even though what I do has only marginally to do with IDM, it's actually
clicky housey abstract jazz funk live electronic music.
This could still be IDM. I think it just depends on the depth, intricacy, and complexity of the rhythm and the unconventionality of the melody/harmony. i would definitely say that not all IDM has to be preprogrammed/sequenced. in my own work i would like to bring back some of the john cageyness to electronic music performance. there is so much IDM potential in something as simple as a contact mic that not many people seem to be interested in anymore, now that they have so many preset sounds in something like FLStudio, for instance (not saying that you can't customize it).
the latest Savath&Savalas album, Apropra't
alright, i dont even own this album, but i've heard parts and i know scott's work as s&s, as well as d&a. simply put, not everything released by warp is IDM. last year i saw !!! live and it was great but it was not IDM. it was funk. if apropra't is listed with other IDM in the record store, isnt that just because prefuse is his more famous work? judging by some of his album titles, i think he has probably always had a certain fascination with folk music. the award for best new genre title goes to i think XLR8R, who reviewed Four Tet's Rounds as being folktronica.
particularly when you set it against some of Squarepusher's more ferocious tunes
Squarepusher is impossible to listen to sometimes - for me at least - due to the sheer 'stress factor'.
overall, i suppose squarepusher makes drill 'n' bass or whatever, not IDM. i think he is a major name in IDM because of his associations with warp and richard d james, and albums like burningn'n tree, selection sixteen, parts of feed me weird things, and some others. but when i listen to go plastic and do you know squarepusher i really dont feel like i'm listening to IDM.
How difficult to listen/noise-based/complicated/progressive does IDM
have to be?
as much as the artist wants. i think if it's difficult to listen to, then that's a statement about experimental music as a whole, not IDM as a genre. i think people consider music that's difficult to listen to experimental and therefore more like IDM. in reality, i think IDM became something with its own unique formula just like any other genre. autechre has spawned so many spin offs its impossible to keep track, so one can hardly call them progressive in any way. other genres take care of the hard to listen to noise-based stuff just as well as IDM does. industrial music is a huge genre with, obviously, lots of noise acts.
-but I would still like to figure out where the Intelligent in the IDM
name ends and where 'banal', for lack of a better word, starts.
I think that's why all of us are on this list, to figure that out. It's been established that even IDMers hate the label IDM, because we didnt make it up. I think what makes it intelligent is that you can enjoy it on and off the dance floor and its not all about some whiny vocal line about how much you need someone to go home with tonight from the club. i think if the artist is aware that music has the potential to make a statement then it will be reflected in the music. it will go beyond the problem of convincing a club patron to buy a drink and get on the dance floor, but may even solve the problem of making that patron turn inward and wonder something about him/herself and the universe (if that is the intent of the music).
basically, i feel like IDM is now more of a ghost than a real thing, a force that will forever haunt the world's judgement of the quality of electronic music. i think IDM was important becauase it looked at the electronic dance music scene and said, whoa, no, wait, this will never do. this stuff is way too boring and is all just regurgitation of old styles with new equipment. something must be done. and then we got autechre and polygon window (aka the dice man. o/t, richard should have stuck with that name - it's like someone calling themself I Ching). It's the same thing that happened in the 30s when some composers wanted to use new electronic instruments like theremins and other spin-offs to play classical tunes with emulation of classical instrument timbres. Other composers were like f*ck that, this is a new era! with new possibilities that could change music forever! and that's the spirit that IDM embraced 60 years later. I think we owe a lot to guys like Russolo and
Cage. It asks its audience to figure out a new way to enjoy what they're hearing. I've found it's better to dance and think at the same time than just dance.
i suppose some of this reply sounds obvious, so i'm hoping that others will follow because this is the kind of discussion that i think this list needs more of.
greg