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Beardedone · Post by **Beardedone** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 6:50 pm

Exactly. I understood IDM to be not danceable but more of a listening on the couch kind of genre.

griels · Post by **griels** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:16 pm

Why's it called 'Intelligent Dance Music' if you can't dance to it, then?

I'd love to dance to 'Coopers World' or 'Do You Know Squarepusher' by Squarepusher if some bugger would just put it on at a club

And Munchkin, the Reaktivate series has some great stuff on it... More so the early 90s stuff for me, but some great stuff in there. I wouldn't really class what I've heard by Tony de Vit as IDM though, as loathe as I am to pigeonhole stuff. He was great at what he did though

Bunnyboy · Post by **Bunnyboy** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:40 pm

griels wrote: I'd love to dance to 'Coopers World' or 'Do You Know Squarepusher' by Squarepusher if some bugger would just put it on at a club

Thats what I love about some of the clubs in Leeds

Pester the DJ /wait long enough and they will

Dancing to Kid606 in a club

munchkin · Post by **munchkin** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:43 pm

Intelligent Dance Music.

I've read thru the thread and everyone has a different opinion about what this term means. The range of musical examples given have been diverse. It's just another trainspotter category created to encourage elitism in music IMO.

Everyone who thinks they're in the 'club' rubbishes anyone who they think doesn't fit the criteria. It's just trainspotting for people who like to imagine they own the 'knowledge'. The DJ mag's encourage this by creating ever more esoteric categories. I suppose it makes some people feel special.

In Sept 2005 I'm starting a 'Sonic Arts' degree course. They use MAX/MSP and Pro-tools on Mac's. I was told I need to learn Max because it is so versatile (which I'm sure it is but not exclusively.) I was told I will have to unlearn much of what I know to fit in with those who create 'Sonic Arts'. What a load of elitist shite. This type of mentality is what is stifling new art and music. This along with the techno-fetishism of sonic engineering that new musicians are encouraged to get caught up in. Learning to use your equipment is one thing but fetishising the process is another.

Why am I doing the course? So I can spend 3 years out of work concentrating on my music. I'm sure I'll learn a lot from the course but I won't limit or categorise myself by being bound to definitions that others tell me are correct. Definitions are the box but music doesn't fit in boxes (except my 12" collection.)

Excuse my rant but I find it odd that considering IDM appears to be such a flexible definition to most people here my definition can't be included.

soulkraka · Post by **soulkraka** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:49 pm

Pantsdown666 wrote:
soulkraka wrote: It may be stretching the IDM tag a little but I vote for Prefuse '73 both albums "uprock..." and "one word extinguisher"
that's the sort of stretch i like ... IDM can be funky too!
Brilliantt albums both, also "Extinguished".

Agreed...Prefuse 73 is the shit.

Those that havent heard RJD2 "since we last spoke" need to check it out!!

Jbravo · Post by **Jbravo** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 8:06 pm

munchkin, I agree with everything you say - boo to elitism and fetishising. When you make the music you like, it doesn't matter what genre it is - it's academic.

But I would still say there are large stylistic and qualitative differences between "hard house" and what people consider "IDM" - but that has no bearing on whether either of those are any good or not. Genres are just labels so that britney spears doesn't get filed with Hip-hop, and Salsa doesn't end up in the goth-rock section...

griels · Post by **griels** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:26 pm

munchkin wrote: Excuse my rant but I find it odd that considering IDM appears to be such a flexible definition to most people here my definition can't be included.

Hey, I'd definitely class a lot of the Reaktivate stuff as intelligent. It's just the admittedly small amount of stuff I've heard by Tony de Vit sounded quite similar to a lot of other music I've heard for a decade or more. However, I know he was a legend to many, so maybe some of his music can indeed also be classed as 'Intelligent' Dance Music. Not sure he would have wished to have been placed in such a category himself... He had great enough success with his work that any petty pigeonholing would undoubtedly not have bothered him.

Some people probably wouldn't class 'Hard Normal Daddy' as IDM, but it is to me, and who really cares anyway? It's easier to be 'intelligent' than to really move people. That's the real 'intelligence' to my mind. What I found initially refreshing about music classed as 'Intelligent', several years ago, was that it didn't seem to adhere to any conventions. Surely this is the best way to be able to express yourself, without constraint of conventions?

Being self-consciously 'intelligent' for the sake of it in music is very foolish. But being aware of the conventions that bind you, in order to truely express yourself, is very intelligent. That is what I think the term IDM initially was meant to be. However it has become loaded with a number of connotations by copyists (as myriad other labels have been). Some of the most intelligent music to me, were the mad, eclectic collages of early 90s rave, but much of this would no doubt be spurned by IDM purists.

[absurd] · Post by **[absurd]** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:41 pm

Do intelligent people dance?

detfella · Post by **detfella** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:46 pm

IDM

electronica

nool · Post by **nool** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:03 pm

heh every forum must have a bash idm thread

here it is !

personally, music is - good or bad, thats about it, who cares about genre ? thats boring

visa tapani · Post by **visa tapani** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:06 pm

munchkin wrote:Intelligent Dance Music. I've read thru the thread and everyone has a different opinion about what this term means. The range of musical examples given have been diverse. It's just another trainspotter category created to encourage elitism in music IMO.

<snip rant>

Excuse my rant but I find it odd that considering IDM appears to be such a flexible definition to most people here my definition can't be included.

You'd do well to research a bit about what IDM stands for before concluding from the words intellignet dance music that it simply referes to "dance music that is intelligent". There's no way Tony De Vit can be squeezed into the category.

IDM was (and is) the name of a mailing list created in the early 90's to discuss this specific kind of music with roots in dance music but that does not aim for the dancefloor. The name was influenced by Warp's Artificial Intelligence compilations and the fact that the early players (like Black Dog, Autechre, Aphex Twin, Warp artists in general) had roots in techno. In the beginning it could be said that IDM was anything discussed on that mailing list. It got a bit more complicated later on, obviously, but IDM as a genre has retained an odd character in that what's included is defined largely by what the community is into, rather than specific musical qualities (like, Venetian Snares, Autechre and Boards of Canada are all categorized as IDM despite how different their music is).

Ah, can't be arsed to write more. Anyhow, you really need to get better aquainted with the genre before before making statements about what it stands for or what's included.

Oh and I find it quite lame to fight the power of music categorization. It's like, we've been over this a million times.

tetraplan · Post by **tetraplan** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:22 pm

//slight hijack

munchkin wrote:I was told I will have to unlearn much of what I know to fit in with those who create 'Sonic Arts'. What a load of elitist shite.

1. "Unlearning" is the most importanty lesson anyone could teach you.
2. What's wrong with elitism?

This type of mentality is what is stifling new art and music.

Quite the contrary.

By the way, Max/MSP and PD are among the most powerful and flexible environments.
But not exclusively, as you pointed out.
Those would be CSound and Supercollider. You will come across those.
Buy lots of aspirine in advance. Unless you prefer paracetamol.

Groet, Erik

carrieres · Post by **carrieres** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 1:16 am

POL - Transomuba (1994)
does it fit the genre ?
but i love it so much !
i remenber a morning when i woke up with it and forget that it was the sound from this CD

chao
chris

skipscada · Post by **skipscada** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 5:31 pm

Lots of names to check out on my next visit to the local record shop here. I thought I'd contribute with a recently digitally remastered old album, definitely a classic (as in "old and good"), but is it IDM?

It's from before the Internet age, and consequently doesn't fit the IDM-mailing list requirement. But would anyone agree it could be considered a precursor for the sort of styles discussed in this thread?

Oh, almost forgot to put the name and title. Artist: Yellow Magic Orchestra (or YMO). Title: BGM. BTW, does anyone know what BGM means? Boring Generic Music? Surely not.

pHz · Post by **pHz** » Fri Oct 22, 2004 5:36 pm

tetraplan wrote:1. "Unlearning" is the most importanty lesson anyone could teach you.
2. What's wrong with elitism?

1 - noone can TEACH you to unlearn and you cant actually unlearn ANYTHING ... what you can do though is choose to ignore your learning (not that thats in any way easy)

2 - almost EVERYTHING

slainte

rob

Classic IDM albums?