Like the dub Techno thread, thought it would be cool to have an IDM thread to collect ‘Nauts fave IDM tunes from over the years.
Obviously most folks are aware of Aphex and Autechre’s contributions here and those recommends are welcome, but any artists more unknown or underground would be great to share here, too.
I’m not sure if it’s the pandemic or just me, but I’ve been looking back and sort of being nostalgic a lot… it can be kinda hard to plan for the future in some ways right now.
And one thing that keeps coming up for me lately is IDM. I dunno if it’s just enough years distance from it… it’s weird to think some of the most iconic releases are coming up for 30 years old now. Something about the general form of the genre that’s really just so enjoyable.
Anyway, I’ll kick it off with one : Proem’s Socially Inept, just a stunning melodic and highly crafted album. Search it down on your preferred platform:
why is this? nostalgia gland or just is no one pioneering/trying anything new or is the digital music scene so saturated with derivative youtube tutorial led stuff the truly original and soulful stuff just doesn’t get a chance to surface/breakthrough?
That’s tough to answer. I’m sure the aesthetic was a product of its time and everything that went with it, good and bad. It seems like it was a time of exploration and used gear and cheap computing facilitated creatives entering the field without having to mortgage the house to get started and it all predated the vacuousness of internet personalities. I’m not so quick to say it’s nostalgia as I listen to music from numerous genres and time periods.
I do think there is probably some great stuff out today that simply doesn’t get the exposure it deserves.
If we say that Warp were the major driving force behind so-called IDM, I’d say friendly competition played a role. Squarepusher and Aphex Twin lived together for a time and Jenkinson said in an interview that Go Plastic was a case of him and Richard trying to 1-up each other in terms of being extreme. Autechre were always pushing limits, BoC were pushing/twisting trip hop that had been popular around that time. British music was flourishing at that time in general with Portishead, Massive Attack, Oasis et al and the record label paradigm was still in full effect back then.
I completely agree with this. This dynamic played out in other genres and areas too. I can speak from personal experience that I made my best progress while competing with others.
My theory about why this was a great period for music: computer music was still new and was in a liminal place between academic and experiential stuff. Many of the early computer music programs even began as academic projects. Once EDM bros caught on to computer music tech the market got saturated, but there was a brief period where making music in DAWs was still fresh & weird.
