“IDM” and More Electronic Music
Albums Listened To
Beat (1996) - Bowery Electric 🇺🇸 | Music Has The Right To Children (1998) - Boards of Canada 🇬🇧 | Carcal (2015) - Disclosure 🇬🇧 | Crush (2019) - Floating Points 🇬🇧
Átta (2023) - Sigur Rós 🇮🇸 | In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country (2000) - Boards of Canada 🇬🇧 | Gamma (2024) - Gesaffelstein 🇫🇷 | Kofū (2020) - MEITEI 🇯🇵
Hi Scores (1996) - Boards of Canada 🇬🇧 | Passenger (2025) - Nightbus 🇬🇧 | Vespertine (2001) - Björk 🇮🇸 | Floating Into The Night (1989) - Julee Cruise 🇺🇸
Quaristice (2008) - Autechre 🇬🇧 | Geogaddi (2002) - Boards of Canada 🇬🇧 | Go Hawaii (2000) - Casino Versus Japan 🇺🇸 | EP1 (2012) - FKA twigs 🇬🇧 | EP2 (2013) - FKA twigs 🇬🇧
Haunt Me (2001) - Tim Hecker 🇨🇦 | KiCk i (2020) - Arca 🇻🇪 | People On Sunday (2020) - Dominique Dumont 🇱🇻 | N-Plants (2011) - Biosphere 🇳🇴 |
A Hundred Days Off (2002) - Underworld 🇬🇧 | Oblivion With Bells (2007) - Underworld 🇬🇧 | DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (2025) - Bad Bunny 🇵🇷 | Watersport567 (2019) - AL-90 🇷🇺
First off… SORRY FOR THE DELAY! I’ve had quite a hectic life since the last post with lots of visitors to Vienna, meetings regarding potential and upcoming projects, trying to get into the habit of writing as much music as I can throughout the day… The post following this one will definitely come sooner than later, and will feature FAR fewer albums. 25 albums-per-post is, as I’ve now learned, far too much to discuss in a thoughtful way without taking an exorbitant amount of time.
Alright, enough intro. This album cycle featured eight projects described as “IDM,” or “intelligent dance music.” I’m going to go ahead and say it… I hate this term, and this hatred connects directly with my dislike of concert music being seen as more “intelligent” or cerebral than other music. This creates a spectrum (or hierarchy) of music that indicates superiority in works that can seemingly only be truly enjoyed by those with an extensive musical background. I find this especially silly considering concert music and pop/rock music play by quite different rules in terms of theory and structure, so tearing down non-concert music for not being “smart” enough feels ridiculous, as it doesn’t share remotely the same goals that concert/academic music often does.
Although I consider myself quite musically educated… the “intelligent dance music” albums were often the ones I couldn’t really connect with. My lowest ranked album in this cycle, Quaristice (2008) by Autechre, is such an example, and probably the one that leans into this term the heaviest as my understanding goes. I wrote in my notes that I felt bamboozled by the first track, as it’s far and away the most “accessible” part of the album, then followed by some of the most maximalist, atmospheric and bizarre tracks I’ve heard in a while. The technical skills displayed are, like many similar albums, phenomenal. The actual enjoyment of the album though… not so much. These types of projects seem as though their only real purpose is to show the world how smart the artist is, which I suppose is also a valid purpose. I just personally tend to roll my eyes at such projects.
On the other hand, both Go Hawaii (2000) by Casino Versus Japan and Geogaddi (2002) by Boards of Canada are labeled as “IDM” but sound like pretty basic electronic albums, which makes me think that the usage of the term is more of a status marker rather than an accurate description of the musical devices or technical skills employed. Granted, who knows if either of these artists would approve of the term in relation to their albums, but it appears when looking at the album information in various online databases. Both of these albums were enjoyable as passive-listening, but they’re both quite bland and not as engaging as I would’ve expected. A similar thing can be said about BOC’s Hi Scores (1996), though this one was a bit more interesting as it had a sort of funk-influence to some of the tracks. I’m also a huge fan of EP’s since they’re a smaller time and energy commitment for the listener, and I often find that artists put their best foot forward sonically considering they have more limited space to capture the listener’s attention. Another EP I listened to was also from BOC, called In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country (2000). This is an album I ranked very highly, predominantly due to its immediacy of the musical material. Everything felt purposeful rather than just repeating the same mediocre musical ideas for six minutes. Similar to some of their other work, there’s a surreal and almost dusty quality to the album which really captivated me. This is without a doubt one of their best projects in my opinion, and I’d highly recommend a listen. It’s not even 25 minutes! The last BOC album of this cycle was Music Has The Right To Children (1998), another highlight of their discography that features some interesting rhythms using unpitched electronic sounds.
Also EP’s but coming from a different electronic angle were two projects by FKA twigs, EP1 (2012) and EP2 (2013). Even shorter than the previously mentioned albums, the impressiveness of what Twigs does in her later albums is evident in both of these works, though more in EP2. Her voice sounds just as mesmerising here as the full-length albums, and I appreciated the primal and self-assuredness of the tracks. Produced only by Twigs and Arca, another legend of electronic music, I decided to check out a slightly more recent album of Arca’s. KiCk i (2020) is a bold, maximalist project that seems to focus much more on production than musical content. It’s also very sporadic and I found myself having trouble really getting into any of the tracks, though there were still some highlights (“Time” and “Machote” stood out in particular).
I was recommended Nightbus’s Passenger (2025) by a very dear friend following the first Listening Room post, and I would also pass along that recommendation to anyone reading this. It’s got a definite Ray of Light influence and reminds me of that late-90’s/early-00’s Matrix vibe. It really felt like I was riding on the back of a motorcycle through a neon-lit city, which was a cool mental image to have while listening. While I do think the production was on the thinner side at times, this was an enjoyable project and I look forward to following what Nightbus does next!
Next on to a couple musical outliers, the first of which being Disclosure’s Caracal(2015). To be honest, I’m not sure what possessed me to listen to this… it came up on my Spotify daily recommendations and I randomly decided to check it out. I love some of Disclosure’s more recent work, and I knew quite a few of the tracks on this particular album (as I’m sure you would too, since many were major radio hits). That said, this just doesn’t hold up in today’s musical landscape. The track lengths are pretty long considering every song features more or less the same chord progression and general feel. It’s just a never-ending repetition of the same synth sounds, the same intense side chain, even similar subject matter. An album that gave me a dose of house music but in a much more interesting package was Underworld’s A Hundred Days Off (2002). Underworld is the group responsible for some of the music in the 2012 London Olympics, and even used a snippet of a track from this album in the opening ceremony (which was a cool little Easter Egg). As a composer obsessed with harmony, it was incredibly enjoyable to have an album with frenetic electronic pulse AND some interesting harmonic structures. At times it felt like a combination of Steve Reich and Daft Punk, with some thoughtful mixing of the acoustic and electronic worlds.
The second outlier is an album I was very excited to listen to: Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (2025). I found this incredibly compelling and exciting to listen to; it was a truly cohesive project that you can fully immerse within. The melodic material has a lot of aching beauty to it, and at times almost feels operatic in scope.
A minor note: I am always a bit skeptical when albums have as many writers as this one does (I counted 70). I understand that the roles are split across the various tracks, but it makes me wonder how different the album would be if there were only a handful. That said, I also understand that there are certain artists who are more of a product of the people who sort of “build” their musical and cultural language; certainly a tough job in and of itself. I’m interested to hear what you might think about these types of albums, so let me know how you consider this (or if you don’t consider it at all).
Due to the length of this post already… I’m only going to single out one more album: Björk’s Vespertine (2001). Truthfully I’m not sure how I haven’t listened to this album until now, considering I listened to most of Björk’s albums during my undergrad. This one might just be my favourite; it’s full of icy, wintery synths and bells, and even amidst the whimsical production, the core musical ideas are astoundingly clear. Björk can sometimes seem a little impenetrable sonically, especially to those who don’t typically like more experimental albums. BUT… if you’re at all curious about getting away from more traditional song structures or production tropes, Vespertine would be a great first step.
Some other highlights of this album cycle were:
Oblivion With Bells (2007) - Underworld
Watersport567 (2019) - AL-90
Haunt Me (2001) - Tim Hecker
Floating Into The Night (1989) - Julee Cruise
For any David Lynch fans, give this a listen for sure
Crush (2019) - Floating Points
If you happened to make it all the way to the end, you are an icon. This was certainly a lesson for myself that fitting 25 albums into a reasonably-lengthed post is not super feasible. You have my word that the next cycle (which will have a post released SOON) will feature no more than 15 projects, though at this point I might stick with around 10.
Chat soon,
Ben xx
