and where was detroit when all this was going on ?
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 15:02:00 -0800
To: idm@hyperreal.org
From: "Gause, Brian" <bgause@SECTORBASE.COM>
Subject: RE: [idm] house vs. idm
Message-ID:
<8F4C99C66D04D4118F580090272A7A2325D9CC@sectorbase1.sectorbase.com>
re: the history of idm
This isn't something I can relate in a few paragraphs, but as a summary.
Personally, I would say that modern IDM did originate with Warp, the early
AI comps and a few lads in england that went on to become Aphex Twin,
Link/Reload/GC, Autechre and Black Dog. As far back as I remember it, there
was a core scene of people who seemed to have similar sensibilities and a
taste for the same range of musical sound.
These aren't bubble-people, though. There are always influences. If you want
to talk about electronic music (and IDM as a sub-group of this), then you
have to look at The Orb/The KLF (and their electronic pop and Jamaican
influences). Thirty-five years ago, people were untrusting of electronics
and thought such music cold. So look then at the huge electronic pop
explosion of the 80s. People found a way to make electronic music warmer.
Then Punk. If punk, as music and as a scene, left the world with anything,
it's this overwhelming and open DIY ethic. Where would all these closet IDM
artists today be without the change in thinking that punk gave us?
Then back to music again...Eno, Bowie, Byrne, Fripp...the list of artists
experimenting with new ways to make sound electronically is huge and these
are only four names. But if you look at "76:14" by GC work, you can find
similarities with Tangerine Dream. And wasn't there a group a few years back
called the Heavenly Music Corporation? This was the name of an album by eno
(and fripp, if I'm not mistaken). The Orb, and later MUCH of the ambient
scene, was obviously influenced by Eno's early experiments in the
field...and being laid up in bed after getting hurt.
IF you want to go further back, look at Cage and Stockhausen and Tangerine
Dream. Then Pink Floyd (don't tell me namlook wasn't HEAVILY inspired by
these guys)....then Erik Satie.
The list is endless because influences are not absolute and even harder to
measure accurately. Especially if consider this from the perspective of
western music. Would The Orb ever have been The Orb without dub? Would Pole
be Pole without the Orb or without dub? Dub is certainly not western. One of
Aphex's biggest early tracks was Didgeridoo...isn't this Australian? Who's
going to tell me that heavy basslines come from Europe? Anyone want to make
that leap? You simply cannot trace the origins of IDM through a single
line...there are influences from all over the world, from widely distinct
times and places and arriving in many different ways.
And if, by chance, you're interested enough, go check out some of David
Toop's writing...he's done a fair bit of work on this and not so incomplete
as my ramblings here. Sure IDM has a past, but idm is a silly, close-minded
little genre...this is not what Eno meant. This is not what punk wanted to
produce. IDM is not the endpoint of a straight line...it is a single branch
on a larger tree, way out at the edge, but even now, not all the way out
anymore. Perspective.
---brian
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Brian W. Gause
Senior Technical Writer
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