Ableton Forum

please forget about the idm (like the term or not?) debate for a moment.

whats the deal with idm these days? I haven't heard anything exciting in the genre for freaking years. am I just not paying attention to the right artists or is there simply nothing going on anymore?

i've just never completely understood what the term means.

if it means down tempo and a touch eclectic then i'm a bit of a fan of the sound lab radio show on triplej.
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/soundlab/

it's an acronym, intelligent dance music. the debate is usually over the fact that the name is pretty big headed.

i think warp & scam had a lot to do with it going south. things went Glitch, then Noise, and then just kinda died off. there is only so much you can do with a 606, i guess. i don't know.

well I think personally that alot of smaller labels just started signing anyone that could make a sample go "click" which got reallly old really fast.

It has got a bit boring, but I'd say Squarepusher still has it going on (incidentaly, I'm seeing squarepusher do a solo bass performance at the southbank center in a couple of weeks, it's gonna rock) - And venitian snares are quite good if you want to feel a bit sick.

the last squarepusher album bored the crap out of me. venetial snares rocks pretty hard though, but when was the last time he relased anything new?

I want a new autechre album...

Johnisfaster wrote:the last squarepusher album bored the crap out of me. venetial snares rocks pretty hard though, but when was the last time he relased anything new?

I want a new autechre album...

The last Vsnares is pink+green, out sooner this year. It's not his best album but it stills vsnares and I really like Aaron Funk stuff. I'm not sure I understand well what the idm genre include if vsnares is a part of it

When I think idm, I think Autechre, Aphex twin or Laub but never vsnares simply cause 230 bpm distorted consecutive bassdrum hits do not remind me something intelligent to dance on, especially when the breaks goes on.

Anyway, I never dig really hard to understand what idm is.

personally I think the genre got sick of the technical wizzardy,
therefore declared dead, in a way..
Too much tools out there that'll do the tricks in real time..

glitch is dead as well, although alot seem to still push it..

I suggest you listen to Funckarma , or any of their alter ego's..

To me that is the current definition of quality IDM..

They have an exellent balance between the wizzardy and melodics..

Well, there's a brand new Ulrich Schnauss album out, if that counts...?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Goodbye-Ulrich- ... 654&sr=8-2

Although the album is called "Goodbye" so maybe you're right

so I think we're currently in a small vacuum;

transfering from technical showoffs,
to creating actual music again..

The emphasis on technique has ruled too long..
And as alot people now know all the tricks,
the genre gets bored and has to move on..

Last year all kind of glitch plugins popped up like a plague..
The search for the 'holy grail' has somewhat ended,
people now realise it's about musicianship,
not only about loading Glitch, Suppatrigga, LiveCut, etc..

I love Ulrich Schnauss.
If you like his stuff, check out Static, Boards of Canada (I'm sure you already know, but just in case), Mum, Verbose, Opiate, Alias.
Oh, and ExPairOfMentalists (http://www.myspace.com/expairofmentalists), he's fantastic
Enjoy!

Johnisfaster wrote:it's an acronym, intelligent dance music. the debate is usually over the fact that the name is pretty big headed.

I always hate it when people ask me what music I do and then have to explain what it means..

But what I always understood is that the genre itself did not name it like that..

It was a journalist back in the early nineties that reviewed Warp's Artificial Intelligence release..

Since he could not put it into a genre he named it IDM because it was not really danceable, but it refered to dance music..
And it structures in general are not really 4/4,
so a for him that was a tad more intelligent (ridiculous I know)

I like to refer to electronics, but that's also a very wide definition..

Poster wrote:so I think we're currently in a small vacuum;

transfering from technical showoffs,
to creating actual music again..

The emphasis on technique has ruled too long..
And as alot people now know all the tricks,
the genre gets bored and has to move on..

Last year all kind of glitch plugins popped up like a plague..
The search for the 'holy grail' has somewhat ended,
people now realise it's about musicianship,
not only about loading Glitch, Suppatrigga, LiveCut, etc..

Here Here!! THE MUSIC! It's about THE MUSIC!

Intelligent Dance Music is dead. It's all about Philosophical Reggae Polka now.

Seriously, I have a hard time quantifying what falls into the category, the people I really like that I have recently discovered that float around the idea are Small Sails and Proem. Check them out. See if I'm in the ball park. But new things are becoming harder to come by.