Electronic music better suited to home listening than dancing
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
Electronica
techno
ambient
avant-garde
progressive
acid house
breakbeat
electro
jungle
hip hop
sound design
Cultural origins
Early 1990s, United Kingdom
Derivative forms
Breakcore
drill 'n' bass
glitch
microhouse
wonky
flashcore
Other topics
Acid techno
ambient techno
electronic dance music
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] It emerged from the culture and sound palette of electronic styles such as ambient techno, acid house, Detroit techno and breakbeat;[4][5] it has been regarded as better suited to home listening than dancing.[6][7][8] Prominent artists associated with it include Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, Amon Tobin, Higher Intelligence Agency, Telefon Tel Aviv, μ-Ziq, The Black Dog, The Future Sound of London, Mouse on Mars, Biosphere, Orbital and Luke Vibert.[6][7]
The term "intelligent dance music" was likely inspired by the 1992 Warp compilation Artificial Intelligence and is said to have originated in the US[9][10] in 1993 with the formation of the "IDM list", an electronic mailing list originally 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]
^ abcCardew, Ben (3 July 2017). "Machines of loving grace: how Artificial Intelligence helped techno grow up". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
^ abWinfield, Adam (24 November 2007). "Is IDM Dead?". Igloo Magazine. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
^"…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).
^"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.
^Toop, D. (1995),Ocean of Sound, Serpent's Tail, pp. 215-216. (ISBN 978-1-85242-743-6).
^ abPollard, Vincent. "Translator". Exclaim!. Retrieved 28 April 2017.
^ ab"IDM". AllMusic. Retrieved 20 January 2013.
^Hobbes, DJ (26 February 2013). "Clubbers' Decktionary: IDM aka Intelligent Dance Music". The List. Retrieved 6 June 2017.
^Winfield, Adam (24 November 2007). "Is IDM Dead?". igloo magazine. …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'.
^"'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.
^"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.
^Frere-Jones, Sasha (6 October 2014). "The Pleasure Principle. Aphex Twin smooths out his edges". The New Yorker.
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