Intelligent dance music

Not to be confused with Industrial dance music.

Intelligent dance music
Other names
  • Electronic listening music[1][2]
  • intelligent techno[1][2]
  • art techno[1]
  • braindance
Stylistic origins
Cultural originsEarly 1990s, United Kingdom
Derivative forms
Other topics

Intelligent dance music (IDM) is a style of electronic music originating in the early 1990s, defined by idiosyncratic experimentation rather than specific genre constraints.[3] The music often described with the term originally emerged in the early 1990s from the culture and sound palette of styles of electronic dance music such as acid house, ambient techno, Detroit techno and breakbeat;[4][5] it has been regarded as better suited to home listening than dancing.[6][7][8] Prominent artists in the style include Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, μ-Ziq, the Black Dog and the later duo Plaid, as well as earlier acts such as the Future Sound of London and Orbital.[6][7]

The use of the term "intelligent dance music" was likely inspired by the 1992 Warp compilation Artificial Intelligence[9][10] in 1993 with the formation of the "IDM list", an electronic mailing list which was chartered for the discussion of English artists appearing on the compilation.[11] The term has been widely criticised and dismissed by most artists associated with it, including Aphex Twin, Autechre, and μ-Ziq. Rephlex Records, a label co-created by Aphex Twin, coined the term "Braindance" as an alternative. In 2014, music critic Sasha Frere-Jones observed that the term "is widely reviled but still commonly used".[12]

  1. ^ a b c Cardew, Ben (3 July 2017). "Machines of loving grace: how Artificial Intelligence helped techno grow up". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 29 October 2021. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  2. ^ a b Winfield, Adam (24 November 2007). "Is IDM Dead?". Igloo Magazine. Archived from the original on 1 February 2020. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  3. ^ "…the label 'IDM' (for avant-garde, 'intelligent dance music') seems to be based more on an association with individualistic experimentation than on a particular set of musical characteristics." Butler, M.J., Unlocking the Groove: Rhythm, Meter, and Musical Design in Electronic Dance Music, Indiana University Press, 2006, (p. 80).
  4. ^ "The electronic listening music of the nineties is a prime example of an art form derived from and stimulated by countless influences. Partisan analyses of this music claim a baffling variety of prime sources (Detroit techno, New York electro + Chicago acid, Eno + Bowie, Cage + Reich, Gary Numan + Tangerine Dream) but this is beside the point. To claim ascendancy of one source over another is to deny the labyrinthine entwinements of culture: rooted in political history + the development of science + technology, yet tilting at the boundaries of society + language." Toop, David, in the Artificial Intelligence II sleeve notes Archived 7 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  5. ^ Toop, D. (1995),Ocean of Sound, Serpent's Tail, pp. 215-216. (ISBN 978-1-85242-743-6).
  6. ^ a b Pollard, Vincent. "Translator". Exclaim!. Archived from the original on 20 June 2017. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
  7. ^ a b "IDM". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 23 December 2014. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
  8. ^ Hobbes, DJ (26 February 2013). "Clubbers' Decktionary: IDM aka Intelligent Dance Music". The List. Archived from the original on 12 August 2017. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
  9. ^ Winfield, Adam (24 November 2007). "Is IDM Dead?". igloo magazine. Archived from the original on 15 December 2014. Retrieved 16 November 2014. …use of the idiom was initiated online with the conception of the IDM mailing list in 1993, which functioned as a forum for discussion on leading IDM artists and Artificial Intelligence. Incidentally, when I questioned Mike Paradinas (μ-Ziq) on his feelings towards the term, he bluntly answered: 'No one uses or used it in UK. Only Americans ever used the term. It was invented by Alan Parry who set up the IDM mailing list'.
  10. ^ "'No one really listens to IDM over here,' says Mike Paradinas from his home in Worchester, UK. 'You just say stuff like the Aphex Twin, and they might have heard of him.' It's a bold statement for Paradinas, who, along with friends and contemporaries like Richard James (Aphex Twin) and LFO, was one of that genre's defining artists in London's fertile dance music community of the early 1990s." "'No one says IDM in England? No, only on message boards when they're talking to Americans!" Ben Stirling (2003), Junkmedia.org Archived 24 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine, published 28 July 2003.
  11. ^ "the development of IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) is closely entwined with a mailing list established to discuss the work of seminal post-techno producers like Autechre and Aphex Twin; in fact, the name 'IDM' originated with the mailing list, but now is routinely applied by reviewers, labels and fans alike." Sherburne, P. (2001:172), Organised Sound (2001), 6 : 171-176 Cambridge University Press, 2002.
  12. ^ Frere-Jones, Sasha (6 October 2014). "The Pleasure Principle. Aphex Twin smooths out his edges". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 17 December 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2014.