Examples of 'cutting edge' dance/electronic music?

[chaosWyrM]

Honestly, I think KVR is a terrible place to try to understand EDM. There are much better forums for connecting to what's current in dance music. KVR comes across as stale and not a little bit nerdy.

hehe...yeah, but kvr isnt a music site...its a synth geek site...so that makes sense. i wouldnt come here for music suggestions any more than id go over to psynews and ask for plug in advice.

[Davias]

So maybe we should define what is cutting-edge first ?

For this is something never heard before that imply new techniques, something tending toward the future. For example when aphex twin or similar came with cut n paste or glitch, that was cutting edge for me.
Daft Punk get lucky -> total opposite of cutting edge.
Scary monster and nice sprites (and I guess maybe it's not the first one with a growlingbass) -> Cutting edge
all the copiers that came after -> not cutting edge

[thecontrolcentre]

This is not 2013, but it cuts edges in my eardrums

I like it.

[ATS]

I'm proud to say I know this persn. He is pretty successful. I would call his stuff really great and it is newer music played by the top Djs (ones you heard of). He's on Ferry Corsten's Label, or was not sure anymore. It makes me a little sick listening to his stuff because I realize how lowly I am lol

[Sendy]

Sometimes it seems like all the edges have been cut and nobody's realized yet that they were load bearing edges.

[bermudagold]

This is really from 2013 ?? Sounds like 89' house to me... And not one I would remember or would like to hear...

You're projecting sounds into 89 that weren't there. This is very much a modern house record and it's quite different from what was happening in 89.

This is what 1989 house sounded like, the second and third links are typical of sparse tracks from that era. Remember 89 was the era of M1 piano, James Brown samples, 808 sounds, and cheesy sampler abuse. That stuff was a LOT of fun, but current deep/tech house is quite different.

Deep house was very different in 89. It was driven by chill grooves, yes, but tended to overemphasize smooth vocals and jazzy/bluesy lead riffs. Sure, it was great, but it did not tend to have the great minimal vibe of current tech house and deep minimal house.

By the mid to late 90s production quality improved a lot and you can find a lot of records that have a similar vibe. In fact, I still play a lot of 90s minimal and deep house along with current deep stuff. That said, I think that perhaps you are expecting bigger changes from a genre that, at it's core, is subtle to begin with.

So, perhaps it's important to be clear what one means by cutting edge or trendy. None of this is as popular as skrillex, or avicci. But I don't think of either as cutting edge.

Here we go again lol
Interesting that you think that vid u posted is significantly different from can you feel it and french kiss.....I was thinking the same thing as the other poster....that record could be 20 years old. Yeah there is a difference in tonality, but thats just from the difference in production equipment over the years, and the subtly different creative leanings the new equipment takes them in....but significantly different to stand out as new, fresh, underground, or cutting edge? Not seeing it....and I love deep house by the way

we're also back circling around dominant definition of "dance music", "edm", "idm" and every other 100 sub genres. According to the last thread, "edm" was majority defined by
1. four to the floor cadence
2. tightly quantized/programmed rhythms from drum machines or sequencers (no loose or live played rhythms allowed)
3. as close as possible to 120 bpm (heaven forbid your body reject your compelling feeling to move)
4. lack of distracting melody
5. perfectly spaced snippets of repetitive predictability (this is a science remember
6. emphasis on sonic texture and movement rather than song structure

all kidding aside, I know and respect this is probably true to the scene,...but what this really shows is how little utility "edm" has as a name or description of the genre or scene. There is so much music from all over the world made with drum machines, synths, and other electronic instruments....that not only falls outside this template,..but that people love to dance to. Those examples posted and that conversation from the other thread was very interesting hearing all the different perspectives.

[ghettosynth]

Here we go again lol
Interesting that you think that vid u posted is significantly different from can you feel it and french kiss.....

I find it equally interesting that you don't see the difference. It is significantly different. If you're looking for obvious, well, then skrillex is your friend, he's the master of obvious.

1. four to the floor cadence
2. tightly quantized/programmed rhythms from drum machines or sequencers (no loose or live played rhythms allowed)
3. as close as possible to 120 bpm (heaven forbid your body reject your compelling feeling to move)
4. lack of distracting melody
5. perfectly spaced snippets of repetitive predictability (this is a science remember
6. emphasis on sonic texture and movement rather than song structure

This isn't what I said. In science, subtlety matters, hyperbole does not make a counterpoint.

[Davias]

Example of what I found a little bit cutting-edge these last years, though nothing is new, there is some feeling like more on edge that the crowds or same sounding tracks I hear around. This is not dance following my definition anymore because it's DnB, put people can dance on them.


This (don't pay attention at the picture ^^ )


That (don't pay attention to the central passage in the track that is obviously a joke and an attempt at recreating a discussable genre from the past )


Or this ! (I post one random Xilent here because I always forgot the titles, but I find his entire discography really cutting edge, sad he is moving more toward commercial dubstep to my taste)




Oh and thanks for pointing me out the trick to make the videos appears

[bermudagold]

Here we go again lol
Interesting that you think that vid u posted is significantly different from can you feel it and french kiss.....

I find it equally interesting that you don't see the difference. It is significantly different. If you're looking for obvious, well, then skrillex is your friend, he's the master of obvious.

1. four to the floor cadence
2. tightly quantized/programmed rhythms from drum machines or sequencers (no loose or live played rhythms allowed)
3. as close as possible to 120 bpm (heaven forbid your body reject your compelling feeling to move)
4. lack of distracting melody
5. perfectly spaced snippets of repetitive predictability (this is a science remember
6. emphasis on sonic texture and movement rather than song structure

This isn't what I said. In science, subtlety matters, hyperbole does not make a counterpoint.

I was just being silly, but honestly that pretty much was the outcome. And, there is nothing wrong with that. Like you said, it thrives...lots of successful producers and djs, lots of happy consumers and show attendees. Also, I fully understand your point about subtlety mattering, especially in science as you rightly point out. But outside of the quantitative, the perceived range of the threshold between subtle and imperceptible is quite wide
cheers

[badpioneer]

I find the digital Cumbia of ZZK records to be very cutting edge, artists like Chancha Via Circuito and Frikstailers.

[ghettosynth]

Here we go again lol
Interesting that you think that vid u posted is significantly different from can you feel it and french kiss.....

I find it equally interesting that you don't see the difference. It is significantly different. If you're looking for obvious, well, then skrillex is your friend, he's the master of obvious.

1. four to the floor cadence
2. tightly quantized/programmed rhythms from drum machines or sequencers (no loose or live played rhythms allowed)
3. as close as possible to 120 bpm (heaven forbid your body reject your compelling feeling to move)
4. lack of distracting melody
5. perfectly spaced snippets of repetitive predictability (this is a science remember
6. emphasis on sonic texture and movement rather than song structure

This isn't what I said. In science, subtlety matters, hyperbole does not make a counterpoint.

I was just being silly, but honestly that pretty much was the outcome.

No, if that's what you got, then you didn't get it. It's a lot more subtle than that, and some points, 2 in particular, are completely wrong. Your attempt at stating a counterpoint by asserting that "people dance to lots of things" suggests that you don't get the core of the idea.

Also, I fully understand your point about subtlety mattering, especially in science as you rightly point out. But outside of the quantitative, the perceived range of the threshold between subtle and imperceptible is quite wide
cheers

Actually, you have absolutely no idea whether that's true or not. That's a question for science and it's the kind of thing that empirical research addresses. For example, our sensitivity to temperature variation can be quite dramatic. So, in point of fact, you really don't know what parameters impact someone's sensitivity to variance in timing with respect to dancing. It might be imperceptible under certain conditions and have a dramatic impact under others. Moreover, it could be that there is a very narrow range of sensitivity for specific effects.

The point here is that people seem to be seeking the obvious new gimmick and suggesting that's cutting edge. Was autotune ever cutting edge, or, was it just a gimmick from day one? What about sampler abuse "n-n-n-n-n-n-nineteen" ? It was asserted above that Daft Punk isn't cutting edge today, are you sure? Or is it really just that it's not clear what's different? Are they just popular? Were they on the cutting edge when they were at the forefront of the french house scene in the late 90s? Ok, so to be clear, I'm not a fan of Get Lucky, but, is it possible that their popularity will mean that the next big thing in EDM will be a smooth indie-rock house sound? Would autotune be all that it is today if someone other than Cher put it in a house track? I've heard people say that she heard the technique used in euro-dance. I don't know that, perhaps someone has a link?

I think that you need a certain amount of "popularity" before people consider a technique to be cutting edge. There's no shortage of experimentation in EDM, but much of it is forgotten.

So, it depends on what your goal is in identifying the "cutting edge." The above DnB example is something that I've seen in both xStep and trance circles, that is, genre mashups, bringing elements of dubstep into other genres. I guess that makes them a variant of xStep.

[Eauson]

I often laugh to myself when I read these threads, I always seem to never understand the music people post in reference to this or that. Its almost as if people grew up to " now that's what I call techno" or some other generic brand.

Top DJ on RA, if you have heard some of these DJ's they are not really all that, for example fourtet is in the list but cannot mix!! Most of this is hype.

Cutting edge electronic music, most people will not hear it till it is mainstream, by then its commercial and has bandwagoners jumping all over it in the vain attempt to get noticed.

People will possibly read this and think "you know nothing" and I'm happy to agree with you.

The problem is the machine that is called the music industry, is just that, an industry. Alot of the music is low grade reproductions made by people who are trying to get somewhere fast and not caring about the quality. They have to produce to maintain their standing and its often to the detriment of the sound

[Davias]

Sure there is nothing new, just the way they do it, it sounds cutting edge to me.
As the example u posted before, I just finish to listen to them and for me this is not cutting edge, sounds like techno or house that i've heard before, so I guess the debate is infinite because at the end it is the taste AND the musical background of the listener that will make it think it is cutting edge or not.

I remember while the timbaland boom that everybody who were listening to rnb was calling him a genius, so cutting-edge... and to me he was just copying old gimmicks from house and trance and putting them with not-so-bad rnb beats. Ok I think he was cutting edge, he is part of the morphing from old hip hop with sample to nowadays hip-hop that is hard to differentiate from EDM...

When I heard jungle/dnb first time I was feeling it was so cutting edge comparing to the old 4/4 of techno... When I heard trance i was thinking techno melodies were so poor and boring, and when I heard goatrance, I was thinking trance was too sweet and predictible...

Since I've heard IDM I hardly can be surprised by anything...

When I first heard dubstep, I was feeling we were going backward... Slow down the tempo ?? Half-speed boring DnB ? but then the genre evolved and skrillex made me like dubstep and I'm not sure he was so much known at the time, around me nobody heard of him, now everybody knows. Theses guys (and I'm sure skrillex is not the first one) made dubstep an acceptable genre to my ears.

Now Trap seems to be cutting edge to some people. For me it's just a nonsense of pouets pouets sounds, but I guess someday someone will do a killer track to my ears, and then some others will be inspired, some others will copy, over-copy, and a new sub genre is born, then someone will do something different a little, and breed maybe a new subgenre to the subgenre. Only the two guys that makes the genre deviate will be cutting edge to me.

[ghettosynth]

I often laugh to myself when I read these threads, I always seem to never understand the music people post in reference to this or that. Its almost as if people grew up to " now that's what I call techno" or some other generic brand.

Top DJ on RA, if you have heard some of these DJ's they are not really all that, for example fourtet is in the list but cannot mix!! Most of this is hype.

It's a popularity context, the list won't please everybody. But, you can't just dismiss it. Here's Hawtin from back in the day, was this "cutting edge" then?



I've seen many of the DJs on that list live and it's a list that I far more agree with than many others. For example, any list with Tiesto on it. Also, I suspect fourtet is on the list for his production skills.

Here, watch him work for a Future Music video.

Cutting edge electronic music, most people will not hear it till it is mainstream, by then its commercial and has bandwagoners jumping all over it in the vain attempt to get noticed.

More than that, it's really not one thing that makes something "cutting edge." It typically becomes popular within a subgenre before it blows up.

Did microtonal ambient music blow up? Was this cutting edge? It was certainly popular.

[Davias]

I often laugh to myself when I read these threads, I always seem to never understand the music people post in reference to this or that. Its almost as if people grew up to " now that's what I call techno" or some other generic brand.

Top DJ on RA, if you have heard some of these DJ's they are not really all that, for example fourtet is in the list but cannot mix!! Most of this is hype.

It's a popularity context, the list won't please everybody. But, you can't just dismiss it. Here's Hawtin from back in the day, was this "cutting edge" then?



I've seen many of the DJs on that list live and it's a list that I far more agree with than many others. For example, any list with Tiesto on it.

Cutting edge electronic music, most people will not hear it till it is mainstream, by then its commercial and has bandwagoners jumping all over it in the vain attempt to get noticed.

More than that, it's really not one thing that makes something "cutting edge." It typically becomes popular within a subgenre before it blows up.

Did microtonal ambient music blow up? Was this cutting edge? It was certainly popular.

After reading that, I feel that cutting edge for me means that I know I will hear it again in the future, and I will hear it more... I remember more Aphex Twin for his albums after his ambient works. For his crazy stuff and techniques, some tracks are like a manual of all the Fx for mangling or make transitions between different parts... That was not the best sounding tracks at the time or mixes, but the techniques stays and today many electronic musician are referring as aphex twin for inspiration, and I'm hearing glitchy fx transitions in lady gaga or rihanna tracks... But I think Aphex Twin is somewhat special as I don't see someone comparable. But he was ahead of his time, that made him not popular (not mainstream, the electro-geeks were all in love with him) but his work brought major influence to modern music I think. Is it cutting edge enough ?