I remember finding Achso very IDM-y when it came out, especially the last track Ichso reminded me a bit of earlier more melodic Autechre stuff
Idm
- Thread starter blissblogger
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Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Fer sure, I haven't heard a lot of Villalobos, but he always reminds me of Autechre, those brittle, crunchy sounds.
Strange that dubstep-as-IDM should be so controversial (though as an American I guess I don't get it -- gotta be at the club so I keep hearing). Those Rephlex Grime comps were a blueprint for dubstep right? Seemed very much like the IDM approach to jungle on the new urban dance music.
Funny enough the only dubstep I actually like listening to is the IDM-ier ones mentioned above, Burial and Shackleton. Of course I'm doing it while posting on messageboards and checking my email, what could more IDM?
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Not exactly. The label 'dubstep', and the music obviously, existed for some time before those comps. Being on Rephlex they definitely helped bring it to the attention of its non-core audience. I suppose it was obvious that it was going to appeal to a lot of leftfield dance music heads if they heard it.
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hamarplazt
100% No Soul Guaranteed
Well, what music is really intended to be or listened to as dance music exclusively? This is what I find most odd about this old distinction between dance music and listening music - the idea that "dance music" is only for dancing and have to be heard in a club to work (it's also why I find the term "dance music" stupid and useless generally - I'd much prefer if it was simply called "tecnho" or "rave", anything but dance music actually). Do anyone here really think that people into dance music doesn't use it as listening music as well? Or am I the only one who listens to jungle-gabber-acid-belgian rave etc. etc. (and yes, also dubstep)-12"s at home?
Sometimes I think the dance/listening-split is the reason techno/rave never took over the world and killed indie rock like it was supposed to.
well most of the first one was grime ie plasticman and markone - the second one was more dubstep, i'm not sure about dave's claims that those records changed fwds crowds overnight as i never really got that feeling really and i went b4 and after they were released, fwd crowds seem to be really straight clubby people alot nowdays.
i've banged on about this b4 but i think the whole development of idm as a genre came thru the US - it's almost a kind of cultural misunderstanding and a totally diff audience in the uk than the US.
All those warp acts etc that got classed as idm were ravey people, and pretty much into that music etc, but the US audience is different as people found this stuff thru labels like trent resnor's nothing label etc, they don't dance or do ees as much in the states, esp the second gen fans, they sit or stand and watch and their thing is much more coming from nirvana or skinny puppy or something. They don't have that relationship with black american post disco music that uk kids do too, i imagine alot of those guys would write off chicago stuff as badly made disco shit, more wax trax than trax really.
Those artificial intelligence albums were home listening things - after raving gear really, not any claims to be cleverer than anything else I think.
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sounds loads like black dog to me that record.
secretagentgel
Well-known member
here are my own observations on the comparison of IDM and dubstep (and i have made them). initially dubstep was an umbrella term for a new but broad sound that was emerging. recently i listened back to a lot of early dubstep and it's pretty broad. IDM for me, initially, was the same. it was broad - unconventional electronic music making a dancefloor/rave reference. that ranged from aphex to ambient. the best examples were frenetic at any tempo, and as opposite from really repetitive techno as possible. obviously there was a lot of middle ground, and crossover. and then IDM became a lot of bedroom producers doing hip-hop tempo instrumental emusic with nice melodies and crunchy beats. the same way a lot of dubstep has become halfstep.
other observations. i came to nyc in 2000, and watched a lot of it pop off here. a nice little scene emerged. people here were dancing to everything from hrvatski, cex and kid606 to vladislav delay, cylob and squarepusher. it depended on the show, the artist, and the time we'd had to drink.
there was a lot of beard scratching. as both part of a scene and the moderator for many years of the idm-making list, the music was about the producer experimenting, whether the end product was experimental or not. towards the end of 04 and 05 i was booked as IDM but was playing mostly "creative" or "unconventional" 2step and house. my big influences at that point were ardisson and ellen allien. i think the genre reached the point where everything in what had become the stereotype of IDM had been done. a lot of people were tired of beard stroking and just wanted to dance. so producers were writing dancier stuff, and promoters were only booking those artists (here in nyc). creative production, risk and experimentation can happen in any genre, so a lot of people moved on, got older or went back to their roots. that's where most of the ex-pats i still keep in touch with are.
other observations. i came to nyc in 2000, and watched a lot of it pop off here. a nice little scene emerged. people here were dancing to everything from hrvatski, cex and kid606 to vladislav delay, cylob and squarepusher. it depended on the show, the artist, and the time we'd had to drink.
there was a lot of beard scratching. as both part of a scene and the moderator for many years of the idm-making list, the music was about the producer experimenting, whether the end product was experimental or not. towards the end of 04 and 05 i was booked as IDM but was playing mostly "creative" or "unconventional" 2step and house. my big influences at that point were ardisson and ellen allien. i think the genre reached the point where everything in what had become the stereotype of IDM had been done. a lot of people were tired of beard stroking and just wanted to dance. so producers were writing dancier stuff, and promoters were only booking those artists (here in nyc). creative production, risk and experimentation can happen in any genre, so a lot of people moved on, got older or went back to their roots. that's where most of the ex-pats i still keep in touch with are.
N
nomadologist
Guest
i think mms is right with one qualification--there are plenty of people in the US who are into detroit techno and chicago acid house, etc. They're just not "rave" types in the same way that you have them over there.
sure are they idm ppl either?
as obviously all that stuff was a huge influence on all those so callled idm types, you can hear it in al their early music, warp influences album and rephlex releasing a futuresound (chicago) records comp really early on etc, there wasn't any decision to break from that music as such from uk artists merely to reflect it back from the various local scenes/ artistic perspectives, auteurist or otherwise in the uk i think. Whilst alot of US fans of that music came in when trent resnor's label and astralwerks licenced aphex muziq and squarepusher records, and they didn't really have a knowledge where that music had developed from, most of em anyway. Neither did they have the network of raves and drugs. You could go to a plymouth union street club and see aphex playing next to the prodigy and t99 in a rave at one point.
The deal with US fans was totally sealed with 'come to daddy' which is was really playing in the backyard of nine inch nails and all that, with quite alot of pop muscle, the metal guitars the mum scaring vocals and the metal fan friendly mtv baiting video.
As it was said down thread, a shit load of this is dancing material, - early black dog, aphex, squarepusher, b12, cylob, 'innovation in the dynamics of acid' rephlex stuff, mark pritchard - who has done loads of stuff over lots of labels in various styles, you can shake a leg to it all. Most of those guys seem to be moving back to more simpler stuff now anyway.
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N
nomadologist
Guest
Ehh I see what you mean, but I have to disagree with this. I know tons of former jungle kids, former d&b kids, and they have done LOADS of ecstacy, dust, meth (mostly meth), k, acid, you name it. it was a huge network, people would fly across country just to go to one "party" (we called them parties not raves.) they are still the go-to people for good connects. philly and d.c. were huge meccas for them.
maybe the major difference between our "party kids" or ravers and the U.K.'s is that these kids never morphed into IDM fans. it just sorta died out. many of them actually became electro people.
i guess gavin is right in that we don't have as many people who look at detroit techno canonically. like for me it was hilarious to read that some people from europe try to draw direct lines from detroit techno to hip-hop. in terms of american social-historical dynamics i really don't think there is a direct line there.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Who does this? Where? Not sure what you are referring to but I don't think you'd find many people who would agree with that.
Kraftwerk definitely shared DNA though.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Hmm don't know by name. I remember there was a thread about a "continuum" where I think me and Troy (I think?) or some other Americans from the West Coast were debating the "continuity" of the development of hip-hop out of chicago and detroit with UKers. This was quite some time ago. Maybe it was not representative of the whole, though, I have no real idea.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
People in Europe who revere Detroit techno will tend to know a lot about it I think.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Probably. But the holes in understanding were more about the social reach of the aesthetic, how much one city's music and politics influenced another's, etc. From what I remember.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
No of course it's perfectly possible, people believe all kinds of stuff. It's definitely not a representative view though as you say, although there will be links of some kind inevitably. I mean there is actually a fair amount of hip hop in Detroit techno, especially coming from the point where hip-hop and electro were not so differentiated. So not really 'direct lines from Detroit techno to hip-hop', but going the other way for sure. I think I remember that thread now.
I get what you are saying about 'social historical dynamics' (that means 'people' right?), but when you have records and radio and so on that doesn't really matter so much when it comes to the evolution of musical styles.
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Leo
Well-known member
detroit certainly had a profound influence on many uk/euro techno people, but believe me when i say barely anyone in the states was aware of them at the time...or even since then, for that matter. i can't imagine any hip hop heads here mentioning juan atkins or ur (as great as they are) as influences.
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
yes and no
the u.s. audience for warp, aphex, etc, was different than the original house constituency, and, yes, a lot of them came out of industrial and indie rock scenes
HOWEVER, i was in england in 92/93 -- i was there, man -- and the whole entire "intelligent dance" movement began in the uk at that time and was packaged as such
knowledge at sw1 as early as fall 92
and there as a huge media push for "ambient" music as the next big thing, as a definite musical advance over house and hardcore -- magazines like ID had issues devoted to "ambient" -- and theses magaiznes pushed people like aphex twin and bandulu and orbital
so, yeah, you can pin a lot of things on us ravers, who in the main came to things rather late and with blinkered understandings -- but intelligent dance was a UK invention without one scintilla of doubt