Teaching Juanroberto - IDM

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juanroberto

Reprezenting the Latinos
What is it? as far i understand it's basically stuff that came out on Warp in the 90s and other copy labels like planet mu. however i see people call loads of new london stuff idm cos it's made by white boys who dj to white boys in th hipper parts of shoreditch.

what is idm? is hyperdub idm? what ensures a label like night slugs isn't idm? why is idm an insult?
 
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Blackdown

nexKeysound
juanroberto said:
What is it?
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IDM in the '90s = essentially techno but with very emphasised arrangement, melodic and rhythmic detail. see AFX, Black Dog, Autechre etc.

IDM in the '00s = unfair class based slur used slyly to certain labels releasing 'nuum material
 
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FairiesWearBoots

Well-known member
I always saw IDM as a bit of a diss in the 90's - it was the the electronic stuff that wasnt 'dance' music - more stay at home, listen on your headphones in your bedroom type gig. It didnt move you like other stuff did

I will still think of it this way - basically slower/possibly deeper, electronic music that isnt really aimed at the dancefloor - listen to it when you are reading/doing something else 'electronic background music'

to call Hyperdub or Night Slugs IDM is an insult - their sound is generally ruder and more for the floor

if people confuse IDM now, its cos they never understood the phrase in the first place

its not whether its deep/technical/or made by intelligent whiteboys -

stuff made for the floor is not IDM
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
FairiesWearBoots said:
I always saw IDM as a bit of a diss in the 90's - it was the the electronic stuff that wasnt 'dance' music - more stay at home, listen on your headphones in your bedroom type gig. It didnt move you like other stuff did
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It's worth bearing in mind that a lot of people in the scene hated 'IDM' being a genre name and tried to avoid it for as long as possible...
 
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daddek

Well-known member
Blackdown said:
IDM in the '90s = essentially techno but with very emphasised arrangement, melodic and rhythmic detail. see AFX, Black Dog, Autechre etc.

IDM in the '00s = unfair class based slur used slyly to certain labels releasing 'nuum material
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fucking nailed it.
 
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daddek

Well-known member
FairiesWearBoots said:
stuff made for the floor is not IDM
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That's a pretty hideous way to describe non dancefloor music. And it doesn't hold up. No one's going to call Oneohtrix, oOoOO, or Dabyre IDM. well, unless they're a fucking idiot.

It's always been a bastard, unwanted term. And it's now a relic one - it's only theoretical value might be as a shorthand way of describing a temporary mid 90s (to mid 00s) movement in electronic music, where programming dexterity and abstraction took precedence over dance function. Abstraction in both aesthetics, melody and structure.. familiar song structures were more often than not abandoned, a lot of melodies were intentionally non melodic.
Basically the shit on early warp records and early planet mu.

But all of those things were existing before rave, a lot of 50s & 60s electronic stuff was exactly the above. No one retrospectively calls that IDM - for good reason. So idk why we are hanging on to it, futurespectively.

The word doesn't even make sense semantically. Some terms are just turds, badly coined, little illuminative value.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
mistersloane said:
I think you're about right on the money with this one. I love what Kode9 is, but I've never liked what he does.
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yeah, he'd be a great lecturer but i wouldn't want to go to a party where he was dj-ing.

It Don't Matter, apparently.

but I've seen savage street arguments with people being cussed down for being too idm. brutal. stay away from those people, juanroberto.
 
hucks

hucks

Your Message Here
wise said:
that's silly Kode 9 can definitely rock a party
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Yeah, that's a perculiar comment. He's a fucking great DJ. And I saw him lecture once and he was quite shy and didn't use enough comedy slides like my lecturers did.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Blackdown said:
IDM in the '00s = unfair class based slur used slyly to certain labels releasing 'nuum material
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Yeah, it definitely does come across as a sort of cheap insinuation. If you want to say "it's a bit white and middle class" then say it and be prepared to back it up, don't use a lazy comparison to sort of imply it without the risk of getting called out.

Having said that, there's an interesting comparison in terms of 'magpie' genres, working together a bunch of sounds and structures from other styles without really bringing anything new into the mix. Although a) that's not entirely fair on either the post dubstep crowd or 90's IDM and b) the same could be said of funky drawing together house structures with afro-latin percussion and a bit of grime, and it's not obvious what the actual structural difference is.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
hucks said:
Yeah, that's a perculiar comment. He's a fucking great DJ. And I saw him lecture once and he was quite shy and didn't use enough comedy slides like my lecturers did.
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I was only playing around! yeah, he's fine, as with mistersloane I'm not his greatest fan musically speaking, but yeah, his dj-ing is perfectly fine.

this is not the thread for earnestness!
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Slothrop said:
Yeah, it definitely does come across as a sort of cheap insinuation. If you want to say "it's a bit white and middle class" then say it and be prepared to back it up, don't use a lazy comparison
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perhaps true i know, but let's not cry for the white middle classes quite yet. i think they can handle it.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
baboon2004 said:
perhaps true i know, but let's not cry for the white middle classes quite yet. i think they can handle it.
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I'm not saying you shouldn't say it, just that euphemistically insinuating it while maintaining an "oh no I didn't mean it like that" get out clause is intellectually cowardly and stifles debate.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Slothrop said:
I'm not saying you shouldn't say it, just that euphemistically insinuating it while maintaining an "oh no I didn't mean it like that" get out clause is intellectually cowardly and stifles debate.
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Yeah but who's actually been doing this though? Not sure why people are so het up about it.
 
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juanroberto

Reprezenting the Latinos
thanks guys but we've gone off topic a bit here. i stayed up late last night and listened to a copy of Warp's artificial intelligence which apparently started the hell 'electronic listening music' movement.

it was nice and all that but nothing special. still it got me thinking (and someone said it higher in the thread) that the electronic music wasn't just dance music for a long, long time before that.

this lead me to wonder when did people start making new genres even though the genres and approaches already existed?? i think this came up a year ago when everyone's favourite New Era model Dan Hancox claimed he invented the term 'sea sick synths' even though it had been used many, many times before.

is it all WHO SHOUTS THE LOUDEST??????
 
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