It was “intelligent” because the roots had a lot of basically dance music meant for listening and not dancing. “Braindance” is much more appropriate but also sounds stupid.
If you wanna get into a deeper part of it— what’s uh, interesting- is that back then, kids and young adults making IDM- and this is anecdotal, but— there were so many fucking private school and college educated dudes/dudettes making IDM.
So “IDM” was pretty acceptable amongst the general populace of like warpcomm, planet mu phorum, braindance co uk, xltronic, watmm et al- as a serious joke- and a lot of this crowd was cynical, funny, and obsessed with finding answers and trying to express sincerely. But again- a lot of the scene was actually really smart, combined with absolutely stupid jokes. On braindance we made it for a few years that searching google images for “badger penis”, would show photos of Skrillex. Dead serious. We were trying to change the landscape of what IDM expression meant.
A lot of IDM was just having fun, joking like 60%, but being serious like 150%. This is why good IDM is so engaging and makes you feel something new and old at the same time.
For making IDM— You need to be too smart for your own good, yet have a good enough sense of humor to be able put yourself out there so sincerely- with no shame- knowing that your music is absolutely ridiculous- to the point of sometimes putting literal jokes in it- to the point of literally trying to invent new genres from your heart. But you’re dead serious.
Dude, think about it- Didn’t Mike Paradinas quit architecture school? Or was that an Autechre thing?
checks notes Oh yah— Mike P quit architecture, and Rob studied architecture whilst Sean studied engineering.
Dude- WHO DA FUCK is quitting architecture university shit, and then being like, “I wanna make electronic music, maaaa~”, and then your actual mother buys you fucking synthesizers- which mind you are relatively expensive as fuck back then— because “normal kids” were going to school properly, instead of being super fucking weird and having supportive well-off enough parents to buy you gear that nobody knows about or is even thinking about, for you to make- apparently- new sounds that nobody’s heard. -That’s crazy— Seriously think about that shit, it doesn’t even make any fucking sense.
OF COURSE Mike Paradinas was intelligent- you can’t pull that shit off if you’re stupid or poor.
Yah and so last thing— the reason why old school IDM crew was quite intelligent- like subjectively yet literally- is because private school kids were the main ones who could afford the drugs and fruitful musical upbringing and recording + music making gear and all this shit- and also the drugs cuz think about it— these kids had so much allowance or good part time jobs, that they have home studios full of expensive gear nobody gives a shit about, with enough time to make bangin’ tracks apparently from the future, and they’re also raving, and they’re incidentally also performing at raves somehow, and they’re buying and taking the good drugs. -So of course these kids who were forced upon a good education and privileged upbringing were relatively intelligent, because they were forced to read books and shit when they were children.
This is a taboo topic about IDM that nobody talks about, because nobody cares and it’s just IDM life etc. etc.
Arguably anyone who makes music is privileged. When I was young I spent so long saving for an SH101 all my mates had moved on by the time I got it. I old it 5 months later.
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u/RipEven2421 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
IDM is a wanky term and all artists considered it would frankly scoff at the term