Casual Way, phd that knows how to express their casual appreciation in a way that cannot be responded to on the same level