when did IDM become to dance what undie is to hip hop?

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the reynoldsian disparagement of idm in the last few years got me thinking about how it became the new undie/backpacker/beard hip hop, i mean i agree with this line, indietronica or whatver, crap like manitoba, dntel and distinctly underwhelming stuff on morr etc, but its not really the quality of the music i'm talking about (i like some of this stuff too - schlammpeitziger/boc etc)

is it that undie has always been geeks looking in at hip hop, trying to be hip hop but unsure of their ground, the difficulty of even being accepted as hip hop, a strange dusty annexe to the party, whereas IDM has become this over time

i mean, the relationship between hip hop and undie is an odd one, particularly audience-wise, like the connection is wispy, tangential? whereas with idm, has it become this way over time. i was a lot happier with the drill'n'bass circa 95 takes on jungle, because, to me, aphex etc were part of the same milieu, people who had come up through rave, i saw aphex play alongside vath and grooverider and mills, and they all seemed linked still, it wasnt as though aphex was an outside copping peoples style, or leeching off street dance musics, because to me, he was street music also. and the people that came through at that time, warp/idm nights didnt really play that differently from techno nights around, and the influence of UR etc kind of linked everything,

but idms dismal failure to relate to garage or, to my mind, any post-95 dance music is somehow a shame, a willingness to admit they are not part of what matters. speed garages arrival seemed to throw a curveball to a lot of people, and the emergence of indie-tronica to me seems a much a reaction to that as anything else.

until a couple of years ago, i'd always thought we were still in this post 88 milieu, like all the endless 'new' things could still be viewed through a 1988 lens, an endless 90s that has stretched past the y2k, but over time i've thought 1995/6 is a real end to that period dance wise (despite most of the people involved carrying right on until today), and that 1997 is a better marker for the current period.

so, ok, i've gone off the track with this, i'm just wondering about how there was a divergence between dance and idm that has become a gulf, so that they do not recognise each other across the divide, and how that relates to hip hop, and when did it occur then?

and is there the same uneasyness, defensivess, low self-esteem around idm, that there is around undie? i'd say no, there isnt, at least not to the same degree. but why? because idm is now a blatant leecher/parasite and not much else, and is surely aware of this, the endless mentalism/violent turd/vsnares stuff, the really bad attempts at garage, thinly veiled attempts at making this stuff 'acceptable', i dont know...

gareth (gareth), Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

Best music question I've read in a while, here or anywhere else! I'm already looking forward to the answers but I think you've readily crystallized an important point.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

What the fuck is Undie?

IDM is dance music that clods like *me* can enjoy. So that must make it bad, right?

kate, Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:28 (twenty-one years ago) link

I kind of feel it's not just IDM that's like this but the likes of Herbert and the Freaks and their ilk aswell, the constant nonsense about how souless and repetetive everything is and the constant prescriptions that are made by these guys for house music are just wearying.

Basically the whole attitude is contrary to the spirt of house music anyway. I don't generally want to read interviews with dance music types or most musicians really because they're so predictable, but I'd prefer predictable in a "we rock the party way" to "Oh that song is so 86, I was loving that sound in 87 when me and luke solomon found each others erogenous zones while listening to mingus".

Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:31 (twenty-one years ago) link

I think the reason, Gareth, is that all the IDM types I know, both on and offline, think garage is shite, and/or beneath them. Try posting that question here and see what kind of response you get.

Another reason is that, especially with the appearance of BoC et al, IDM became a recognisable genre in itself around the same time speed garage and the like took off... still, IDM people have tried the garage thing from time to time - look at My Red Hot Car (or is that the exception that proves the rule?)

Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

My Red Hot Car is the sound of IDM FEARING garage and attempting to deflect the fear by taking the piss, innit?

this is a great question, but i don't think you can set up this 'IDM was always part of the same scene, undie-hop wasn't' dichotomy. a lot of undie is made by people who have always been inside hip hop, just not disposed (hataz would say not talented enough) to go through the normal channels. i think the more important distinction is, as you say, in the audience. both undie and IDM appeal to people who will happily ignore the mainstream flipside, whilst revelling in the cultural signifiers of being 'a person who listens to hip hop,' or, 'a person who listens to techno.'

pete b. (pete b.), Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:46 (twenty-one years ago) link

heh Ronan that last part was hilarious.

I don't think the Reynolds dialectic has held up since the advent of trance in the late 90s, as that music seems to have become the (white-bread) "avent-lumpen" movement that broke the hardcore-as-avant thesis a bit... is there maybe less inter-scene competitiona and more intra-scene competition now?

as for IDM, i think the moniker was always a bit loaded, though i didn't really get the reference myself when I was young, as I was aware of FSOL but not the "cheesy" rave scene that was being reacted to.

I really don't think that undie:rap::IDM:dance is exactly true; whereas both undie and rap still function in similar ways, as club musics, albeit for different audiences, whereas the counterpart of 'avin it dance would be more self-concious dance scenes (my own experience is that undie hiphoppers will also dig Naked Music-style deep house, but maybe not IDM)

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

oh agreed, i think undie and idm audiences probably wouldnt dig each others sounds, it was the 'at a distance' ness i was thinking off as they relate to their host scenes.

as for trance yes, i agree, i think reynolds got trance wrong myself, and didnt pay it enough attention. i'd say that it broke in 93 rather than late 90s though. i think its interesting that idm artists (post97) have been reticent to actually take on trance though, and have usually leeched off rave-jungle-garage

gareth (gareth), Thursday, 1 May 2003 15:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

i don't think it's fair to bring herbert/freaks/et al in this, because - whether they're making it for the type of clubs you go to or not, ronan - they're still making dance music music to be cut up, in clubs, by dj's, for dancers. the albums or interviews may not bear this out, but the singles and mix cd's certainly do. on the other hand, i don't think b.o.c. ever had any intention of getting within 1000 yards of a club. (i don't hold this against them.)

i think gareth pretty well nails it, in terms of the progression, that break in 96/97. in way, this is the last time that idm could really be called "idm", the last time it was signifigantly "engaging" (or stealing from, whatever you take) dance music (or, to be more blunt "urban music", cf. autechre & electro.) the changing of the guards from autechre to b.o.c. as the paradigm-setter, the model, the light, the way was a BIG thing, i think, in retrospect. it totally freed "idm" from its presupposed need to funk or groove or do anything remotely related to rhythm. (telling that there are a few songs on b.o.c.'s earliest ep's which go for that sort of autechre "rhythmic athletics" sort of sound, with the heavily chopped drum tracks, but once music has a right... came out they WERE the forefront, and its hard to imagine them doing anything similar now.) so, in a post-b.o.c. landscape, you get people like the early manitoba tracks where he reinvents "garage" as a venue for b.o.c.-style color and tone wash experiments. the rhythms are totally perfunctory now, which also explains the rise in glitch/abstract/whatever (cf. confield, which is probably why i like it so much more than their other stuff, oddly.) in a way, the drill'n'bass guys - squarepusher for sure - are becoming footnotes, as indietronica moves further away from dance music and therefore much easier to be accepted by, y'know, indie rockers.

jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 May 2003 16:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

also, if speed garage threw everyone for a curveball, i think it's because - as matt sez - no one took it seriously: people were still talking up drum&bass as the FUTURE (cf. xlr8r) well into 2-step's reign ('99-00.) so, of course the drill'n'bass guys could comfortably sit back and think they were still gloming onto the RIGHT music, after all this speed garage stuff is just silly old house music with some wah-wah bass. oh, and of course, all that black stuff. cuz no one in idm or undie hip-hop was taking timbaland seriously in '97 either.

jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 May 2003 16:04 (twenty-one years ago) link

i think its interesting that idm artists (post97) have been reticent to actually take on trance though, and have usually leeched off rave-jungle-garage

this goes back to the whole class/race thing tho. i mean, if we can assume that IDM now = educated white kids from the suburbs, then what would be the use of borrowing from music that is the choice of their less hip (economic/geographical/racial/etc) neighbors? it would be like if yo la tengo borrowed from creed. if the whole point is seperation, why would one want to be mistaken for the other, especially since, in the case of the fans, that seperatism is intrinsic to their identity?

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 1 May 2003 16:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

i think its interesting that idm artists (post97) have been reticent to actually take on trance though, and have usually leeched off rave-jungle-garage

coughkompaktcough

(okay, they're not exactly idm, but they're not digweed either.)

jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 May 2003 16:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

and also Bpitch, jess... has anyone heard Kalkbrenner's remix of Ellen Alien's "Dataromance"? It is is one of the best examples of german "microtrance" (sorry for obnoxious genre name, maybe I should be more creative and call the genre "precision" after another Kalkbrenner record, as these records really take the cleanliness odf microhouse and simplify the beat in the tradition of Moroder/Trance).

i see kompakt, though, as continuing a german tradition of trance, whereas i think trance in the last gew years has been dominated by sasha/digweed/progressice trance, which is very different from the german stuff, as it is so deoderized and wishy-washy and i don't even know if there is anything for anyone to borrow from it as it is really just dance music minus any sort of conflict, friction, movement, or anything else. it is the real minimal music because at least minimal techno had the freshness of the conviction behind it when it came out, even if the motivations are suspect.

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 1 May 2003 16:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

gareth any more thoughts?

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Thursday, 1 May 2003 18:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

i think the distinction between idm and dance music is more an ideological one made by people like simon reynolds (who as well all know,great writer and all as he is,has his own personal slant on dance music tied in to various hang ups/romantic notions)than one made by people involved in dance music
most people i know who are into dance music would have loads of warp stuff and so on but would never use the term idm (similarly,all the "microhouse" djs i know had never heard the term)
you might find people putting on aphex or muziq or whatever at about ten in the morning,when no one is arsed mixing and its reduced to people having tea and joints and relaxing into it
the idea of some sort of philisophical afilliation w/ regard to music would be quite odd (except the microhouse heads who are all real snobs,but that's a different story altoghether)and i'm only aware of it because of posting here

robin (robin), Thursday, 1 May 2003 19:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

sorry, but I don't know what undie-hop is. Is that like cloudeaD and Anticon and stuff?

dog latin (dog latin), Thursday, 1 May 2003 20:16 (twenty-one years ago) link

I don't know that there's ever been a big shift in IDM such that BoC took the throne from Autechre. I was on the IDM-L until recently and Autechre was still the only band anybody talked about for more than about 5 posts at a time. All I know is that Force Inc./Mille Plateaux went glitch in 2001 while the rest of the good programmers started making clearly inferior tracks trying to jump onto the nu-Warp or Tigerbeat6 or Electroclash bandwagons. Which I regarded as terrifically sad because most of the best tracks in my opinion came out before everything split off into its own little subgenre cells, when IDMsicians were trying to put things together and mix it up more than they were trying to strip it all down to a single overriding sound aesthetic.

Electronic music has really kind of stabbed itself in the kidneys by oversubgenrification if you ask me. I like it when you could buy a compilation called "Trance Europe Express" or whatever and everything on it was a big hodgepodge from all over the place. Now I go in the shops and it's racks and racks of monorhythms and things I just don't care to drop $15 on anymore. To top it off I think I've really heard everything Afx, µ-Ziq, BoC & Ae etc. have to offer - it's not as if any of them has come up with a new trick since about 1998.

IDM as with 'regula' dance music is treated quite differently in the states I expect. Nobody's putting on a Planet µ single at ten in the morning over here, at least nowhere I've ever been.

Millar (Millar), Thursday, 1 May 2003 20:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

Personally, I think IDM became to dance whay undie is to hip-hop the moment the term was coined; you can see similar trajectories in their started-out-brilliant-then-turned-into-painful-navelgazing-wank life cycles.

Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 1 May 2003 20:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah you're otm really Jess, it's just the attitude which is similar and incredibly irritating. I actually am into some of the music by both the above anyway.

Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 1 May 2003 21:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

Oh and yeah lots of folx on IDM-L were getting big into undie hiphop too. Mostly Americans I think.

Millar (Millar), Thursday, 1 May 2003 21:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

shockah!

jess (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 1 May 2003 21:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

the thing about undie hip hop is that lots of the fans and artists actually believe that what they're doing is central to hip hop, like the realness ideology and all that. this probably just masks an insecurity over belonging to the genre mothership, but it's distinctly different from the more antithetical attitude i think IDM people have towards dance-proper.

the tepid movement into into indietronica is one thing, but what about the electronic/hiphop connection that is becoming increasingly visible, not so much in "urban" Autechre but in a clashing mix of sides.. RJD2 remixing Prefuse 73, Chocolate Industries, Antipop Consortium, Lex records, and so on (although indietronica also means more room for Anticon guest spots and the Morr dudes seem to love undie hip hop). i mean, this is basically "shockah!" but what is this, the underground reaction to Timbaland ripping rave synths, but maybe more like some 2-become-one mutual swapping of "i am hip hop!" and "the future!". so what a delusional double bind as a logical endpoint dusty+parasitic DEATH for everybody?

Honda (Honda), Thursday, 1 May 2003 22:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

(im playing devil's advocate but i do find the cross-over thing underwhelming perhaps even beyond each respective genre)

Honda (Honda), Thursday, 1 May 2003 22:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

Boards of Canada are rad
So is Timbaland (and the Streets and Mike Ladd)

Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Friday, 2 May 2003 01:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

I kind of agree with Honda at least as far as he seems to be saying that it does neither genre any good for them to xover if they are only going to be pollinating one another with their most boring qualities - in the case of both undie and IDM I think the avoidance of anything 'catchy' or 'accessible' is one of the defining characteristics at the moment, and at the risk of sounding Geirish I'm gonna have to call that a mistake. Anybody can make something that sounds arrythmic, atonal and leftfield without breaking a sweat, so why would you think people would be interested in listening to your version? Eh. This is about to turn into another one of those ILM indiesuxxorz rants isn't it? I'm done.

Millar (Millar), Friday, 2 May 2003 01:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

I just resisted buying an extremely cheap copy of the new Autechre album. I feel good.

electric sound of jim (electricsound), Friday, 2 May 2003 01:51 (twenty-one years ago) link

"Electronic music has really kind of stabbed itself in the kidneys by oversubgenrification if you ask me. I like it when you could buy a compilation called "Trance Europe Express" or whatever and everything on it was a big hodgepodge from all over the place."

I don't think the process is nearly as mono-directional as that. There's always miniature big bangs and big crunches happening all the time eg. "Modulations & Transformations 4" was terrifically varied --> "Clicks + Cuts" very focused ---> "Clicks & Cuts 3" much more varied again. And likewise check the sense of expansion from "Hypercity" to "Digital Disco", from "Total 1" to "Total 4". There's multiple processes of division, specialisation, hybridisation, repatriation, infection etc. etc. happening at any given moment.

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 2 May 2003 02:09 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yeah but for the past several dozen given moments I've been almost completely disappointed. Ehh.

Millar (Millar), Friday, 2 May 2003 02:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

A nice Reynolds quote from Energy Flash:

"When a genre starts to think of itself as 'intelligent,' this is usually a warning sign that it's on the verge of losing its edge, or at least its sense of fun. Usually, this progressivist discourse marks a class-based or generational struggle to seize control of a music's direction; look at the schism between prog rock and heavy metal, between the post-punk vanguard and Oi!, between bohemian art-rap and gangsta, between intelligent techno and 'ardkore. The 'maturity' and 'intelligence' often reside less in the music itself than in the way it's used (for reverent, sedentary consumption as opposed to sweaty, boisterous physicality)."

I like this vision because I imagine the engines of popular production -- dance, hip-hop, etc. churning and transforming and these "intellegent" genres flying off them like sparks, burning bright and then out as they arc away. There never was just one IDM, but a variety of "intelligent" turns made from every dancefloor genre (sometimes multiple ones from each). "Refined" Detroit Techno, Ambient, Drill & Bass, the "respectible" Drum and Bass turn, broken beats, tempa-style garage, MJ-cole style garage, etc.

Microhouse perhaps stands apart because the connection to the dancefloor is more viable and toyed with, and so hence the whole genre feels more viable, still chained to everything happening around it for the moment, and unlike other "intelligent" turns not a flight from the body but a turn more deeply into it.

Also I think the Undie comparison is way off for precisely these reasons -- sure you have your way-out-abstract etc. but undie is a current rather than simply a label for a certain set of sounds, and its dynamic is much more varied with a broader range of dialogue and history. J5 are like detroit revivalism on one hand, then you have pharoh monach who is the jeff mills of hip-hop and mos def which is tempa and EL-P who is a wannabe aphex and Northern State who are, what, the streets?

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 2 May 2003 03:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

One thing I can tell you for sure is that most artists who you lot would class as IDM would look at you in a very funny way and and you what it meant. As genre definitions go IDM is a very lazy one, on this thread all manner of things have been thrown into the mix which, although part of the same canon purely in terms of labels and cross pollination, are divergant in style and influence. I for one really hate the term because it represents a self satisfied smugness on the part of listners who want to set themselves apart from pete tong but can only achieve this by a tribal, this is mine and that is yours attitude. I know I was one of them, beligerantly anti 4 to the floor.

Having worked in the belly of the beast, quite a lot of these people feel that they are still turning out dance music, its just moved on a bit from farley jackmaster funk. They're doing it because people want to dance to it, and its a terrible shame if their so stuck up their own arses that they can't appreciate at least some of the stuff that sounds more like farley jackmaster funk.

As jess said further up, BOC, the Morr lot, a lot on leaf etc.aren't making dance music, sometimes people dance to it. They are making music informed by dance music and informed by dance music production technique, but its not limited to those influences. If you listen to Boards' early stuff you can see that they are very disco influenced and might have become daft punk, but that's an aside.

At the end of the day its possible to become too reductivist, if you want to genre define call it electronica, its far less loaded but I understand how that might be misinterpreted in the states. At the end of the day there are only two kinds of music. Music you like and music you don't and I find in my little worl those categories are prett fluid.

Ed (dali), Friday, 2 May 2003 07:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

One thing I can tell you for sure is that most artists who you lot would class as IDM would look at you in a very funny way and and you what it meant. As genre definitions go IDM is a very lazy one, on this thread all manner of things have been thrown into the mix which, although part of the same canon purely in terms of labels and cross pollination, are divergant in style and influence. I for one really hate the term because it represents a self satisfied smugness on the part of listners who want to set themselves apart from pete tong but can only achieve this by a tribal, this is mine and that is yours attitude. I know I was one of them, beligerantly anti 4 to the floor.

Having worked in the belly of the beast, quite a lot of these people feel that they are still turning out dance music, its just moved on a bit from farley jackmaster funk. They're doing it because people want to dance to it, and its a terrible shame if their so stuck up their own arses that they can't appreciate at least some of the stuff that sounds more like farley jackmaster funk.

As jess said further up, BOC, the Morr lot, a lot on leaf etc.aren't making dance music, sometimes people dance to it. They are making music informed by dance music and informed by dance music production technique, but its not limited to those influences. If you listen to Boards' early stuff you can see that they are very disco influenced and might have become daft punk, but that's an aside.

At the end of the day its possible to become too reductivist, if you want to genre define call it electronica, its far less loaded but I understand how that might be misinterpreted in the states. At the end of the day there are only two kinds of music. Music you like and music you don't and I find in my little worl those categories are pretty fluid.

Ed (dali), Friday, 2 May 2003 07:00 (twenty-one years ago) link

At the end of the day there are only two kinds of music. Music you like and music you don't and I find in my little worl those categories are pretty fluid.

but this isnt true! i mean, even if you think that in your own mind, the minute you step out into the real world, when the vacuum is gone, and theres like social context and stuff, you know that isnt right. whether genres are *real* or not doesnt matter, if they are perceived as real by the public, then they exist.

i think perhaps something i missed off my original point is something to do with inclusivity. hip hop does not allow entrance to the undie people, there is the constant self-questioning of "how do i become this", the great problem of desiring authenticity, so it becomes like a parallel movement. it is important for undie people to be seen as hip hop. whereas for dance music, entrance is not a problem, there are no social barriers, go to a house/trance/techno club, make a house/trance/techno track, you are house/trance/techno, so if inclusion/entrance isnt a problem, then separation from the host scene has to be self-defined, the distance self-inflicted.

garage is interesting though, especially the gutter-garage/garage rap or whatever, because the barriers that are inherent in US hip hop are, for the first time, appearing in a home grown UK dance scene. garage as part of the london hardcore continuum (rave-jungle-speed garage-2 step) is now being fractured, it is still part of that continuum, but also now a break from rave, the continuum is distorted, perhaps over?

gareth (gareth), Friday, 2 May 2003 09:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

Perception though is only just that. Perhaps its because I've never really been part of a musical tribe that I see it in these terms.

The most interesting thing to come out of this is that electronica comes out of the fundamentally inclusive post '88 canon. Its seems to be mainly certain sets of fans that are the snobs, not the artists themselves. Which I guess does lend it so degree of apartness and can make it somewhat shitty for newcomers.

I'd never heard the term undie before this thread, but if it is what I think it is then I am suprised by how much you see it as standing apart, at least musically. The recent Mr Lif album, and Antipop consortium album seem very much informed by the techniques propegated by Timbaland and Missy Elliot. But I want to know more of what this 'undie' is before I comment further.

Ed (dali), Friday, 2 May 2003 09:23 (twenty-one years ago) link

undie is very hard to define i think, but artists like APC, Lif, El-P, etc, are not very popular in America, except on college campuses. undie is either: more avant oriented like APC, or, depending on your perspective, the other (nonavant) side of undie is either "keeping it real" and bringing back the "true" spirit of hiphop, or they are elitist reactionaries using faux-populism to bully hiphop into a very narrow range of auditory and intellectual experience (ie oldskool breaks and positivity).
I tend to think of it all as being moderate Republicanism vs Reactionary 9in us political terms). Bling hiphop celebrates the possbility of the economic status quo (consumer capitalism and only apologists call it subversive), wheras most undie wants to go back to older and more idylic forms of social organization (cant go back, and things were never that good, really). The avant stuff is really a world apart for me and many others(i tried to book APC and CAN OX at my school a year ago and none of the undie kids were in to it... we ended up with J-Live and Rob Swift instead, both of whom are good, but they are quite diff from the former artists listed)

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Friday, 2 May 2003 15:32 (twenty-one years ago) link

I dunno what u guyz r talking about but I like DJ Sammy and DJ Tiesto. What sort of music is that called?

toraneko (toraneko), Friday, 2 May 2003 15:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

fundie.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 2 May 2003 16:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

last year.

jess (dubplatestyle), Friday, 2 May 2003 16:58 (twenty-one years ago) link

Jess haha you trendy! didn't you write the Sammy article in the voice ;-) ?

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Friday, 2 May 2003 17:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

most of the best tracks in my opinion came out before everything split off into its own little subgenre cells, when IDMsicians were trying to put things together and mix it up more than they were trying to strip it all down to a single overriding sound aesthetic.

OTM. I thought the whole point of IDM was to keep things interesting and unpredictable but now you have glitch, glitch-hop, microhouse, drill'n'bass etc etc. All these sub-genres are too niche-lead and i hate these idm record labels that only release one particular style of idm - i mean how fucking retarded is that?

dog latin (dog latin), Saturday, 3 May 2003 00:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

RDM: retarded dance music

Millar (Millar), Saturday, 3 May 2003 01:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

dog latin: how many of the genres you listed have lots of artists who *self identify* as IDM?

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Saturday, 3 May 2003 02:43 (twenty-one years ago) link

v. interesting jay-z verse on the "if i can't" remix: "i tried to be modest on blueprint 2, but ya don't respect modest/ ya respect my dollars/ you gotta believe i think like an artist/ but my bills through the roof/can't do numbers like the roots".

the roots (having backed jay-z on his unplugged album, supported em at the emmys) certainly occupy a somewhat liminal (limited too) position in the hiphop continuum, but this is maybe the first time i've heard one of the mainstream hip-hoppers acknowledge the perceived creative gulf between what they're doing and what this other hiphop is doing. jay's made some similar comments before, in "renegade", in "blueprint 2" (the song) - stuff to the effect of "the bling songs are there to move stock, but there's also deep shit for the genuine fan that showcases the real me", but there he wasn't locating any kind of artistic authenticity outside of himself.

isn't there meant to be an rdj2 (r2dj?) remix of "in da club" floating around?

mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Saturday, 3 May 2003 10:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

lil off the topic, sorry, but so far this is the least circular, least ugly undie/fundie/indie/preppie/chartie debate we've had.. like.. ever.

mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Saturday, 3 May 2003 10:17 (twenty-one years ago) link

What's IDM?

Mark C (Mark C), Saturday, 3 May 2003 16:14 (twenty-one years ago) link

'Intelligent Dance Music'. Once a music starts being more concerned with intelligence than fun and excitement, it is in trouble, in my view.

Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 3 May 2003 16:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

That whole "If I Can't" freestyle is fantastic -- I wish I had the rest of the lyrics to post.

Sterling Clover (s_clover), Saturday, 3 May 2003 16:26 (twenty-one years ago) link

isn't there meant to be an rdj2 (r2dj?)

RJD2. And I hope so; "In Da Club"'s big main huge problem is that it sounds instrumentally like it's supposed to score a huge epic cathedral swordfight but the lyrics are all "gimme a hug happy love in the club" or whatever and they just don't fit, maaaan.

Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Saturday, 3 May 2003 16:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

(I know I made it sound like I think the lyrics are awful but I don't)

Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Saturday, 3 May 2003 16:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

Martin is OTM. Toraneko is OTM in tone, if not in actually liking DJ Sammy.

Mark C (Mark C), Saturday, 3 May 2003 16:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

i more or less said this earlier,but noone has responded much-the idm idea is a construct invented (or at least emphasised) to back up a certain point...
all that reynolds stuff about a scene starting to think its intelligent-in the real actual world this is a few people writing about the scene in this way,this is not how it is perceived by those who listen to it any more than other music

also,you're all ignoring the fact that you're complaining about idm in terms that would be far far more appropriate to complain about microhouse,if you do indeed care about how scenes perceive themselves,which seems like only part of the point to me anyway...
the "refined detroit" snobbery/idealism sterling is talking about is (or the idea of idm)is even more evident with microhouse,but a blind eye seems to be turned to this because everyone likes microhouse....
i mean i like all the types of music mentioned above to various degrees,but the ways you are thinking about them are largely an illusion

robin (robin), Saturday, 3 May 2003 18:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

What I'm getting at is that I don't think there's really much point in even PRETENDING that IDM has any sort of duty to relate to garage any more than indie or country or death metal does because they're clearly so far apart on the musical spectrum and in terms of the overall scene that its insane to even consider it so. I mean, the vast majority of house music doesn't relate to UK Garage particularly, but no one's calling it out. Unless, as Gareth seems to be suggesting, that IDM should be a more cerebral refraction of what is going on elsewhere in the dance scene rather than a scene in itself, which is of course what its become.

Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 4 May 2003 19:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

I'm sure gareth is fearing the wrath of geir.

Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 4 May 2003 19:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

But isn't it arguable that Garage and House ARE related, and not in a Basement Jaxx doing Romeo way, but rather by dint of a longer sonic relationship, one which is reciprocal and has always been there.

I'm not saying they're bang on similar but house got away without "relating" to garage because there are already some similarites there surely.

Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:06 (twenty-one years ago) link

gargare is at leats in part a derivation opf soulful US house, as much as it is part of the lodnon breakbeat continuum.

Ed (dali), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:08 (twenty-one years ago) link

Indie aesthetic to me does not mean necessarily about songs, I think IDM became as much about the personalities of the artists and the cult surrounding them as the music, this is a very rock/indie thing, myths about Aphex this and Aphex that yadda yadda yadda are totally contrary to the usual way the dance scene works.

Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

And contrary to the way he sees himself. it seems like he would mcuh prefer the dance anonimity.

Ed (dali), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:15 (twenty-one years ago) link

Perhaps, but alot of his antics don't help that either I guess.

Even the way IDM is consumed makes it difficult to be a part of dance, the album format being so strong in it surely alienates some people. That in itself may be a problem with the dance scene and you have to wonder is any amount of rationalisation enough for the fact that there are seldom any good house/techno albums.

But that would be rockist eh?

Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:22 (twenty-one years ago) link

Indie aesthetic to me does not mean necessarily about songs, I think IDM became as much about the personalities of the artists and the cult surrounding them as the music, this is a very rock/indie thing, myths about Aphex this and Aphex that yadda yadda yadda are totally contrary to the usual way the dance scene works.

Disputed... I think Aphex and to a far lesser extent Paradinas and Squarepusher are the exceptions here. I mean, no one gives a flying shit about Boards of Canada or Autechre or Manitoba as people in the same way they do about Oasis, Jay-Z or Justin Timberlake, do they? This is another reason why I think the 'indie' comparison is a red-herring, the whole 'personality' thing could be applied to pretty much any genre EXCEPT dance - it's not unique to indie or rock.

Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:34 (twenty-one years ago) link

Also, I think that Aphex becomes interesting as a person precisely because his music towers over that entire scene - his whole "I'm mental, me" shtick is a bonus. I mean, the Chemical Brothers still get loads of exposure as personalities despite actually being pretty dull outside the studio (or indeed, in it these days).

Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:36 (twenty-one years ago) link

Even the way IDM is consumed makes it difficult to be a part of dance, the album format being so strong in it surely alienates some people. That in itself may be a problem with the dance scene and you have to wonder is any amount of rationalisation enough for the fact that there are seldom any good house/techno albums.

This is going to go back to that old Massive Attack/DJ Shadow chesnut, I can see it, but this is like saying that In Sides or Sheet One can't be considered part of 'dance' because they are consumed primarily in album format in people's living rooms as opposed to in clubs. To me, and I suspect to loads of other people making this distinction, 'dance music' is music that is primarily based round beats and bleeps... so you don't really need to actually be able to actually DANCE to anything that fits into the broad dance music church, any more than rock music needs to actually ROCK in this day and age (which of course, a lot of it doesn't).

Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:41 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yes but I think the difference is that people don't talk about Justin or Jay Z and say "what a genius he is, who knows what's going on inside the wonka factory that is his brain" etc etc, whereas IDM did get that, indie reverence to some extent, mystery, self indulgence, pretention, all qualities not really coveted anywhere else in popular music.


Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:42 (twenty-one years ago) link

sorry bits of crossposting here.


But don't you see the value of aesthetics in this? I mean I don't care about the label "dance music" greatly, but I do care about the aesthetics I believe in being totally ignored. Particularly if the stuff doing it is getting high critical acclaim, it's essentially a get out clause, like thank god those dance types have finally given up on that dancing nonsense and we can give them some respect.

This is a red herring in the context of this discussion though Matt, perhaps, I'm also fairly sure I'm one of the only people willing to argue this point, though not perhaps for any other reason than my feeling of involvement.

I feel like Mike Taylor a bit here, I'm not saying there's not a place for electronic music you don't dance to, I just feel its place isn't under the umbrella of dance music, how can you ever expect to break down barriers when you forfeit what you wanted to break them down with in the first place, or for in the first place.

Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

actually my last paragraph is a bit off, it's too simplified to say "electronic music you don't dance to".

The distinction is more complicated than that I think.

Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:49 (twenty-one years ago) link

I often think when I talk about this people think "well what do you know" cos I am such a latecomer to rave, I mean I always was open to dance music but only became so devout in the last 2 years. But I think that only adds weight to the ideas of breaking down barriers (cliche I admit) which seem a bit lofty here on a thread, when really I've experienced first hand what I refer to.

Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 4 May 2003 21:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

Yes but I think the difference is that people don't talk about Justin or Jay Z and say "what a genius he is, who knows what's going on inside the wonka factory that is his brain" etc etc, whereas IDM did get that, indie reverence to some extent, mystery, self indulgence, pretention, all qualities not really coveted anywhere else in popular music.

Disputed again - partly because once again I think Aphex here is the exception, and partly because I *do* think that this happens in other genres. Possibly Eminem is a better example here, or indeed any other tokenistic figure adopted by the NME et al (of which Aphex is certainly one), I just don't agree with this "cult of personality" thing as a signifier of 'indieness'.

Likewise, if you're getting defensive about a perceived bias in the music press in favour of "IDM" and against "proper dance music" its probably worth pointing out that (until recently when the rock press got to prematurely declare dance music 'over'), it was the more conventional electronic/dance acts or DJs who were getting the column inches and the fawning praise ahead of the IDM laptop bods (once again, I think Aphex is the exception here).

Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 4 May 2003 22:11 (twenty-one years ago) link

WRT the house/garage relationship - I think I expressed that badly... possibily the way to look at this whole thing is not as a straight continuum but as as some kind of a geeky tree diagram thing with house and techno as a starting point and everything splintering off from there, and garage and IDM broke off in completely different directions at any opportunity. Bearing in mind we're now living with a music scene in which people like Dntel and Brothomstates and Venetian Snares and whoever are all pretty much second-generation artists. They were influenced by Aphex and friends whereas the first generation were influnced primarily by stuff from all over - music is like sex... if you fuck around too much with your own gene pool you're bound to end up with a load of stupid, ugly, clumsy shit.

I don't really hold with the undie comparison, mostly because the difference between underground and mainstream hip-hop is primarily lyrical whereas with IDM/the rest of dance its largely sonical. But still, with hip-hop there's still the small factor of the actual RAPPING which is a far bigger unifying factor than anything that exists in the myriad strands of dance music.

Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, 4 May 2003 23:40 (twenty-one years ago) link

Indie's relationship with IDM is to do with the Aphex-cult-of-star thing Ronan talks about, but not solely determined by it. There's other forces at work: a fear of or distaste for or boredom with actual bodily groove; a desire for the artist to be musically distinct from other artists, to be 'progressing' in isolation to some extent; a focus on albums vs tracks; an appreciation of nice, thoughtful artwork; a sense that there is a theoretical framework behind the music's creation that goes beyond "it's bangin', innit?" etc. etc.

Obviously there's a lot of overdetermination at work. But I think it's uncontroversial to say that "indie" electronic music is that electronic music which, say, Pitchfork covers in a largely non-disparaging manner (just so you don't think I mean Basement Jaxx or Fischerspooner), and that the writers of Pitchfork probably like this stuff for the reasons cited above among others - and they're not inherently bad reasons, though if you love dance music for other reasons they might appear to be quite wrongheaded or myopic (just as an outright distaste for albums would seem to everyone else). But what's interesting is that all of these traits recreate themselves when you look at all the refined versions of other dance genres - they apply to MJ Cole-in-refinement-mode as much as they do to Boards of Canada. And you can't boil it down by saying that these sorts of values make bad music, or that an adherence to "dance" values makes good music (when obviously a lot of "real" dance music is utter crap as well), but I think it's pretty clear that this tension has a huge effect on a style's development, and how it's received.

To pick up on Sterling's point about microhouse being a sorta-exception, what I think is notable is how it plays with this opposition - there's an emphasis on product as much as artistry, conformity as much as personal innovation, tracks as much albums. Other dance genres do this too obviously, but I think microhouse as a whole has a deliberate playfulness to it that is sort of distinct e.g. it's not as stylistically blinkered as prog, and doesn't have the fall-of-Eden mythology of Detroit Techno or the devotion to absolute reductionism of minimal techno to keep it on the musical straight and narrow.

"I don't really hold with the undie comparison, mostly because the difference between underground and mainstream hip-hop is primarily lyrical whereas with IDM/the rest of dance its largely sonical."

I disagree. The rapping/music relationship within hip hop is always a contested, dynamic and dialectical one; the shift in the nature of rapping in undie vs "generic" rap necessitates an equally strong shift in the nature of production --> my suspicion that there's a deliberate stylistic rigidity to much undie hip hop in sonic terms which incongruously creates the conditions of existence for self-consciously experimental rapping styles. The exception to this is the avant-fringe of Def Jux, Anticon etc - but all of these take their avant cues from IDM as much as hip hop itself, SURPRISE SURPRISE.

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 5 May 2003 00:14 (twenty-one years ago) link

The exception to this is the avant-fringe of Def Jux, Anticon etc - but all of these take their avant cues from IDM as much as hip hop itself, SURPRISE SURPRISE.

Heh... I was actually think thinking of Def Jux and Anticon in particular when I made that comment, so perhaps we might be talking at cross-purposes here. Likewise the recent appearance of hip-hop acts on the Warp roster is worthy of a mention here.

Indie's relationship with IDM is to do with the Aphex-cult-of-star thing Ronan talks about, but not solely determined by it. There's other forces at work: a fear of or distaste for or boredom with actual bodily groove; a desire for the artist to be musically distinct from other artists, to be 'progressing' in isolation to some extent; a focus on albums vs tracks; an appreciation of nice, thoughtful artwork; a sense that there is a theoretical framework behind the music's creation that goes beyond "it's bangin', innit?" etc. etc.

Now, at risk of labouring a point to much... THIS IS NOT UNIQUE TO INDIE! Now, I'm wary that this is on the verge of teetering into a tedious rockism debate, but with regard to the above quote, I pretty much disagree with almost all of that. Bear in mind that Gareth really wasn't referring to the first wave of what has now been conveniently lumped together as IDM regardless of stylistic differences, ie a lot of the stuff that sprung up in the early to mid 90s - we're talking about what actually followed it.

I think my basic problem with IDM is that nowadays it isn't doing the stuff you talk about ENOUGH - a lot of the artists namechecked above are perfectly happy to fanny around in the broad cultural furrows ploughed by that first wave - and in many ways that does reflect it's abdication of the responsibility of doing new and exciting things with music or indeed relating with what's going on elsewhere in electronic/dance music. If, indeed, you agree it has that responsiblity in the first place.

What I just don't get here, is the attitude that that actually seems to fear or distrust electronic album music, as if it's some sort of a betrayal that these guys are making music for sitting down and just listening to. I don't buy this "a fear of or distaste for or boredom with actual bodily groove" because it a - implies that everyone has the same perception of what they want to groove to, and b - that Autechre or Capitol K don't like a nice thick slice of beefy no-nonense techno when they hear it. It's just they don't particularly want to actually MAKE it, any more than Perry Farrell wants to make drill'n'bass whenever he namedrops Richard D James.

Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 5 May 2003 00:45 (twenty-one years ago) link

Of course, microhouse seems to me like being a very significan genre to raise in all of this because it, of course, a self-conscious attempt to fuse all this Oval-inspired glitch stuff that's cropped up over the past few years with The Clubs, a compromise of sorts. Not that I could imagine actually dancing to most of it, but hey...

Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 5 May 2003 00:53 (twenty-one years ago) link

Matt I was going to pains to say that album indie electronica wasn't bad or a betrayal, even if maybe it didn't sound like that. I like a lot of it. But I think its conceptual underpinnings are worth critiquing (so are mainstream dance's, obviously).

"It's just they don't particularly want to actually MAKE it"

I was talking about what the audience look for in the artists, not the artists themselves. And I think one can appreciate all of the things I mentioned while AT THE SAME TIME appreciating regular bangin' dance music.

"THIS IS NOT UNIQUE TO INDIE!"

Of course not - MJ Cole suffers the same traits as IDM but appeals to a very different audience on the whole - but I don't think it's controversial to say that there is an audience overlap b/w indie and IDM that's much stronger than any other audience overlap IDM enjoys apart from the dance audience itself. You don't tend to get nu-metal or country or hip hop or hard rock magazines covering Autechre on a regular basis. To talk about the relationship between IDM and indie, and to talk about the reasons behind this relationship, is not to say that these reasons represent something specifically "wrong" with indie or IDM that doesn't exist elsewhere (or, the short version: don't read so much into my comments).

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 5 May 2003 01:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

i still think people are ascribing concepts and ideas to idm that only really exist in the music press,and possibly a small minority within idm,and only really refer/apply to aphex twin,who is the exception rather than the rule anyway
and despite the rhetoric,house and techno are more about "names" than they like to think,whether its the overly reverential attitude of the "masses" to "superstar djs" or the overly reverential attitude of the detroit purists to the likes of may and mills
there is a difference between how these genres are written about and how they exist in real life
im repeating myself but there are loads of people primarily into dance music who like idm,even though they have no idea it is even referred to as idm
the idea of it as dance music for people who don't like dancing is based on the fact (which is a generalisation,but you know what i mean) that the nme don't like dancing but give aphex rave reviews
noone listens to the nme anymore anyway,so why listen to them on this subject
their stance is being represented as the only one,rather than a marginal viewpoint which people who aren't into idm see as the only one,or something

robin (robin), Monday, 5 May 2003 03:35 (twenty-one years ago) link

in generalim referring to the people who listen to music above more than the producers,btw
will post more tomorrow,there are points id like to respond to but its six in the morning and im tired

robin (robin), Monday, 5 May 2003 03:37 (twenty-one years ago) link

in addition to the things tim and matt have mentioned, isn't the IDM - indie connection largely concerned with sophistication? as in the widely held view among people who don't like electronic music that, say, four-on-the-floor beats are too simplistic to be genuinely musical, so thank god for IDM because we can enjoy beats and bleeps that connect more with our beard-scratching aesthetic. i don't think the artists themselves were thinking this way at all, but the indie audience most likely were.

if we're talking about 2nd gen artists like venetian snares who don't really seem connected to dance as ronan describes it, then saying that IDM does not belong under the 'dance umbrella' makes sense. this is why i don't find 2nd gen artists very interesting, though, because without an idiom to relate to, i think they become quite boring. garage, on the other hand, is pretty clearly derived from house/techno/etc, which i think explains why unlike IDM, garage doesn't see itself as anti-dance.

Dave M. (rotten03), Monday, 5 May 2003 04:33 (twenty-one years ago) link

Can I re emphahsise that IDM is a bullshit term, can be stop using it please. It doesn't mean anything to me or a lot of people who grew up with this music.

Ed (dali), Monday, 5 May 2003 05:54 (twenty-one years ago) link

gee now you know how people who listen to "indie" music feel

electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 5 May 2003 05:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

We were all quite happy calling it electronica and post rock, maybe throwing in the odd glitch.

Ed (dali), Monday, 5 May 2003 05:57 (twenty-one years ago) link

"in addition to the things tim and matt have mentioned, isn't the IDM - indie connection largely concerned with sophistication?"

I think that was very true to begin with, but I'm not so sure about now. Helltime & Producer are, to some extent, IDM; they might be IDM at the point where the definition becomes meaningless, but clearly the emphasis on musical sophistication has become augmented by other, less clear cut distinctions that one can make between, say, H&P and gabba. Actually, with stuff happening like The Mover putting out an album on Tresor it's becoming harder and harder to make any of these sorts of distinctions except in a very vague macro-sense.

"garage, on the other hand, is pretty clearly derived from house/techno/etc, which i think explains why unlike IDM, garage doesn't see itself as anti-dance."

I think garage will increasingly see itself as separate from "Dance Music"; the twist is that the music it's drifting towards (US hip hop, dancehall) is just as much dance music as Dance Music is.

Whereas, whether it's danceable or not, I can't think of any IDM or IDM-related musics that haven't involved an at least partial shift away from the dancefloor compared to their mainstream dance equivalents. Gareth and Tom have told me that some drill'n'bass nights get a lot of people dancing really hard, which is at odds with what I've seen (mind you, none of the venues I've been to which play that stuff had much in the way of a dancefloor).

In general I think the common equation of 'progression' with a reduction in dancefloor energy has been a really limiting one, not in terms of the music which has been made using the equation (a good deal of which is awesome) but because of the music that hasn't been made. Conscious attempts to be innovative in the area of dance-focused groove construction always seem so fleeting, and the moment that they do become conscious of their own innovation the focus on groove itself seems to lessen, as if there's something inherent in the concept of "progress" that neccessitates a certain amount of missing-the-point. But if I was going to construct an IDM canon based on the name alone (intelligent *dance* music)it would include Frankie Knuckles, LFO, Phuture, Sven Vath, 2 Bad Mice, DJ Hype, Marc Acardipane, Dem 2, Timbaland, Mannie Fresh, The Neptunes, Wiley Kat, Lenky, Luomo, Thomas Fehlmann - people who have actually changed or are changing the operation of the groove itself on the body, changing the way we as physical beings react to dance music. Obviously then this music has been made, but only at radical junctures between one musical moment and the next where a gap has been opened... why aren't more musicians aspiring to do as these artists have done?

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 5 May 2003 06:19 (twenty-one years ago) link

That last paragraph really belongs in the ILM thread re: What do you want music to do?

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 5 May 2003 06:21 (twenty-one years ago) link

Very much disagree with Matt DC on microhouse's reunification mandate (Oval + house)--sounds less to me like a deliberate attempt at fusion than the kind of paring-down process you see in minimal techno's d/evolution, scenius at work. Hell, most folks would just call microhouse minimal techno, and who's to say they're wrong? I'm also perplexed that you can't imagine dancing to it; in the best stuff, the way the glitches crackle & pop over and alongside the central beat give it an almost polyrhythmic tactility that's very body-friendly.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned sonic texture, which fits into the idea of indie, undie, IDM et al as we seem to be discussing it. Grainy, lo-fi, homemade, hand-tooled--these adjectives are all frequently used when describing these things (think of what gets praised about BoC, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Antipop), and they seem to unify the topics at hand more than anything else, even (haha) audience members' skin color. Or is that (texture, haha) a red herring? (This is a real question)

M Matos (M Matos), Monday, 5 May 2003 07:25 (twenty-one years ago) link

the only thing i have to add is that to assume that people wont/cant dance to [x] music is dangerous. people will dance to (pretty much) ANY music. eg people dancing to bola's 'vespers' on sat. night (?!). euqally. i dont understand how people dance to say...ash. but they do. i remeber on the old warp message board this old chestnut came up about auteche, and some dude said that you could say quite safely that no one would dance to autechre. having just seen them at the warp 10 party. where they fucking rocked, i disagreed...he wanted a video as evidence....

ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 5 May 2003 10:24 (twenty-one years ago) link

I do remember watching autechre at that lovebytes/senti-ents thing with you and trying to dance amongst the punters stubbornly sitting down all over the dance floor. OK, I know it was 4 in the afternoon, but common. And the dissonanze thing in rome where the whole room sat down for come to daddy apart from me you and that random bloke from manchester. grrrrrr. If you want to sit, don't sit on the fucking dancefloor please.

Ed (dali), Monday, 5 May 2003 10:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

for every 100 people who listen to "idm"
90 per cent are djs and people into dance music in general
10 per cent also like indie and got into idm through the nme,these people are better represented online through blogs etc,so these are presumed to be what idm fans actually are like

possbily slighly exaggerated,and im repeating myself,but stuff about "sophistication" is like judging mingus on who listens to him now,saying mingus/coltrane/whoever is music solely for wealthy white people to play at dinner parties,while completely ignoring the facts about how the music was actually produced/consumed by the majority of its enthusiasts

i mean loads of people here listen to jazz,myself included,and the fact that a lot of us are white,middle class people living in 2003 doesn't mean that jazz is only music for white middle class people from 2003

robin (robin), Monday, 5 May 2003 13:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

so another way of looking at it is -idm-this splinter of dance music that was so good people from loads of other types of musical scenes got into it,but then it became associated with a small subsection of these

and while i know you can dance to it,i think microhouse is a clear move in dance music towards "sophistication" and nondancing,which,for all the dance purists,is surely far more worrying-i mean,idm was never meant to be danced to,it was music to put on,as i say,when everyone sitting around the next morning and no one is arsed mixing,or on a tuesday evening when you're not on for banging techno-thus it is no threat to dance music,it coexists peacefully-each has a time and place
but microhouse is moving dance music away from being all about dancing
(traitors!etcetc)

i am kind of playing devils advocate here,in that i like a lot of the music being discussed on this thread,including idm,"straight up" dance music,and microhouse,bu i think assumptions are being made that should be questioned

robin (robin), Monday, 5 May 2003 14:05 (twenty-one years ago) link

well that kind of hits it for me robin. i think there has been a shift in how the music/public interacts. i mean, yea, i was at a warp party in dalston on saturday and it was kicking off till 5 or whatever and you only had to look round to see that people were totally mashed and there was a lot chems going round, and it was like a proper dance club or whatever.

i wasnt wanting to say that it was for beardy indie heads or whatever, but that somehow there has been a decoupling from dance music as a whole, and when/how did this happen?

the mingus thing is a good point, but what that really means then is that if lfo/afx are mingus, but what does that make dntel/manitoba?


gareth (gareth), Monday, 5 May 2003 14:10 (twenty-one years ago) link

or to put it without pejoratives or whatever, it comes down to this

at one time there seemed to be no schism between idm and dance music. they were the same thing.

now there seems to me to be a gap between the 2. is this true? and if so why? and when?

gareth (gareth), Monday, 5 May 2003 14:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

i don't really have much on the analogy that's being made at the top, but my roommate got into autechre and swayzak and b.o.c. through dub

he got into dub through doing drugs, maybe he thought it was like a combination of wu-tang clan and spacemen 3

it's funny listening to autechre these days, it sounds so "old school", the dance beat - kick, snare - is so audible, the genre hadn't moved into its "anything can be percussion" click-cutty phase yet

i'm thinkin, gareth

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 5 May 2003 14:13 (twenty-one years ago) link

our styles are too similar this morning though, one of us should write in green or something!

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 5 May 2003 14:14 (twenty-one years ago) link

Heh, it's funny reading robin's stuff cos it's such a different mindset to my own.

I mean I have to say after reading about it here for so long I was expecting microhouse to be like the way Robin puts it, without deciding whether I thought I'd like it or not, I did expect it to be quite difficult.

Now admittedly I've only heard Immer and Digital Disco, so feel free to say I've not heard enough, but I don't find enjoying it and liking it difficult in anyway, in fact it's quite effortless, and also I don't see it as a move away from dancing like Robin says. I was expecting something maybe radically different, and I guess I was pleased to find that all that was different is the groove, and the way you might react to it. In fact along with the likes of Metro Area (not microhouse maybe but anyway) it's made me realise just how danceable lighter house music can be. And the vibe is still totally house to me.

I think it's interesting. I'm not one of the main kompaktevangelist types, not heard a huge amount of the stuff, and so I was surprised to enjoy what I have heard of microhouse so much. Maybe I expected the "house" tag at the end of it to not be justified, and well I was wrong.


The thing about IDM not existing or being a relevent term is kind of interesting too, I mean sure lots of people don't recognise the term or use it, but that isn't really here nor there, lots of these same people probably never discuss anything at all to do with music, and that's neither here nor there either.

I think (to play a bit of devils advocate tennis with robin) if people aren't arsed with the term IDM or have never even heard of it then there's a good chance some of the stuff they're playing is pre the schism gareth refers to.


I don't think I'm really saying IDM is "white" and I guess I'm willing to drop the "indie" accusation (if it is an accusation heh) aswell. But what is the issue for me is the fear of the enemy within, that enemy being an electronic style which runs contrary to almost all the things I enjoy about the electronic music I like, while at the same time enjoys more critical acclaim and becomes the default option, an easier option for people.

I think alot of people around here, myself included, dislike the way the indie mindset often assumes the best music in a genre is the least popular, at least I suspect I'm not alone in this. Hence the sneaking feeling that if something like undie or IDM didn't exist, some fucker would invent it anyway, and a whole load of people would still buy it, whatever the hell it sounded like. Some genres don't work in terms of what is least popular being good, that's the facts.

It's just this old chestnut of "oh I like all genres, but you have to search hard in country/hiphop/dance to find the really precious metal". It's also one of my biggest problems with the fetishisation of the dilletante position in music fan circles.


I hope that explains my position a bit. phrases like "indie" maybe bog the whole argument down.

Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 5 May 2003 20:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

incidentally, the only times i have heard or seen the terms 'IDM', 'undie' and 'microhouse' EVER are on this board - for the people who use them, where are these terms occurring elsewhere? i'm curious - i think they're all pretty bullshit terms (as in they all seem to attract negative tags despite the fact that some excellent work would fall under those categories) but there's no point me arguing that i know, obviously there needs to be some term to describe these things...

my main point: outside of Reynolds and ILM, where else has this view that 'IDM' is fundamentally problematic or in trouble in recent years been documented/suggested? how much is it REALLY a problem at all? really there is not much particularly worthwhile i can say on this thread as i find everything on an equal par at the moment in modern music - nothing seems particularly stronger than anything else. the majority of the recent 'gutter garridge' i've heard hasn't actually done that much for me (i'm talking about the general sub-genre here but obv there are always great examples and many of these seem to have come from Dizzy, Wiley etc. of late but i know there's a lot i havent heard) but its hard to gage how popular that stuff really is outside this ILM-based circle that has become my main source for things in music (possibly a problem) e.g. someone I know who prefers the UK garage that has a stronger US influence reckons a lot of punters have been saying Dizzy Rascal and co. are 'killing garage' - unfortunately i can't strengthen that allegation, but i'd like to know what the likes of MJ Cole, Matt Jam Lamont and even Wookie think about the recent success of the 'gutter' sound in the last 18 months...

as for microhouse, Luomo actually bores even me for the most part (and i actually quite like the first 16B album, go figure) and again i'm not sure how favoured this is outside ILM - certainly i think its closer to the 'Dadhouse' tag, akin to Hybrid and Sasha & Digweed style epic-prog (but still uniformly dance/club music) in terms of its 'safeness', cleanliness and anal retentiveness...Akufen possibly sits right on the line between whatever divide there is but i probably need to hear more...

so Archigram and Space Cowboy are making euphoric FUN club music, but they with the likes of Medicine 8 are actually making tunes that i'm sure Sasha, oakenfold and Ashley Beedle LOVE to play out - but those elder statesmen do not seem as interested/motivated to create tracks quite as powerful as 'Rock Music Pays Off' anymore, and given they're all well in their 30s now thats understandable really (other established acts like Orbital and the Chems have also mellowed, and even stagnated in a way) - Sasha actually stayed at the forefront of dance music sonically for years but his particular craft in the hi-fi end of dance production has acquired this 'dated' and 'boring' feel because the technology has not significantly advanced in the last 5 years, at least not noticeably to the average listener and clubber. in contrast, the lo-fi and minimalist side is what now appeal with its freshness and the thrill of immediacy and novel tricks based more on revivalism and old sounds rather than 'new' - again i am tempted to liken this to the period in the late 50s where glitzy 'art deco' fell out of fashion and taking its place was the functional dynamic modernist style.

sorry for going off on a bit of tangent - how that last bit relates to the plight of 'IDM' is unclear!

stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 00:48 (twenty-one years ago) link

"for every 100 people who listen to "idm"
90 per cent are djs and people into dance music in general
10 per cent also like indie and got into idm through the nme,these people are better represented online through blogs etc,so these are presumed to be what idm fans actually are like"

Don't know about those figures but the proposition strikes me as correct. However I would go on to say that this "10 per cent" (or however much it actually is) also has a disproportionate influence on the music's perception of itself as well as the opinion of outsiders. It's not some random quirk that Manitoba's new album is being discussed within a context of Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips; it due to the nature of IDM currently that such connections seem obvious and desirable. Likewise the interlinks between indie hip hop and IDM are as much a result of the possibility of critical and commercial acceptance (ie. the existence of an overlapping fanbase) as they are purely aesthetic motivations. In short, the type of music that is being made is being affected by the shift in fanbase. The same process happened in drum & bass (a shift towards techno) and UK Garage (a shift towards hip hop) - the sonics changed to reflect the general tastes of the changing audience. This is a totally natural and ever-present process within all forms of music.

" I was expecting something maybe radically different, and I guess I was pleased to find that all that was different is the groove, and the way you might react to it."

Ha ha Ronan you have summed up in one sentence my entire critical outlook on dance music!

"It's just this old chestnut of "oh I like all genres, but you have to search hard in country/hiphop/dance to find the really precious metal". It's also one of my biggest problems with the fetishisation of the dilletante position in music fan circles."

I dislike that kind of dilettante too though - the one that justifies their limited exposure to an area by pretending they're only listening to the cream of the crop - but there's another type of dilettante that is much less foolish, thankfully.

"incidentally, the only times i have heard or seen the terms 'IDM', 'undie' and 'microhouse' EVER are on this board - for the people who use them, where are these terms occurring elsewhere?"

IDM is taken from the name of the internet mailing list that discusses, um, IDM. Microhouse is from Phillip Sherburne's article in The Wire. Undie is just a compound of underground and indie with humorous connotations.

I don't think people here are necessarily accusing IDM of being in dire straits, but rather the extent to which it and dance music are going their separate ways. Incidentally, I actually think that the two are probably more connected than they were, say, three years ago; the rise of microhouse, electroclash and glitch techno have all created interzones that encourage listeners to accept and appreciate the effects of groove-based musics on the body; possibly someone who doesn't like dance music getting into IDM now (unless they specifically limit themselves to eg. the Manitoba/Four Tet/Prefuse 73 strains) is more likely to end up liking dance music than if they had gotten into the music at any time in the last, oh, seven years.

Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 01:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

stevem definitely makes a good point re: technology. I feel that most producers, IDM and otherwise, who were fabled for their being on the bleeding edge of things techwise have hit a ceiling - there is nothing really new on the market and everybody else has caught up.

I think that all the retro rockers and electroclash folx are part of the same dissatisfaction, regressing because the outer limits have been reached, or so we're given to suspect. I myself as I stated upthread have been really disappointed with new music for about two years now, at least in the arena under discussion.

I wonder whether it will all dissolve in favor of some better, purer pop sounds anytime soon. Maybe the long-imagined mishmash of everything from the last century will finally appear and no man will ever go hungry again, who knows. Can't get here soon enough for me, though, I can tell you that.

Millar (Millar), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 01:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

Tim makes a good point with the idea that in some ways IDM and dance are closer... I remember reading that IDM started to splinter from techno way back when there would be ambient tracks on dance 12"s and people started to think "hey why not just put this on an album instead"? A lot of laberls like Kompakt are now putting a lot more ambient music on their 12"s again...

and I think that Reynolds may have already provided the answer to this problem didnt he? his biggest frustration it seems (when he was more of an evangelist, iguess), was that people were unwilling to accept dance on its own terms... the music itself doesnt really matter as much as whether it is received as "proper music, not dance shite for the proles", ya know? I mean, really, the key to Reynolds and maybe even to all of dance is the quote he put in the intro from Hoskyns (sp?) about losing "knowingness". wasnt the problem with indie always less the music itself, but more how it became so unimportant in the face of snobbery, tribalism, and the search for obscure knowledge for the sake of the egos of the searchers? I mean, superchunk is just a pop-rock band until the rhetoric is added...

my stake in all of this is really similar to what has been mentioned upthread by others... what Ronan said about "an electronic style which runs contrary to almost all the things I enjoy about the electronic music I like, while at the same time enjoys more critical acclaim and becomes the default option, an easier option for people"...
Ronan what do you think of the tapes? ;-)

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 01:59 (twenty-one years ago) link

Aaron's second paragraph seems to nail exactly what I was trying to get at, "dance on its own terms". Yes!


Aaron I will mail you this afternoon about the tapes.

Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 09:27 (twenty-one years ago) link

"I wonder whether it will all dissolve in favor of some better, purer pop sounds anytime soon."

i dunno,i think that,whatever you think of it,and i love some of it and some of it just wrecks my head,but surely electroclash was dance music dissolving in favour of pure pop?

robin (robin), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 13:55 (twenty-one years ago) link

Ronan no rush just kidding around a bit, really ;-)

Can I add that maybe what worries me is that, well, the thing that always got be about rock was, at its worst, bad rock criticism seems to think that any schmuck playing a guitar is automatically more real, intelligent, authentic, etc., than anybody playing anything else (ie worst folk artist better than best rapper), and I worry that IDM/indieelectronic could repeat that scenario, simply replacing the guitar for laptop... and I think a lot of this has to do with being in America, where the scene is small and vulnerable and could easily fall prey... of course, maybe I am just feeling paranoid this morning ;-)

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:12 (twenty-one years ago) link

I mean, superchunk is just a pop-rock band until the rhetoric is added...

But even Chuck Berry, or the Blackhearts, had a rhetoric, even though maybe it's faded and hard to remember now. Folk singers in the 50s and 60s had one too, among other things in their implicit rejection of the things Chuck Berry could use to make you move. But rhetoric isn't added, like you'd add milk to coffee, it might have been what made them form the band in the first place. I don't see anything wrong with having a rhetoric.

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:30 (twenty-one years ago) link

what i meant about microhouse being a move away from dance music is that,while i know you can dance to it,in my experience people don't that much,it is played in the morning when there's not many people dancing,or often mixed with stuff that's towards the glitch end of things...
i think a lot of the time people listen to it not as dance music (and this is people who do like dance music)but in the same way you'd listen to glitch or idm-sitting around,with possibly a few people dancing
again a generalisation,but it certainly doesn't seem to be "used" as dance music as much as techno or house

robin (robin), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:38 (twenty-one years ago) link

rhetoric = probbly a better word for the various things the word "influence" is usually used at

mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:39 (twenty-one years ago) link

I guess "snobbery" isn't everyone's non-dairy creamer. But I've got no beef with "tribalism" "or quest for obscure knowledge" necessarily. Though actually, experimentalist microhorse is more anti-tribalist than, as Tim says, most other dance music from the past 7 years, in that it doesn't pummel its genre identifiers into the ground, set its boundaries, or work exclusively within itself. (There is a boutique aspect to a lot of these releases from BPitch and Kompakt and Italic, their album art and the intimate kinds of sounds you hear on the records speaks a kind of luxurious hand-polished language. I'm not so into that rhetoric but a lot of people get off on that.)

Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:50 (twenty-one years ago) link

Tracer is right in his original critique, and maybe I should rephrase... when I figure out what I meant ;-).. but I know I was thinking more of criticism and not the beliefs or intentions of the band, which really are very seperate... I mean, whatever we may think of the White Stripes' music, we can probably agree that there is a certain disconnect between the band and what they doa dn how they are received. the band, well, they put lots and lots of effort into cultivating an very specific image, and many seem to buy it as "authentic"... I think maybe this really revolves around the question of "does making a certain specific artistic choice automatically indict that or those which you did not chose?" What I mean to say is that making undanceable electronic music can either be intrinsically an anti-dance statement, or it could just be music with rhetoric added later, I guess. Does that make sense?

I mean, is art creation or filtration? Does it gain its power from what is made, or from what is left out?

Aaron Grossman (aajjgg), Tuesday, 6 May 2003 14:52 (twenty-one years ago) link


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