The Beginner's Guide to the IDM Genre (Part 1)

This essay is intended to serve as a beginner’s guide to the musical genre known as IDM. A subgenre of electronic music, it started to formulate in the early 1990s. It was referred to as “intelligent” dance music because it was more complex than many of the mainstream dance tracks that were being produced at the time.

IDM tracks tend to be more experimental and less oriented towards getting people to dance. The genre is a bit difficult define; it’s a bit of an “I know it when I hear it” type situation. One major way to delineate it is that it is usually meant for listening at home as opposed to being played by a DJ in a club-like atmosphere.

The name IDM is often eschewed by the actual artists who supposedly make it. A somewhat less common term used is “braindance.” Several musicians associated with the genre actively reject the IDM label.

The most influential and important artist of the genre is clear in my mind: Aphex Twin (real name Richard D. James). His influence had been clear in not just IDM, but electronic music in general. James was born in Ireland, but grew up in Cornwall.

James is an example of an artist who doesn’t appreciate the label “intelligent dance music.” He was quoted in 1997 as saying, “I just think it's really funny to have terms like that. It's basically saying 'this is intelligent and everything else is stupid.' It's really nasty to everyone else's music.”

The music of Aphex Twin is incredibly varied. He has dabbled in several different genres, including jungle, ambient, acid techno, and even piano pieces. His ambient tracks on albums such as Selected Ambient Works Volume II sound worlds apart from his spastic, fast paced tracks on 2001’s Drukqs.

Aphex Twin’s most well known track is most likely Come To Daddy, off the 1997 EP of the same name. The track is solid and a bit mainstream compared to much of his other work, but a big part of its fame is due to the insane music video by Chris Cunningham. It features freakish imagery including a group of small children all with the grinning face of Aphex Twin.

The track titled, “Windowlicker” is his second most famous, also partly due to a grotesque music video by Cunningham. This time, instead of children, we see the Aphex Twin face on bikini-clad women.

The most essential Aphex Twin album in my opinion is clearly Drukqs. It is often considered to be the peak of his career, although this may be partly because there was not another album released under the Aphex Twin name for 13 years, until 2014’s Syro.

Most of the tracks on this album are frenetic, chaotic ones such as “Omgyjya Switch 7” and “Vordhosbn”. 

Those contrast with short interludes of a computer controlled grand piano, with its sound sometimes altered in various ways. These calm tracks are reminiscent of the John Cage prepared piano pieces. Examples of the more mellow ones include “Avril 14th” and “Kladfvgbung Michsk.”

Also crucial is the Selected Ambient Works series, consisting of two albums, SAW 85-82 and SAW Volume II. The first was released in 1992, the second in 1994. Standout tracks from the first include “Ageispolis”, “We are the Music Makers” (which contains a sample of the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), and “Xtal”.

Some of my favorites from Volume II are the opener “Cliffs”, and "Weathered Stone".

Additionally, Richard D. James has made music under several different aliases, including AFX, Polygon Window, Caustic Window and Bradley Strider. There’s even an amusing remix of the Pac-Man theme song by him under the name “Power Pill.”

The next level of big names in IDM clearly consists of three names: Autechre, Squarepusher, and Boards of Canada.

Like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher is a UK artist. Tom Jenkinson is his given name. His music is similar to Aphex in that it is often chaotic, intense, and full of surprises. However, he clearly has his own sound and differs from Richard D. James in many ways.

Squarepusher’s sound is much more jazz-influenced. He plays bass guitar and this often a big part of his live set. Many of his tracks also exhibit strong drum and bass roots.

He first started releasing music in 1994 and is commonly considered to have been inspired by Aphex Twin’s music, although the inspiration has clearly gone both ways over the years. They even produced a track together in 1998, “Freeman Hardy and Willis Acid.”

The first full length effort from Squarepusher, Feed Me Weird Things, came out in 1996 and is a perfect example of both his jungle and jazz influences.

One of my favorite tracks from that album is the jazzy opener, “Squarepusher Theme.”

Squarepusher followed that up with his second album, 1997’s Hard Normal Daddy. The single taken from it was “Vic Acid”, but the clear standout is the manic, high energy “Fat Controller.” This track is a perfect example of how the album is experimental, yet still funky and enjoyable.

Jenkinson continued to release albums steadily for the next few years. In 1998 he came out with Music is Rotted One Note and Buzz Caner, with Selection Sixteen in 1999.

His most intriguing release from this era is the 2001 album Go Plastic. Picked as the single was the incredibly catchy “My Red Hot Car”, which features vocals with the line, “I want to fuck you with my red hot car.”

Since then, Squarepusher continues to release music every year or two. His most recent full-length came out in 2012, titled Ufabulum. Simply put, even for Squarepusher/IDM standards, the album is absolutely insane. Ufabulum is purely electronic and doesn’t feature any live instruments as his albums often do. It is considered by many to be his strongest effort since Go Plastic and I have to say I agree.

The single from the album, “Dark Steering” was given a trippy music video that showed off a new feature of Squarepusher’s live show, an LED helmet he wears that matches up with a crazy looking screen in the background. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform this album live at the Movement Festival in Detroit, MI. Needless to say, it was one of the coolest and most intense live performances I’ve seen.

My favorite cut off this one is probably, “The Metallurgist.” It is embedded below.

On April 20, 2015 his new album Damogen Furies, will be made available. One track, “Rayc Fire 2”, can currently be downloaded from his official website for free.

Unsurprisingly, the next artist we will discuss is also from the UK. The group known as Autechre consists of Sean Booth and Rob Brown, who were both born in Manchester, England.

They started about the same time as Aphex Twin, with their first two EPs, Cavity Job and Lego Feet being published in 1991.

Their debut LP, 1993’s Incunabula was a unique and influential album in the world of electronic music. The album has a minimal, cold, and clinical feel to it. Yet it still manages to have emotional resonance at times.

It was released by Warp Records, the highly influential label that has also published music by Aphex Twin and Squarepusher.

The excellent track “Basscadet” was selected as the single, which makes it the only Autechre single to come from an LP.

My personal favorite from Incunabula is “Bike”, which is embedded here.

Their next full-length album, Amber, was put out in 1994. Like Incunabula, Amber has more of a mainstream sound when compared with later Autechre works. However, it was a bit more ambient and less beat-oriented than their first release.

Amber is a solidly consistent record, but my favorite may be the track “Slip”, which is linked to below.

Autechre dropped their third album Tri Repetae, in 1995, and we begin to see more of the experimental sound that most associate with them. Even their first two albums stretched the limits of what could be considered “dance music” but with Tri Repetae, they left that world entirely.

This album is even more cold and emotionless than their more accessible previous releases. Quiet tracks like “Overand” are definitely not something you would hear at a club.

In 1995, they also released an EP named Anvil Vapre. “Second Bad Vilbel” was chosen off of it to get a music video directed by Chris Cunningham, who directed videos for Aphex Twin as I mentioned earlier.

Their fourth LP, Chiastic Slide debuted in 1997. It continued with the experimental sound of Tri Repetae but didn't necessarily  break any new ground comparatively. LP5, the fifth Autechre album, arrived in 1998.

2001 saw the release of Confield, what many consider to be the height of Autechre’s musical output. It was also the apex of their experimentation. Right from the opener “VI Scose Poise”, it’s clear this is a challenging, but rewarding listen.

Next year, Autechre made an EP titled Gantz Graf. The title track was turned into a visually stunning music video by British artist Alex Rutterford. Rutterford has worked with musicians such as Radiohead and Amon Tobin.

The video features some absolutely insane abstract computer generated imagery that is perfectly synchronized to the music. Supposedly, the idea for the video came to the artist during an LSD trip.

After that came Draft 7.30 in 2003 and Untilted in 2005. The latter features one of my favorite Autechre tracks, the epic, frenzied, almost 16-minute (their longest) “Sublimit”.

Quaristice came out in 2008 and in my opinion, saw the beginning of a new sound for Autechre that would carry over in their future releases. It was less intense and chaotic and more minimal in a strange way than earlier albums. There were also a lot of shorter tracks; Quaristice had 20, more than any other Autechre album and some were under three minutes.

“The Plc” is a good example of the quirky, almost laid-back new direction of their music.

2010’s Oversteps was in a similar vein. Gone is the maximalism of some of their tracks from albums such as Confield, and instead many of the songs have an ambient vibe. Oversteps also had 14 tracks, a decent amount for Autechre, with many of them five minutes or shorter.

One of my favorites on Oversteps is the ethereal “see on see”.

Their most recent release was Exai, a 2014 double album that was their best since at least Untilted. The album has seventeen tracks plus a Japanese bonus track and is over two hours in length.

The 12-minute “bladelores” is one of my favorites off Exai.

In part 2 of this series, I discuss Boards of Canada as well as some of the lesser-known IDM artists.

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The Look of Silence is an intense and haunting documentary

I recently volunteered at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, MO and got a chance to see the amazing new documentary from up and coming filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer has been making documentaries since the mid-1990s, but recently gained prominence for his 2012 film, The Act of Killing. Most notably, it was nominated for an Academy Award for best Documentary feature. It also won the BAFTA for best documentary at the 2014 awards. He lived in Indonesia for years in order to make these films.

The Act of Killing has been described as a companion piece to The Look of Silence. They both share the same subject matter of the series of massacres that took place in Indonesia in 1965-1966. Over 500,000 people were killed by the government in a supposed crackdown on communists.

Unfortunately I have not yet seen the first film, but viewing Silence has definitely convinced me to search it out.

The Look of Silence is about a mass killing of thousands but it focuses on the story of one family. This is incredibly important. It can be easy sometimes to hear about thousands killed in a far off land and think of it only as an abstraction. This gives a chance to really feel the experience on an individual level.

The main character is a man named Adi, whose brother was horrifically killed as part of the massacres. The perpetrators are still in power and he is forced to live around them every day.

His job is giving eye exams and he started having to visit the homes of the men who were responsible for his brother’s death. According to Oppenheimer in the Q&A after the film, Adi then started intentionally seeking out older men in order to learn more about the senseless atrocities. In the film, he confronts them, but calmly, seemingly without anger.

The camera unobtrusively observes these tense scenes where old men unemotionally delineate murdering people in horrific ways. However, the film doesn’t shy away from reminding the viewer they are watching a film as Oppenheimer is mentioned by name onscreen and one of the perpetrators talks about how Oppenheimer’s questions weren’t as tough as Adi’s.

These men talk about drinking blood as you or I would describe an iced mocha. At least two or three claim that when killing so many people, one had to consume their victims’ blood to avoid going insane. This appears to be a clear case of incongruent affect where one’s demeanor doesn’t match the intensity or emotion of what they are describing.

Throughout the film, Adi also watches video of the deceased leader of the death squads responsible for the killings. The recordings show a man who describes the killings even more casually than the rest and reenacts them for the camera in minute details. In perhaps the film’s most intense moment, he recounts how Adi’s brother Ramli was killed by having his penis sliced off.

As you can see, the film is quite disturbing at times. Yet there are still moments of levity and humor, mostly provided by Adi’s elderly parents. His father is supposedly over a hundred years old, confined to wheelchair and seems to be barely able to see or hear.  He seems surprisingly full of life for someone in that situation and is a pretty humorous character. We get the pleasure of seeing him sing a song with lyrics such as, “You’re so sexy, I can’t stand it!” The humorous moments are juxtaposed with the heavy moments in a interesting and powerful way.

If you stay for the credits you will notice that many of the crew positions are credited simply as “Anonymous.” They fear reprisals from the Indonesian government for their participation in the film. Oppenheimer also stated in the Q&A that the government has been systematically trying to shut down local screenings. He assumes that he will not be able to return to Indonesia now that these two documentaries have come out.

This is the first I’ve seen by Joshua Oppenheimer, but I can clearly tell he has a distinct look and isn’t your typical documentary filmmaker. The cinematography in documentaries can be a bit basic or utilitarian at times, but he and cinematographer Lars Skree really give us some beautiful imagery and great framing.

The editing is also quite interesting as we often see these drawn out moments of silence during the intense interviews. Often one of the military leaders will finish speaking about a gory murder and the camera just lingers, hinting at what could possibly be going on in their minds.

The Look of Silence also features two famous names credited as Executive Producer. One is the famous German New Wave director Werner Herzog, who has made  many non-fiction films. The other is Errol Morris, known for his documentaries The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War.

The Venice International Film Festival honored this film with the Grand Jury Prize as well as four other awards. It has received several other awards and nominations from various festivals as well.

As of March 2015, the movie has a 8.3 out of 10 on IMDB, but only 547 users have voted on it so far, including my own score of 10/10.

The reviews seem to be very positive as well. It has a 91 out of 100 on Metacritic and a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Seemingly the only mediocre review has come from The Wrap, where it is described as feeling “more like an extended DVD extra to his genre-defying previous film than a stand-alone documentary.” I may have had a different experience not having seen The Act of Killing, but can’t imagine anything making me view The Look of Silence as a DVD special feature.

Other reviews are much more positive. From Time Out New York, Joshua Rothkopf calls the film, “staggering” and a “superior work of confrontational boldness.” Jessica Kiang of The Playlist says it’s “an extraordinarily poignant, desperately upsetting meditation.”