Electronic on Music Theory Print

2-step garage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

A typical 2-step drum pattern features syncopated kick drums that skip a beat, with shuffled rhythm or triplets applied to other elements of the percussion, resulting in a sound noticeably distinct to those present in other house or techno music. Although rhythms with two kicks to a bar may be considered less energetic than the four on the floor pattern, 2-step rhythms maintain the listener’s interest with off-beat snare placements and accents in the drumlines, scattered rimshots and woodblocks, syncopated basslines, and the percussive use of other instruments such as pads or strings. Instrumentation usually includes keyboards, synthesizers, and drum machines. Other instruments are added to expand the musical palette, often in the form of acoustic recordings, which may be sampled. The primary synth basslines used in 2-step are similar to those in the style’s progenitors such as UK garage, drum and bass, and jungle. Influences from funk and soul can also be heard. Vocals in 2-step garage are usually female (similar in style to those prevalent in house music and contemporary R&B), although male vocals in 2-step became just as prevalent. Some 2-step producers also process and cut up elements of a cappella vocals and use it as an element of the track. Much like other genres derived from UK garage, MCs are often featured, particularly in a live context, with a vocal style reminiscent of old school jungle.

Acid house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Acid house’s minimalist sound combined house music’s ubiquitous programmed four-on-the-floor 4/4 beat with the electronic squelch sound produced by the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. The sound is commonly produced by raising the filter resonance and lowering the cutoff frequency of the synthesizer, along with programming the 303’s accent, slide, and octave parameters, to create variation in otherwise simple bass patterns. “Exploration of texture” is preferred over melody; “a refusal of the metaphysical priorities of western music discourse”. Other elements, such as synthetic strings and stabs, were usually minimal. Sometimes tracks were instrumentals, such as Phuture’s “Acid Tracks”, or contained full vocal performances, such as DJ Pierre’s Pfantasy Club’s “Fantasy Girl”, while others were essentially instrumentals complemented by the odd spoken word “drop-in”, such as Phuture’s “Slam”.

Acid jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The genre’s name was likely coined by Gilles Peterson, and the record label with the name was started by Chris Bangs, Eddie Piller, and Gilles. However, acid jazz is not an electronic music genre and has no relationship with the music genres named “acid” (acid house, acid trance, acid techno, etc.), which are heavily based on the “acid-like” sound, produced by the Roland TB-303 electronic music synthesizer. DJs Femi Williams and Marco Nelson from Young Disciples claimed in a recently unearthed 1992 TV interview that they coined the term because they had a club with acid playing downstairs and jazz upstairs, so they thought it would be amusing to name the upstairs room “The Acid Jazz Room”. The veracity of this claim predating Peterson’s is dubious, as the interview in question took place five years after the Acid Jazz label was created, and Young Disciples were first active three years after the formation of the label.

Acid techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

The acid style was obtained largely through Roland instruments, most prominently the TB-303 bass synthesizer. The acid sound is achieved by turning up the filter resonance and turning down the cutoff frequency parameters of the synthesizer, along with programming the 303’s accent, slide, and octave parameters. In addition to acid records imported from the US, the style was influenced by sources such as hardcore, German trance, and Belgian rave music.

Acid trance

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Notable labels#

Attack Records
Harthouse
Moonshine Music
Platipus Records
Rising High Records

External links#

*Music and merch tagged acid trance

Acousmatic music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

According to certain historical accounts, the origin of the term acousmatic can be traced back to Pythagoras; the philosopher is believed to have tutored his students from behind a screen so as not to let his presence distract them from the content of his lectures. Under these conditions, the listener focuses on the sounds being produced to heighten the sense of hearing. In 1955, Jérôme Peignot and Pierre Schaeffer were the first to use the term acousmatique to define the listening experience of musique concrète. It is said to be derived from akousmatikoi, the outer circle of Pythagoras’ disciples who only heard their teacher speaking from behind a veil. In a similar way, one hears acousmatic music from behind the ‘veil’ of loudspeakers, without seeing the source of the sound.

Afro house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics and etymology#

Afro house may have emerged after or at the same time as Kwaito started to appear in South Africa. The BPM commonly shifts between 80 and 122 and, in some instances, can even reach 160 BPM. The etymology of the name uses the prefix ‘afro’ (meaning anything relating to Africa and African culture) and the suffix, ‘house’, referring to the main genre of house music.

Notable women in Afro house#

South African record label Afrotainment (Ezase Afro) housed one of the first notable female Afro house artists, DJ Cndo, Her 2007 debut album, Finest Lady of House Vol.1, obtained gold record status. Vocalist Bucie is regarded as “the female voice of South African house music”, including Afro house, particularly with regard her Afro house hit single “Superman” which was produced by Black Coffee in 2009 and was later sampled by Drake in 2017 for his More Life album featuring Jorja Smith. British singer Seal has stated that he likes her music and mentioned that Bucie is “a great singer and artist”. co-founded Fuse Academy, a DJ academy specifically for female DJs, together with Nomdeni Mdaki. In 2016, singer Alicia Keys enlisted Black Coffee to create a remix of her track “In Common”, which was recognized and well received internationally. Zimbabwean singer and songwriter Jackie Queens launched her record label Bae Electronica, which solely showcases female house artists such as Thandi Draai, who has been “heralded as SA house music’s femmetastic triple-threat” according to Mixmag.

Afro tech

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Name and characteristics#

The name is in direct symmetry with Afro house whereas in frame of reference the prefix ‘afro’ defines anything relating to African culture as well as Africa. The suffix ’tech’ appeared to be designated on account of the evident immediate connection to techno. Vocals or lyrics are predominantly delivered in Xhosa and Zulu. Afro-tech is a combination of Afro house and techno sounds inclusive of various African percussion.

Afro/cosmic music

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Descriptions#

The Afro/cosmic mixing style is freeform in that it allows for short hip-hop style transforms as well as long, beat-matched segues; it sometimes incorporates added percussion and effects; and it permits major speed variations to force songs into a 90–110 BPM range. Baldelli would also play 45 RPM records at 33 and vice versa. The cosmic sound included a very diverse range of musical styles, from electro and funk to jazz fusion and Brazilian music. Peter Shapiro described Baldelli’s music as a “combination of spaced-out rock and tribal percussion.” One genre that was usually not part of this mix was Italo disco, which Baldelli believes was generally too mainstream and commercial. In a 2005 feature on Daniele Baldelli, one of the style’s founding DJs, music journalist Daniel Wang describes Baldelli’s style as “psychedelic, churning, hypnotic.” In the interview, Baldelli emphasizes playing diverse selections of classical, African and Brazilian folk, and synth-pop at improper speeds, mixed with effects and drum machines: Cosmic music has been cited as a “touchstone” for contemporary “space disco” artists like Lindstrøm collaborator Prins Thomas and Andy Meecham of Chicken Lips. It has also been cited as an influence on some later Italian house songs, such as Sueño Latino.

Algorave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Description#

Algoraves can include a range of styles, including a complex form of minimal techno, and the movement has been described as a meeting point of hacker philosophy, geek culture, and clubbing. Although live coding is commonplace, any algorithmic music is welcome which is “wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive conditionals”, which is a corruption of the definition of rave music (“wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”) in the UK’s Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Although algorave musicians have been compared with DJs, they are in fact live musicians or improvisers, creating music live, usually by writing or modifying code, rather than mixing recorded music. At an algorave the computer musician may not be the main point of focus for the audience and instead attention may be centered on a screen that displays live coding, that is the process of writing source code, so the audience can not just dance or listen to the music generated by the source code but also to see the process of programming.

Alternative dance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

AllMusic states that alternative dance mixes the “melodic song structure of alternative and indie rock with electronic beats, synths and/or samples, and club orientation of post-disco dance music”. The genre draws heavily on club culture for inspiration while incorporating other styles of music such as electropop, house, and EBM. The performers of alternative dance are closely identified with their music through a signature style, texture, or fusion of specific musical elements. They are usually signed to small record labels.

Amapiano

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Origins#

There is no single “true founder” of amapiano. As a result, there is ambiguity and debate concerning its origin, with various accounts of the musical styles in the Johannesburg townships. Because it has some similarities with bacardi house, some people assert the genre began in Pretoria but it remains uncertain. Various accounts of who formed the popular genre make it impossible to accurately pinpoint its origin. The word amapiano is a Zulu word that can be loosely translated to “pianos.” The genre is mostly sung in eleven of South Africa’s 12 official languages such as IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SiSwati, Sesotho, Sepedi, Setswana, English, Xitsonga, Tshivenda, Afrikaans, or IsiNdebele.

Ambient house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Genre#

AllMusic describes “ambient house” as an “early categorical marker” for music “appropriating certain primary elements of acid house music – midtempo, four-on-the-floor beats; synth pads and strings; soaring vocal samples – used in a dreamier, more atmospheric fashion”. Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World noted common elements: repeated synthesizer arpeggios that are gradually modulated; reverbed snippets of dialogue from film, radio, or relaxation tapes; and samples of other musical works drifting in and out of the mix. and AllMusic acknowledges that the term “ambient house” is now rarely used, replaced by a morass of more specific genres and terms.

Ambient music

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History#

As an early 20th-century French composer, Erik Satie used such Dadaist-inspired explorations to create an early form of ambient/background music that he labeled “furniture music” (Musique d’ameublement). This he described as being the sort of music that could be played during a dinner to create a background atmosphere for that activity, rather than serving as the focus of attention. In his own words, Satie sought to create “a music…which will be part of the noises of the environment, will take them into consideration. I think of it as melodious, softening the noises of the knives and forks at dinner, not dominating them, not imposing itself. It would fill up those heavy silences that sometime fall between friends dining together. It would spare them the trouble of paying attention to their own banal remarks. And at the same time it would neutralize the street noises which so indiscreetly enter into the play of conversation. To make such music would be to respond to a need.” In 1948, French composer & engineer, Pierre Schaeffer coined the term musique concrète. This experimental style of music used recordings of natural sounds that were then modified, manipulated or effected to create a composition. Schaeffer’s techniques of using tape loops and splicing are considered to be the precursor to modern day sampling. In 1952, John Cage released his famous three-movement composition 4'33 which is a performance of complete silence for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. The piece is intended to capture the ambient sounds of the venue/location of the performance and have that be the music played. Cage has been cited by seminal artists such as Brian Eno as influence.

Ambient techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics and influences#

AllMusic states that ambient techno, building off the ambient house scene, blended the “soaring, layered, aquatic atmospheres of beatless and experimental ambient” with techno’s “well-produced, thin-sounding electronics.” Ambient techno artists returned to the instruments of the Detroit techno and Chicago house scenes, including analogue synthesizers, the Roland TB-303 bass machine, and the TR-909 drum machine. The Orb’s 1991 album Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld would inspire dub-influenced ambient techno.

Asian Underground

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the 1980s, performances of folk music evolved into the bhangra music genre, which would later become more mainstream in the 1990s and 2000s. In the 1990s, Asian underground was considered hip and broke through to the mainstream, with artists such as Apache Indian and Cornershop frequently entering the UK charts, with the former’s “Boom Shack-A-Lak” (1993) appearing in many popular movies and the latter topping the charts with “Brimful of Asha” in 1998. The genre and other forms of South Asian music began to influence Europe’s pop mainstream as acts like Björk, Erasure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees all released singles or remixes featuring South Asian instrumentation. Talvin Singh, known for his innovative fusion of Indian classical music with drum and bass, subsequently won a Mercury Music Prize for his album OK in 1999. Asian underground music initially had only little influence on popular Indian music on the sub-continent, where it was usually branded under world music. While several Asian underground artists such as Apache Indian, Trickbaby and Bally Sagoo gained fame in India, it was only after Panjabi MC’s international hit “Mundian To Bach Ke” that British-Asian underground music could compete with domestic Indian artists like Shankar Mahadevan and Remo Fernandes, in addition to attracting worldwide audiences. It was followed by the globally successful Rishi Rich Project, consisting of producer Rishi Rich and artists Jay Sean, Mumzy Stranger, Juggy D and Veronica Mehta. They were one of the first groups to fuse Bhangra music with contemporary R&B and found tremendous success in India after their songs were featured in mainstream Bollywood soundtracks such as Boom, Kya Kool Hai Hum and Hum Tum. Since then, Asian underground music has exerted some influence on mainstream Indian pop music. Asian underground music has also influenced mainstream American hip hop, R&B and urban music in the 2000s, including artists such as Timbaland, Truth Hurts, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Missy Elliott and Britney Spears. According to DJ Green Lantern, “Indian beats have now become a fixture on the R&B scene”. Music produced by the Asian Dub Foundation has also been featured on the soundtracks for popular video games such as Need For Speed Underground. Several former Asian underground artists such as M.I.A. and Jay Sean have gone on to achieve mainstream success in the North American music industry, where they produced mainstream songs such as “Paper Planes” and “Down” that have charted highly on (and in the latter case, topped) the Billboard Hot 100.

Azonto

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Azonto is a communicative dance believed to originate from “Apaa” which literally means to work. Apaa was used to show the profession of an individual. The azonto dance has since grown further to relay coded messages. The dance later got into the minds of most Ghanaians. In 2013, most Ghanaian music videos were full of Azonto dance and later spread to most African countries and other parts of the world. Popular music researcher Jesse Weaver Shipley claims that like hiplife, the popularity of Azonto is a direct result of its interactions in diaspora. Azonto

Balearic beat

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

This style was popularized at Amnesia, an Ibizan nightclub, by DJ Alfredo from Argentina, who had a residency there. DJ Alfredo, whose birth name is Alfredo Fiorito, has been credited as the “Father of the Balearic beat”. Alfredo played an eclectic mix of dance music Trevor Fung, Danny Rampling and Electra’s Paul Oakenfold are commonly credited with having “popularised” Balearic beat, especially in the UK, with Fung said to be the originator of the term. In 1987, after a holiday in Ibiza, Oakenfold, Fung and Ian St. Paul returned to London, where they unsuccessfully tried to establish a nightclub called the Funhouse in the Balearic style. Returning to Ibiza during the summer of 1987, Oakenfold rented a villa where he hosted a number of his DJ friends, including Danny Rampling, Johnny Walker, and Nicky Holloway. Returning to London after the summer, Oakenfold reintroduced the Balearic style at a South London nightclub called the Project Club. The club initially attracted those who had visited Ibiza and who were familiar with the Balearic concept. Fueled by their use of Ecstasy and an emerging fashion style based on baggy clothes and bright colors, these Ibiza veterans were responsible for propagating the Balearic subculture within the evolving UK rave scene. In 1988, Oakenfold established a second outlet for Balearic beat, a Monday night event called Spectrum, which is credited with exposing the Balearic concept to a wider audience. It was 1988 when Balearic beat was first noticed in the U.S., according to Dance Music Report magazine. Jose Padilla was an Ibizan DJ best known for his residency at Café del Mar. Also Jon Sa Trinxa, a British DJ and Producer best known for the longest residency on Salinas Beach at Sa Trinxa defines his style as being Balearic Music. Pitchfork traces back elements of Balearic beat music to the 1982 Indian album Disco Jazz, sung by Rupa Biswas and composed by Aashish Khan. According to Pitchfork, the Bengali language song “Aaj Shanibar” from Disco Jazz contains “touches of what would now be considered Balearic beat music, with its expansive and hypnotic musical interludes.” However, the album was largely unknown until its rediscovery in the late 2010s.

Baltimore club

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Early promoters of Baltimore club included Scottie B and his colleagues at Unruly Records. The Ensoniq ASR-10 keyboard sampler, released in 1992, was used to produce many tracks in the genre.

2000s#

In the mid-2000s, the genre gained crossover popularity in Baltimore’s rock underground due to dance nights at venues such as the Talking Head Club. Baltimore club was featured in Spin Magazine in December 2005. DJ K-Swift was known as a prominent personality in the genre. In addition to DJing at “Hammerjacks” and The Paradox, she hosted a radio show on WERQ-FM from 1998 until her death in 2008.

Bass music

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Bassline (music genre)

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Characteristics#

Bassline generally places a strong emphasis on bass, with intricate basslines (often multiple and interweaving) characteristic of the genre. Bassline tracks typically use a four-to-the-floor beat.

Early bassline house#

Bassline grew from the sound popular in nightclubs in Sheffield during the late 1990s, in particular Sheffield’s Niche nightclub, which played speed garage mixed with melodic vocal house. According to Steve Baxendale, owner of Niche, the club’s DJs began to take the vocals out of speed garage and house music, and then pumped up the bass, from around 1997. The changes in the style of music at Niche led to a change from a predominantly white crowd to a predominantly Black British crowd. There are local variations in bassline music, with a “darker” style more popular in Sheffield and Manchester, It being mixed with organ house popular in West Yorkshire, while local scenes in cities such as Birmingham and Nottingham favoured a more upbeat style. Often, different “organ” and “bass” mixes of a track appeared on the same record, drawing on the genre’s different musical influences. The bass or “B-Line” mix would be more influenced by speed garage, featuring a synthesised, low-frequency oscillation bassline, known as a “warp” or “reese”. The organ track would instead feature sampled Korg M1-style organ leads, influenced by the house music of the 1990s.

Belgian hardcore techno

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History#

Originally a slow form of electronic dance music, Belgian new beat evolved into a native form of hardcore techno during the early 1990s with the introduction of techno records played at their intended speeds or slightly accelerated. This brutal new hardcore style spread throughout Europe’s rave circuit and reached the pop charts. The Belgian hardcore sound also influenced part of the UK and US rave scenes. The genre was spearheaded by Belgian producers from the new beat scene, like Frank de Wulf, Olivier Abbeloos, Maurice Engelen, Oliver Adams and Nikki Van Lierop. This style of music was also pioneered by Dutch projects like Human Resource, L.A. Style and Holy Noise. Outside mainland Europe, a small group of producers adopted the style in the UK. The main labels that developed this style in the UK were Kickin’ Records, Vinyl Solution, Rabbit City, Edge and Rising High. Producer Caspar Pound of Rising High Records, known by its stage name “The Hypnotist”, was a vocal supporter of this style of hardcore techno. The most notable achievement of this style of hardcore in the pop charts is L.A. Style’s single “James Brown Is Dead” reaching the Billboard’s Hot 100 Airplay chart. Notable acts like The Immortals, 2 Unlimited, 2 Fabiola and AB Logic achieved relative success blending the style with dance-pop. After a brief period of expansion during the mid 90s, the style lost popularity, while modern hardcore techno (gabber), trance, happy hardcore and jungle music took place as the leading genres within the rave circuit.

Bhangra (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The roots of modern bhangra music date back to the Sikh Punjabi community in Punjab during the 1960s. An early pop music and modern recording group of this type of music in the United Kingdom was the Bhujhangy Group, founded by Tarlochan Singh Bilga, Balbir Singh Khanpur, Gurpal, Rajinder Dhona and Dalvir Kahanpuri in Birmingham in 1971. The Bhujhangy Group’s first major hit was “Bhabiye Akh Larr Gayee”. It was written by Tarlochan Singh Bilga in the early 1970s and was released on Birmingham’s Oriental Star Agencies label. This was the first bhangra song to combine traditional Asian music with modern Western instruments.

Big beat

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style#

Big beat features heavy and distorted drum beats at tempos between 100 and 140 beats per minute, Roland TB-303 synthesizer lines resembling those of acid house, and heavy loops from 1960s and 1970s funk, soul, jazz, and rock songs. They are often punctuated with punk-style vocals or rappers and driven by intense, distorted synthesizer basslines with conventional pop, house and techno song structures. Big beat tracks have a sound that includes crescendos, builds, drops, extended drum rolls, and sounds such as spoken word samples, dialogues from film and TV, additional instruments such as Middle Eastern strings or sitars, explosions, air horns, sirens (usually police sirens) and gunshots. As with several other dance genres at the time, the use of effects such as filters, phasing, and flanging was common in the genre. Celebrated pioneers of the genre such as Fatboy Slim tend to feature heavily compressed loud breakbeats in their songs, which are used to define the music as much as any melodic hooks and sampled sounds. Based on the primary use of loud, heavy breakbeats and basslines, big beat shares attributes with jungle and drum and bass, but has a significantly slower tempo.

Big room house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

By the fall of 2012, the popularity of Electronic dance music (EDM) had exploded. EDM-only festivals began to pop up all over the United States with headline bills featuring internationally touring talents like acts like Skrillex, Tiësto, and Armin van Buuren. No longer restricted to underground raves and soft-ticketed club nights, EDM continued to grow as festivals for progressive house, dubstep, electro house, trance and drum and bass all took place together. DJs began to recognize the need to make music suited for the larger venues and arenas they had begun to play and would play for years to come. As multi-genre EDM festivals like Ultra Music Festival, Electric Zoo and HARD Summer and Swedish House Mafia-like arena tours quickly became the norm in all of electronic dance music, DJs began focusing on making music specifically to be played in these new ‘big’, commercially-driven spaces. The backlash from other DJs, industry insiders and long-time ravers became predictable as the direct tie-in to commercial viability and music’s relative simplistic composition made it an easy target. Unlike trance’s richly programmed arpeggios or house music’s culturally important samples, big room house didn’t have any inborne unique or virtuoso qualities to it; instead much more reliant on the context in which its deployed. Though there are numerous classic big room house songs now, “Animals” remains among the most important. The song’s emergence and subsequent coverage was the first to even make mention of the term “big room” and is responsible for the phenomenon’s explosion. In 2016, Beatport added the Big Room genre, putting producers such as Deadmau5 and Wolfgang Gartner under the category.

Bikutsi

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Etymology#

The word ‘bikutsi’ literally means ‘beat the earth’ or ’let’s beat the earth’ (bi- indicates a plural, -kut- means ’to beat’ and -chi means ’earth’.) The name indicates a dance that is accompanied by stomping the feet on the ground.

Description#

Bikutsi is characterised by an intense rhythm (3+3, with a strong “two” feel), though it is occasionally Triple metre

History#

Popular bikutsi first appeared in the 1940s with the recording of Anne-Marie Nzié. Some twenty years later, the style was electrified with the addition of keyboards and guitars. The most popular performer of this period was Messi Me Nkonda Martin, frontman for Los Camaroes and known as “the father of modern bikutsi music”. In an effort to translate the sound and spirit of traditional bikutsi music to more modern terms, Messi incorporated the sound of a balafon into the electric guitar by linking together the guitar strings with lengths of cotton cord. Played in this way, the electric guitar sounded similar to the balafon. The music itself, then, was only slightly altered, while the image and outside perception of bikutsi music was changed enormously. Other bands during this time, such as Les Vétérans, were also popular. International acclaim began in 1987 with the formation of Les Têtes Brûlées by Jean Marie Ahanda. The late guitarist of Les Têtes Brulées, Zanzibar, invented the trick of damping the strings of his guitar with a strip of foam rubber to produce the music’s characteristic balafon-like thunk. (The balafon is a marimba-like instrument that is widely used in African folk music.) More modern performers include Jimmy Mvondo Mvelé and Mbarga Soukous. Present-day bikutsi as performed by artists like Lady Ponce, K-Tino, Racine Sagath and Natascha Bizo is sometimes regarded as controversial. It has been criticised for the perceived sexual content of its lyrics and dancing style. In this respect bikutsi resembles mapouka from Côte d’Ivoire, which is also considered indecent by many Africans. The main difference is that present day bikutsi is still often performed by female artists who use it as a means of self-expression in a traditionally male-dominated society. Thus a singer like K-Tino, self-styled femme du peuple (woman of the people) sees herself as having an important part to play in the emancipation and liberation of the women of Cameroon. Among the current crop of artists are Patou Bass and Ovasho Bens, the promoter of a dance and philosophy called “zig zag”. His first album is composed not only of Cameroonian traditional rhythms but also West Indian zouk and Jamaican-style reggae. Bikutsi has influenced Western musicians such as Paul Simon on his 1990 album The Rhythm of the Saints.

Birmingham sound

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Black MIDI

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Origins and early history#

Though the two are unrelated in origin, the concept of impossible piano existed long before Black MIDI, manifesting itself for example within Conlon Nancarrow’s work involving player pianos, in which he punched holes in piano rolls, creating extremely complex musical compositions in the same impossible, unplayable spirit of Black MIDI. It was uploaded to the Japanese video-sharing site Nico Nico Douga in 2009, and public awareness of Black MIDI spread from Japan to China and Korea in the following two years. The Black MIDI community in Japan vanished and, according to Jason Nguyen, the group was “analogous to those TV shows where there’s a mysterious founder of a civilization that is not really known throughout the course of the show”.

Bleep techno

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Style#

Bleep techno is a sparse, cold subgenre of techno primarily defined by minimalistic electro-style synthesizer tones (the eponymous “bleeps”) and heavy sub-bass inspired by dub and reggae sound systems. combining acid house’s hypnotic pull with “skippy syncopation” that presaged jungle. Roland TR-909 drum machines with syncopation are frequently used.

History#

In the 1980s, the burgeoning British rave music scene was influenced largely by American house and techno records—music which came from cities like Chicago, Detroit, and New York. Original UK tracks were generally considered second-rate at that time. However, this changed with the release of 1988 single “The Theme” by Bradford-based group Unique 3—music characterized as the first bleep techno single owing to its unprecedented blend of Chicago house with elements of hip hop and reggae. The track featured deep sub-bass with “bleepy melodies, shuffling TR-909 rhythms and weird synth tones.” Following the release of “The Theme”, a wave of artists in cities like Sheffield, Leeds, Leicester, and Birmingham began making music inspired by this new sound. The newly founded Warp Records became the subgenre’s most prominent label in 1989, with artists such as Sweet Exorcist, Forgemasters, LFO, and Nightmares on Wax becoming important figures in the style. Warp’s first release was Forgemasters’ “Track With No Name”, funded by the UK’s Enterprise Allowance Scheme, a grant meant to help unemployed youths start businesses. LFO’s eponymous single reached no. 12 in the UK charts in 1990. Between 1989 and 1991, bleep techno would serve as one of England’s most popular rave styles. The Warp compilation Warp 10+2: Classics 89–92, released in 1999, contains much of the label’s early bleep material.

Blog rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

Writer Peter C. Baker of the New Yorker, when writing about the blog rock era claimed that, “if the year 2005 were condensed into a single word, that word would be “blogroll.” The term “blog rock” was similar to “bloghouse”. In Chris DeVille’s 2025 book on indie rock, Such Great Heights, he describes the term’s “derogatory” meaning, saying that it “connoted something … specific: a cloying sort of indie band with fleeting success manufactured online, apart from real-world communities and institutions.” DeVille gives examples of bands more suited to the term as Architecture in Helsinki, I’m from Barcelona, and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin.

Bloghouse

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Etymology#

The term “bloghouse” was originally defined by Carles, the anonymous writer behind the music and culture blog, Hipster Runoff. He used the term in a post titled “WTF is Blog House?”, published on July 10, 2008, to describe several prominent electronica-related acts that were being described as “bloghouse”. In the article Carles, listed several artists as part of the bloghouse umbrella, including prominent acts like Justice and Crystal Castles, alongside artists that would later be more closely associated with the blog rock movement, such as Black Kids. Artists like Interpol from New York’s post-punk revival scene were also mentioned. Over time, the sound of bloghouse became more narrowly defined, describing a proliferation of electronic music artists that were associated with the early online musical blogosphere.

Bouncy techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Antecedents: early 1990s#

The breakbeat hardcore style that dominated raves across England was generally not popular in Scotland. This is attributed to regional music, cultural and racial differences across the UK; with breakbeat regarded in Scotland as a “black English thing” and an “alien musical culture”. The few Scottish-based DJs who supported this music found it difficult to be booked locally. DJ Kid told the crowd to “fuck off” on the mic before he stormed off stage when ravers turned hostile towards him playing such a set. A divide in the United Kingdom rave scene occurred as a result with separate musical paths of development. Scotland instead favoured techno and vocal/piano music at raves. The Time Frequency (TTF) led the charge of local bands. After three chart hit records in the UK Singles Chart Top 40 across 1993, which peaked with “Real Love” at number eight, their commercial success in part resulted in a backlash against the band. With the vocal/piano approach now tainted, ravers turned their attention to an alternative form of underground music that had since materialised.

Breakbeat

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The origin of the word “breakbeat” is the fact that the drum loops that were sampled occurred during a “break” in the music – for example, the Amen break (a drum solo from “Amen, Brother” by the Winstons) or the Think break (from “Think (About It)” by Lyn Collins).

1970s–1980s: Classic breaks and hip-hop production#

Beginning in 1973 and continuing through the late 1970s and early 1980s, hip-hop turntablists such as DJ Kool Herc began using several funk breaks in a row, using drum breaks from jazz-funk tracks such as James Brown’s “Funky Drummer” and the Winstons’ “Amen, Brother”, to form the rhythmic base for hip-hop songs. DJ Kool Herc’s breaks style involved playing the same record on two turntables and playing the break repeatedly, alternating between the two records. Grandmaster Flash perfected this idea with what he called the “quick-mix theory”: he would mark the points on the record where the break began and ended with a crayon, so that he could easily replay the break by spinning the record and not touching the tone arm. This style was copied and improved upon by early hip-hop DJs Afrika Bambaataa and Grand Wizard Theodore. This style was extremely popular in clubs and dancehalls because the extended breaks compositions provided breakers with more opportunities to showcase their skills. In the late 1970s, breakbeats had attained a large presence in hip-hop. In the 1980s, the evolution of technology began to make sampling breaks easier and more affordable for DJs and producers, which helped nurture the commercialization of hip-hop. Through early techniques such as pausing tapes and then recording the break, by the 1980s, technology allowed anybody with a tape recorder to find the breakbeat.

Breakbeat hardcore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early 1990s: origins#

The rave scene expanded rapidly in the early 1990s, both at clubs up and down the country including Labrynth, Shelley’s Laserdome, The Eclipse, and Sanctuary Music Arena, and large raves in Warehouses and in the open air attracting 10–25,000 whether put on legally from promoters such as Fantazia, Dreamscape, and Raindance, or unlicensed by free party sound systems such as Spiral Tribe. These events featured the popular rave DJs such as Fabio and Grooverider, Carl Cox, Top Buzz, and Slipmatt, as well as live PAs from rave acts including Shades of Rhythm and Bizarre Inc. Breakbeat hardcore drew its melting pot of sound from a vast array of influences – from new beat and Belgian techno that had for a short period been prominent in the UK rave scene, to house and acid house, and furthermore drawing on hip hop and reggae culture. Amongst the influences from within the rave scene itself upon which this strain of hardcore drew were such acts as Manix, The Hypnotist, Ravesignal, and T99. From outside of the rave scene, the sped-up breakbeats of UK rap acts such as Hardnoise, MC Duke, Demon Boyz, and Hijack were highly influential, with some of these including Duke, The Criminal Minds, and Liam Howlett (of Cut 2 Kill and who would go on to form the Prodigy), making the transition into hardcore. Pioneering the fusion of sounds from acid house, hip hop, and reggae were late 1980s UK hip house veterans like Double Trouble and Rebel MC, Blapps Posse, and Shut Up and Dance, becoming pivotal contributors to hardcore and its derivative genres like jungle. The huge increase in producers was also driven by the increasing availability of cheap home computer-based studio setups, particularly Cubase for the Atari ST.

Broken beat

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Broken beat first appeared in the late 1990s and was pioneered by Bugz in the Attic, IG Culture, and the release of the 4hero album Two Pages was influential on the emerging sound and scene. John Bush from AllMusic called it “about as fusion-soaked as it gets.” Appearing in the western parts of London, the genre is also referred to as “West London”, mainly because Goya Music’s offices were in London’s Ladbroke Grove, W11, as were most of the participating artists’ studios. Bugz in the Attic’s Neon Phusion, Mark Force, Afronaut and IG Culture are credited with kick-starting the scene with numerous releases under various monikers, and the New Sector Movements releases for People Music. The sound created combined a variety of music styles including funk, soul, and hip-hop. The transition was to a more abstract form of drum and bass. Many artists that started releasing through 4hero’s Reinforced label are now considered pioneers of broken beat. Simultaneously, established techno artists like Carl Craig and Stacey Pullen experimented with the music they were making, trying to add jazz elements and breaks to their sound. As the music is still based on classic Detroit techno and usually has a harder sound, it is sometimes referred to as “broken techno”. This eclectic mixture was picked up by the Detroit and jazz-affiliated UK techno producers Kirk Degiorgio or As One and Ian O’Brien, who tried to form it into a more soulful variation which further influenced the development of the broken beat genre.

Budots

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

Budots is a Bisaya slang word for slacker (Tagalog: tambay). It can also be traced from the Bisaya word tabudots, which means “a person dancing with unpredictable movements.”

Origins#

The style seems “worm-like” or “ragdoll-like” in nature, wriggling the hips while moving the arms and legs in slow movements. Despite its freestyle movements. Budots dance was performed with foreign electronic dance music until Sherwin Calumpang Tuna, an internet café manager who goes by the stage name DJ Love or Lablab, created a new techno music genre that would complement the dance using FL Studio, which locals referred to as “bistik” (short for Bisayang Tikno, “Visayan techno” ). He also choreographed dance steps for his friends to perform on his budots music videos, which were uploaded on his YouTube channel since February 3, 2009. According to Vice, the budots dance compilation videos features “Myspace-era graphics, free-wheeling dances, and the names ‘CamusBoyz’ or ‘DJ Love.’” While local impression about budots is through its association with overt sexuality, gang wars, and juvenile delinquency, DJ Love has distanced himself and his budots mixes from such issues that plague Davao City. His music videos are incorporated with captions such as, “Yes to Dance; No to Drugs” or “Yes to Dance; No to Riots.” The genre–and its creators–have also become at the receiving end of cyberbullying.

Chicago house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Disco edits#

Following Chicago’s Disco Demolition Night in mid-1979, disco music’s mainstream popularity fell into decline. In the early 1980s, fewer and fewer disco records were being released, but the genre remained popular in some Chicago nightclubs and on at least one radio station, WBMX-FM. In this era, Chicago radio jocks The Hot Mix 5, and club DJs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles played various styles of dance music, including older disco records, newer Italo disco, electro, EBM tracks, B-boy hip hop music by Man Parrish, Jellybean Benitez, Arthur Baker and John Robie as well as electronic pop music by Kraftwerk, Telex and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Some of these DJs also made and played their own edits of their favorite songs on reel-to-reel tape, focusing on the portions of songs which worked well on the dancefloor. Some even mixed in effects, drum machines, and other rhythmic electronic instrumentation in an effort to give songs more appeal. These edits and remixes were rarely released to the public, and even then were available only on privately pressed vinyl records or on mixtapes.

Chilean electronic music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The origins of electronic music in Chile can be found as far back as 1958, when physicist Werner Meyer-Eppler visited Chile. As a result of his visit, experimentation with electronic music gained support from the scientific community and an electronic music laboratory was established. In 1959, Jose Vicente Asuar published a thesis entitled “Generación mecánica y electrónica del sonido musical” (Mechanical and Electronic Generation of Musical Sound), and to demonstrate his thesis he composed “Variaciones espectrales” (Spectral Variations), the first piece of electronic music in Chile. In 1966, at the Universidad Católica, Samuel Claro released his second electronic music album, Estudio N°1. Asuar released Estudio Aletorio in 1962 and Ambientes Sonoros in 1967. Both records were released in Germany (Karlsruhe) and Venezuela (Caracas). In 1968, Tomás Lefever composed 19 electronic tracks and released Klesis, a compilation album containing works by Amenábar and Asuar. It is not clear when exactly the electronic music movement as it is known today reached Chile. At the beginning of the 1990s a small underground movement had emerged, with DJs such as Cristian Vogel, Ricardo Villalobos, Matias Aguayo and Sergio Orrego, the opening of the specialist store Background, and small scale events like “Barracudas” in 1992, “Corriente Alterna” (1993), “Distrito Distinto” (1993), “Background” (1994), “Avanzada multimedia” (1994), “Frontera Final” (1995) and “Spandex Parties” taking place through the 1990s. However, most commentators see the true birth of electronica in Chile at the Alacran Peninsula in the city of Arica, in an event that took place during the solar eclipse of November 1994. The solar eclipse took place on November 3, 1994, with excellent views available in northern Chilean cities such as Arica, drawing astronomers from around the world to observe the rare phenomenon in the area’s uniquely clear skies. A group of electronica fans and DJs decided to use the eerie eclipse landscape as a backdrop to host Chile’s first rave. The event was sponsored by the German clothing manufacturer Pash and took place outdoors in the Scorpion Peninsula, opposite to the historic Morro de Arica. Ravers could observe the eclipse and wait for its shadow to pass, with electronic music as a soundtrack. DJs who took part in the rave included John Acquaviva, Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Derrick May, Pascal, Siddhartha and Adrian. Though it was a small event, the Alacran rave has gained near legendary status in Chile and has become a landmark in the country’s electronic scene. Since then, the scene has grown fast and massive events have taken place in many of Chile’s major cities, including “C C2 reamfields”, “Sensation White” (a spin-off from Amsterdam’s “Sensation”), and Ultra Music, an event that first appeared in Miami. In the last decade, techno and house music, mostly inspired by the movement in Berlin, has grown in Santiago. These underground scene has been recorded by labels like Comeme and Pirotecnia with stars from the scene like Alejandro Paz and Mamacita. The International Society for Chilean Music (SIMUC) has a podcast called MEC dedicated exclusively to Chilean electronic music. The first episode was aired on September 30, 2016.

Chillwave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Musical origins#

Chillwave has been classified as psychedelia, Boards of Canada, whom Abebe says pre-chillwave music was often compared to, The Paw Tracks record label, which distributed Pink’s albums, was run by Animal Collective, who signed Pink after being impressed by a CD of his home recordings, starting with The Doldrums (2000). Uncuts Sam Richard profiled Pink as “a lo-fi legend” whose “ghostly pop sound” proved influential to chillwave acts such as Ducktails and Toro y Moi. Critic Adam Harper disputed Pink’s “godfather of chillwave” status, writing that his influence on lo-fi scenes has been somewhat overstated, explaining that his music lacks “the mirror-shades-cool synth groove of chillwave … Pink’s albums are zany, personal, largely rock-based and dressed in awkward glam”. Discussing chillwave’s bedroom pop precursors, Allene Norton of Cellars opined that Pink is “definitely not chillwave but that kind of stuff influenced a lot of the artists making it, like Washed Out.” The album influenced a wide range of subsequent indie music, with its sound serving as the major inspiration for chillwave and a number of soundalikes. Animal Collective itself also contributed to the movement. Their album Merriweather Post Pavilion, released in January 2009, was particularly influential for its ambient sounds and repetitive melodies, but was not as tightly associated with the “hazy” psychedelia that chillwave was identified with. According to Flavorwires Tom Hawking, chillwave acts extrapolated “the sort of ill-defined pastoral nostalgia” from Animal Collective’s early work “and spun it into an entire genre.”

Christian electronic dance music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Popular figures#

During the late 2000s and early 2010s, several Christian electronic artists rose to prominence in Christian music and general popular music, including G-Powered, Owl City, and Kye Kye. Other mainstay artists in the genre include Capital Kings, LZ7 Gawvi, Hillsong Young & Free, and Andy Hunter. CEDM also includes other subgenres included in EDM, such as dubstep, techno, deep house and trance. There also is a perception of genre-blending between CEDM and contemporary Christian music. A significant number of artists from this genre tend not to reference themselves as solely Christian musicians due to the crossover with other genres.

Cloud rap

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

In 2010, music blogger Walker ‘Walkmasterflex’ Chambliss coined the term “cloud rap” in a blogspot post describing the music of Main Attrakionz member Squadda B, whom he labelled “the king of cloud rap”. Chambliss thought he was using a phrase from a 2009 interview by music writer Noz, where rapper Lil B showed him a CGI image of a castle in the clouds and said “that’s the kind of music I want to make.” He later used the term for the Space Age Hustle blog’s compilation album, 3 Years Ahead: The Cloud Rap Tape released in 2010, which helped popularize the genre. The label “cloud” denotes distinct characteristics of the genre such as its “hazy”, ethereal aesthetic (in terms of both aural and visual expression) and its ambiguity as a genre without clearly defined borders.

Congolese rumba

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tempo and instrumental composition#

The Congolese rumba is characterized by a slow-to-moderate tempo and syncopated arrangement of drums and percussion, typically following a time signature. The genre’s instrumentation has evolved over time. Initially, local tunes were concocted employing instruments such as the likembe, a bottle struck with a metal rod, and a small, skin-covered frame drum called patenge. By the mid-to-late 1950s, the instrumentation diversified further with “orchestres”, or big bands, becoming the standard and incorporating upright basses, trumpets, saxophones, and more elaborate percussion setups. The contemporary Congolese rumba instrumental makeup primarily includes guitars, mandolins, banjos, drums, saxophones, clarinets, trumpets, maracas, pianos, shakers, double bells (ekonga), likembe, accordion, and racketts.

Coupé-décalé

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

Coupé-décalé derives its name from Nouchi. According to journalist Siddhartha Mitter, coupé means “to cheat” while décalé means “to run away”. Together, the phrase expressed a rebellious mindset linked to “beating the system” and escaping social or economic hardships, especially those associated with Western or colonial systems, in a way similar to the idea of “The Man” in American counterculture. Other interpretations of the genre’s name have been suggested as well. In Tradition et modernité dans la musique de l’Afrique occidentale, musicologist Olivier Rivera Micalef argued that DJ Jacob was the first person to use the words coupé (“cut”) and décalé (“shift”) to describe particular dance movements performed by the Jet Set collective. Even though DJ Jacob introduced the terms, Douk Saga is generally considered the central figure who organized, expanded, and brought coupé-décalé to international audiences.

Crunk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term has been attributed mainly to African-American slang, in which it holds various meanings. It most commonly refers to the verb phrase “to crank up”. It is theorized that the use of the term came from a past-tense form of “crank”, which was sometimes conjugated as “crunk” in the South, such that if a person, event, or party was hyped-up, ‌"cranked" or “cranked ‌it was said to be “crunk”. The term has also been traced to usage in the 1980s coming out of Atlanta, Georgia nightclubs and meaning being “full of energy” or “hyped”. In the mid-1990s, crunk was variously defined either as “hype”, “phat”, or “pumped up”. Rolling Stone magazine published “glossary of Dirty South slang”, where to crunk was defined as “to get excited”. A seminal year for the genre was 1996, with the releases of Three 6 Mafia album Chapter 1: The End (featuring “Gette’m Crunk”), and Memphis-based underground hip hop artist Tommy Wright III’s album On the Run, which featured the Project Pimp track “Getting Crunk”. Artist Lil Jon was instrumental in bringing the term further into the mainstream with his 1997 album titled Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album. He later released other songs and albums using the term, and has been credited by other artists and musicians as galvanizing use of the term as well as mainstreaming the music genre itself. The term has continued to evolve, taking on a negative stigma with police, parents and the media. In 2011, the company which manufactured “Crunk” drink brought out an alcoholic version named “Crunk Juice”.

Crunkcore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and characteristics#

Crunkcore combines the post-hardcore genres of screamo and emo with hip-hop, particularly the Southern hip-hop genre crunk, along with electronic music such as electropop, dance, pop, rock, and the metal genres of nu metal and metalcore. Writer and musician Jessica Hopper claims that Panic! at the Disco’s fusion of emo and electronic elements influenced the development of crunkcore in the mid-2000s. Kerrang! noted retrospectively that a mostly online presence through mediums such as Myspace was a major feature of crunkcore. The lyrics of the genres are mostly party-themed, hedonistic, and sexually explicit. Family Force 5 is a lyrical exception, instead melding the sounds of the genre with Christian-themed lyrics. Hollywood Undead, Brokencyde, and 3OH!3 are credited as the primary artists behind the creation and emergence of crunkcore. The roots of the genre are in the output of the rap rock group Hollywood Undead, but the genre achieved popularity through Brokencyde, who are considered the most responsible for crunkcore’s rise. Warped Tour co-creator and CEO Kevin Lyman calls the group 3OH!3 “the real tipping point for scrunk” as “they were the first emo-influenced act to depart from traditional instruments in favor of pre-programmed beats”, while still retaining many of the stylistic elements of emo. That group achieved the genre’s greatest success, the 2008 single “Don’t Trust Me”. The genre declined in the 2010s, although Brokencyde and 3OH!3 continued to record and tour, respectively, for the next few years. Blood on the Dance Floor and Family Force 5 are the most prolific artists in the genre, with a respective eight studio albums and five studio album and nine EPs. Crunkcore is typically characterized by the use of screamed vocals, although some crunkcore artists do not scream. For example, 3OH!3 do not “incorporate the blood-curdling screams of many scrunk acts”. Millionaires and Kesha likewise eschewed the screamed vocals typical for crunkcore but retained the sexually explicit lyrics and thus are still often considered part of the genre.

Dance-pop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1980s#

As the term “disco” started to go out of fashion by the late 1970s to early 1980s, other terms were commonly used to describe disco-based music, such as “post-disco”, “club”, “dance” or “dance-pop” music. As the primary songwriter on her self-titled debut album and a co-producer by her third record, Madonna’s insistence on being involved in all creative aspects of her work was highly unusual for a female dance-pop vocalist at the time. The staff of Vice magazine stated that her debut album “drew the blueprint for future dance-pop.” In the 1980s, dance-pop was closely aligned to other uptempo electronic genres, such as Hi-NRG. Prominent producers in the 1980s included Stock, Aitken and Waterman, who created Hi-NRG/dance-pop for artists such as Kylie Minogue, Dead or Alive and Bananarama. During the decade, dance-pop borrowed influences from funk (e.g. Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston), new jack swing (e.g. Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul), and contemporary R&B. Other prominent dance-pop artists and groups of the 1980s included the Pet Shop Boys, Mel and Kim, Samantha Fox, Debbie Gibson, and Tiffany.

Dangdut

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Development#

The term dangdut is an onomatopoeia for the sound of the tabla (also known as gendang) drum, which is written dang and ndut. Modern Minangkabau music is also the forerunner of dangdut, along with Malay music. The transformation of Malay music by M. Mashabi (1932–1967) and Munif Bahasuan (1935–2021) with the Orkes Kelana Ria in the 1960s with several songs such as Ya Mustafa, Ya Mahmud and Patah Kasih which, according to ethnomusicologist Andrew N. Weintraub, are considered “proto-dangdut” and pioneered the form of dangdut as it is known today. Orkes Melayu singer Ellya Khadam switched to dangdut in the 1970s, and by 1972, she was the number-one artist in Indonesia. Her success, along with that of Rhoma Irama, meant that by 1975, 75 per cent of all recorded music in Indonesia was of the dangdut genre, with pop bands such as Koes Plus adopting the style.

Dariacore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “dariacore” was first used by Jane Remover for a trilogy of albums released on SoundCloud under the alias “Leroy” in the early 2020s, with cover artwork taken from the cartoon Daria. calling it “a joke that’s been going on for too long”. Following Jane’s comments on the name dariacore, some artists would remove the hashtag from their music.

Characteristics#

Dariacore is most defined by its eclectic use of samples from pop music, underground viral hits, pop culture, and internet memes, as well as its fast BPMs. and bed squeaks. as well as breakbeats.

Dark ambient

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Dark ambient often consists of evolving dissonant harmonies of drones and resonances, low frequency rumbles and machine noises, sometimes supplemented by gongs, percussive rhythms, bullroarers, distorted voices and other found sounds, often processed to the point where the original sample cannot be recognized. However, while the theme in the music tends to be “dark” in nature, some artists create more organic soundscapes. The Symphonies of the Planets series, a collection of works by Brain/Mind Research inspired by audible-frequency plasma waves recorded by the Voyager uncrewed space probes, can also be considered an organic manifestation of dark ambient.

Dark wave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1980s: Origins in Europe#

Since the 1980s, the term “dark wave” has been used in Europe by the music press to describe the gloomy and melancholy variant of new wave and post-punk music. At that time, the term “goth” was inseparably connected with gothic rock, whereas “dark wave” acquired a broader meaning, embracing bands and solo artists that were associated with gothic rock such as Bauhaus, Joy Division, the Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Depeche Mode, French cold wave groups such as Clair Obscur and Opera Multi Steel have also been associated with the dark wave scene; Simultaneously, different substyles associated with the new wave and dark wave movements started to merge and influence each other, e.g. synth-wave ) with gothic rock, or began to borrow elements of post-industrial music. Attrition, Die Form (France), Pink Industry (UK), Psyche (Canada), Kirlian Camera (Italy) and Clan of Xymox (Netherlands) performed this music in the 1980s. Other bands such as Malaria! and the Vyllies added elements of chanson and cabaret music. This sort of dark wave music became known as cabaret noir (or “dark cabaret”, a term popularized by U.S. dark wave label Projekt Records). German dark wave bands were partially associated with the Neue Deutsche Welle (i.e. German new wave), and included Xmal Deutschland, Mask For, Asmodi Bizarr, and Pink Turns Blue.

Darkcore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

By late 1992, breakbeat hardcore was beginning to fragment, and darkcore was one of the subgenres to emerge, in contrast with 4-beat. Darkcore is often characterised by dark-themed samples such as horror movie elements, cries for help, sinister sounding stabs and synthesizer notes, along with syncopated breakbeats in addition to 4-to-the-floor beats and low frequency basslines. It also saw the introduction of effects such as pitch shifting and time stretching to create mood.

Deconstructed club

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The style was born in New York dance parties named GHE20G0TH1K, which started in 2009. Each member of the collective came from a different background, but they incorporated those differences into the mix, hybridizing a melange of Jersey club, Baltimore, footwork, grime, and ballroom music, as well as elements of house and techno. The style that defined the deconstructed club movement was directly shaped by the possibilities of CDJs, and DJ sets, in turn, have inspired producers to imitate this chaotic experimentation in their own music, creating feedback that continued to re-imagine the expectations of the dance-floor music. The MP3s used by DJs on GHE20G0TH1K had a crunchy, cruddy texture while being played on a big sound system, which came to define their aesthetic. The term itself started circulating in the mid-2010s and was used as an umbrella term to describe a disparate, international genus of producers pushing the limits or boundaries of club music and tapping into the avant-garde. The Jam City album Classical Curves (2012) was an inspiration on the deconstructed club scene. UK musician Sophie was credited with producing pioneering work in deconstructed club and bubblegum bass music during the 2010s, influencing mainstream artists such as Charli XCX.

Deep house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Deep house is known for tempos typically from 110 to 125 bpm, muted basslines, spacious use of percussion elements (typically using a Roland TR-909 drum machine), soft keyboard sounds (pads), use of advanced chord structures, ambient mixes, and soulful vocals.

History#

Deep house was largely pioneered by Chicago producers such as Marshall Jefferson (On the House) and Larry Heard (Mr. Fingers) and with tracks such as “Mystery of Love” (1985) and “Can You Feel It?” (1986); the latter had a similar impact on deep house to that of Derrick May’s “Strings of Life” (1987) on Detroit techno. The jazzy sound became more common due to the favored use of gentler, more organic (yet still synthesizer based) production and instrument sounds. Author Richie Unterberger has stated that Heard’s deep house sound moved house music away from its posthuman tendencies back towards the lush, soulful sound of early disco music (particularly that of old Philadelphia International and Salsoul records). “Can You Feel It” became a deep house blueprint; Heard used a Roland Juno-60 synthesizer to create the deep bassline, along with a Roland TR-909 drum machine for the beats. DJ Ron Trent stated that the term was initially used to describe the DJ work of Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy, who departed from a strictly electronic house sound to incorporate eclectic elements like disco, jazz, and underground music. In the early 1990s, the Chicago house scene was evolving, and deeper, jazzier and more eclectic strains were emerging blending house with hip-hop, disco and soul. DJ Heather was a leading figure in this second wave. In the 2000s and 2010s, the genre remained very popular. By around mid/late 2010s, however, the perception of the genre was resulting in a sense that some house music was being labeled “deep” inappropriately, and the term has since been used to encapsulate various types of bassline-driven house music, later named Brazilian bass or slap house, as the genre evolves from its historical origins.

Detroit techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Belleville Three#

The three individuals most closely associated with the birth of Detroit techno as a genre are Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May, also known as the “Belleville Three”. The three, who were high school friends from Belleville, Michigan, created electronic music tracks in their basement(s). Derrick May once described Detroit techno music as being a “complete mistake … like George Clinton and Kraftwerk caught in an elevator, with only a sequencer to keep them company.” While attending Washtenaw Community College, Atkins met Rick Davis and formed Cybotron with him. Their first single “Alleys of Your Mind”, recorded on their Deep Space label in 1981, sold 15,000 copies, and the success of two follow-up singles, “Cosmic Cars” and “Clear”, led the California-based label Fantasy to sign the duo and release their album, Enter. After Cybotron split due to creative differences, Atkins began recording as Model 500 on his own label, Metroplex, in 1985. His landmark single, “No UFO’s”, soon arrived. Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Robert Hood also recorded on Metroplex. May said that the suburban setting afforded a different setting in which to experience the music. “We perceived the music differently than you would if you encountered it in dance clubs. We’d sit back with the lights off and listen to records by Bootsy and Yellow Magic Orchestra. We never took it as just entertainment, we took it as a serious philosophy,” recalls May. The three teenage friends bonded while listening to an eclectic mix of music: Yellow Magic Orchestra, Kraftwerk, Bootsy, Parliament, Prince, Depeche Mode, and The B-52’s. Juan Atkins was inspired to buy a synthesizer after hearing Parliament. Under the name Deep Space Soundworks, Atkins and May began to DJ on Detroit’s party circuit. By 1981, Mojo was playing the record mixes recorded by the Belleville Three, who were also branching out to work with other musicians. The trio traveled to Chicago to investigate the house music scene there, particularly the Chicago DJs Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles. Juan Atkins has been lauded as the “Godfather of Techno” (or “Originator”), while Derrick May is thought of as the “Innovator” and Kevin Saunderson is often referred to as the “Elevator”

Digicore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “digicore” is a portmanteau of “digital” and “-core” (derived from hardcore), and originally appeared in the 2000s as a shortening for the genre “digital hardcore”. In the late 2010s, an online community of teenage musicians, communicating through Discord, coined the modern usage of the term “digicore” to distinguish themselves from the preexisting hyperpop scene. The style was originally seen as a subgenre of hyperpop, though later described as developing alongside the movement. In late 2019, artist lonelee, the founder of the record label teardrop digital, coined the modern usage of the term “digicore” to replace draincore,

Disco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “disco” is shorthand for the word discothèque, a French word for “library of phonograph records” derived from “bibliothèque”. The word “discotheque” had the same meaning in English in the 1950s. “Discothèque” became used in French for a type of nightclub in Paris, after they had resorted to playing records during the Nazi occupation in the early 1940s. Some clubs used it as their proper name. In 1960, it was also used to describe a Parisian nightclub in an English magazine. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Discotheque as “A dance hall, nightclub, or similar venue where recorded music is played for dancing, typically equipped with a large dance floor, an elaborate system of flashing coloured lights, and a powerful amplified sound system. " Its earliest example is use as the name of a particular venue in 1952, and other examples date from 1960 onwards. The entry is annotated as “Now somewhat dated”. It defines Disco as “A genre of strongly rhythmical pop music mainly intended for dancing in nightclubs and particularly popular in the mid to late 1970s.”, with use from 1975 onwards, describing the origin of the word as a shortened form of discotheque. In the summer of 1964, a short sleeveless dress called the “discotheque dress” was briefly very popular in the United States. The earliest known use for the abbreviated form “disco” described this dress and has been found in The Salt Lake Tribune on July 12, 1964; Playboy magazine used it in September of the same year to describe Los Angeles nightclubs. Vince Aletti was one of the first to describe disco as a sound or a music genre. He wrote the 13 September 1973 feature article Discotheque Rock ‘72: Paaaaarty! that appeared in Rolling Stone magazine.

Diva house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The term “diva house” was in use by at least July 1992, when Billboard described Dee Dee Simone’s “What Are We Doin’” as “iron-lunged diva-house”. The style is characterized by prominent vocals, often performed by or sampled from female singers. Source material has included soul, disco, gospel and musical theatre recordings, frequently drawing on performers who have been associated with gay audiences, such as Bette Midler, Judy Garland, and Liza Minnelli. The genre has also included club-oriented tracks and remixes of pop recordings by artists including Beyoncé, Kylie Minogue, Cher, Patti LaBelle, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Madonna. The term “handbag house” has been particularly associated with British club culture. It is commonly explained as a reference to groups of women dancing around handbags placed on the floor, though early usage within dance culture has been described as derogatory. During the 1990s, house music gained wider exposure alongside the increased visibility gay clubs and nightlife. Diva house became one of the more accessible styles within club music, contributing to its presence beyond underground scenes. In the United Kingdom, handbag house was widely identified with mainstream club culture. Music historians Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton note that by the mid-1990s, the style played a role in the expansion of clubbing as a “mainstream leisure activity.” During the 1990s, the term “diva” became commonly associated with vocal-driven house music in gay club scenes.

Downtempo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Downtempo music is a broad genre but is united by several characteristics: *Atmospheric sound: artists focus more on layered sounds and mood than on catchy melodies or riffs *Slow beats: songs typically feature beats around 90 BPM *Gentle melodies: artists typically include more melodic phrases than straightforward ambient music

History#

Downtempo emerged from the UK’s late-1980s Bristol sound, which developed a slow, psychedelic fusion of hip hop with electronic music known as “trip hop” and birthed artists such as Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky. UK act Nightmares on Wax helped to pioneer downtempo electronica in the early 1990s, drawing on dub reggae and hip-hop. Downtempo music also started to surface around Ibiza, when DJs and promoters would bring down the vibe with slower rhythm and gentler electronic music upon approaching sunrise. At the end of the 1990s a more melodic instrumental electronica incorporating acoustic sounds with electronic styles emerged under its own umbrella name of downtempo. In the late 1990s, the Austrian duo Kruder & Dorfmeister popularized the style with their downtempo remixes of pop, hip-hop, and drum and bass tracks with influences of the ’70s soul jazz. Britons Steve Cobby and Dave McSherry, producing under the name Fila Brazillia, released a handful of downtempo, electronica and ambient techno albums that propelled the style further. Meanwhile, the Washington, D.C. locals Eric Hilton and Rob Garza, better known as Thievery Corporation, have introduced the Brazilian sound into the style after discussing the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim, and enriched it further by combining elements of Jamaican dub and reggae. In 2010, “downtempo pop” was described by The Atlantic as a variety of music styles from the 2000s characterized by mellow beats, vintage synthesizers, and lo-fi melodies. In other words, an umbrella term that includes chillwave, glo-fi, and hypnagogic pop. Later in the decade, another form of downtempo music, tagged as “lo-fi hip hop” or “chillhop”, became popular among YouTube music streamers.

Dream trance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition#

The key element of dream trance resides in catchy and deep melodies of such tracks, typically played on an acoustic instrument (piano, violin, saxophone, etc.) that are mastered and then sampled onto an electronic beat structure. The melodies are considered “dreamy”, i.e. tending to alter the listener’s mind, hence the name.

Origins#

The creation of dream trance was a response to social pressures in Italy during the early 1990s; the growth of rave culture among young adults, and the ensuing popularity of nightclub attendance, had created a weekly trend of deaths due to car accidents as clubbers drove across the country overnight, falling asleep at the wheel from strenuous dancing as well as alcohol and drug use. In mid-1996, deaths due to this phenomenon, called strage del sabato sera (“Saturday night slaughter”) in Italy, were being estimated at 2,000 since the start of the 1990s. “Children” by Robert Miles influenced by Gianni Parrini Album I Love the Dream Project, is one of the pioneering tracks of the genre and was created due to these accidents. The decision by DJs like Miles to end their sets with slower, more calming music—intended to offset the high-energy, repetitive tracks played earlier—was met with approval from both authorities and the parents of car crash victims.

Dreampunk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Dreampunk emerged in the mid-2010s. Many early dreampunk artists drew influence from film scores, vaporwave, and drum and bass. Dreampunk originates from the debut of 2814, the ambient duo composed of Luke Laurila () and David Russo (Hong Kong Express). The name is derived from the word cyberpunk because of its frequent use of imagined metropolitan spaces in its sound design, evoking the experience of walking through a futuristic city.

Drill 'n' bass

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

AllMusic referred to the genre as “a spastic form of breakbeat jungle that relied on powerful audio software and patient programming to warp old midtempo beats and breaks into a frenzied, experimental potpourri of low-attention-span electronic music.” Critic Simon Reynolds described it as “jungle by non-junglists for non-junglists,” stating that producers are “free to take the idiomatic features of jungle — fucked-up breakbeats, mutant bass, sampladelic collage —and exacerbate them away beyond any conceivable use-value to DJ or dancer.” Author Peter Shapiro called it “double-time drum ’n’ bass with impossible-to-dance-to rhythms and toilet humor.”

Drone music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Forerunners#

In 1949, Nouveau Réalisme artist Yves Klein wrote The Monotone Symphony (formally The Monotone-Silence Symphony, conceived 1947–1948), a 40-minute orchestral piece that consisted of a single 20-minute sustained chord (followed by a 20-minute silence) —showcasing how the sound of one drone could make music.

Origins#

Composer La Monte Young is a pioneering figure in drone music. He described himself as fascinated from a young age by droning sounds, such as “the sound of the wind blowing”, the “60 cycle per second drone of step-down transformers on telephone poles”, the tanpura drone and the alap of Indian classical music, “certain static aspects of serialism, as in the Webern slow movement of the Symphony Opus 21”, and Japanese gagaku “which has sustained tones in it in the instruments such as the Sho”. Young started writing music incorporating sustained tones in 1957 with the middle section of For Brass, The group released nothing during their lifetime (although Young and Zazeela issued a collaborative LP in 1969, and in 1970 Young contributed one side of a flexi disc accompanying an issue of Aspen magazine ). The concerts themselves were influential on their own upon the art world including Karlheinz Stockhausen (whose Stimmung bears their influence most strikingly) and the drone-based minimalist works of dozens of other composers many of whom made parallel innovations including Young classmate Pauline Oliveros, or Éliane Radigue, Charlemagne Palestine, Yoshi Wada, Phill Niblock and many others. In 2000, La Monte Young wrote: " About the style of music that I originated, I believe that the sustained tone branch of minimalism, also known as ‘drone music’, is a fertile area for exploration."

Drum and bass

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins (late 1980s – early 1990s)#

Drum and bass traces its roots to the UK rave scene and breakbeat hardcore of the late 1980s. Tracks such as Lennie De Ice’s We Are I.E. (1991) combined breakbeats with reggae-influenced basslines and are often cited as precursors to jungle and drum and bass. Early producers including 4hero, Doc Scott, LTJ Bukem, Goldie, and Grooverider began shaping the sound by stripping away elements of hardcore rave music and emphasising bass and complex drum patterns.

Dub music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Name#

The use of the word dub in a recording context originated in the late 1920s with the advent of “talking pictures” and referred to adding a soundtrack to a film; it is an informal abbreviation of the word double. Over the next 40 years or so the term found its way into audio recording in general, often in the context of making a copy of a recording on another tape or disc. It was in this sense that the term was first used in the Jamaican recording industry: new recordings were often initially copied onto one-off acetate discs, known colloquially as soft wax or dub and later as dubplates, for exclusive use by sound system operators; playing a song as an exclusive recording on a sound system was a good way for a producer to test the potential popularity of a recording before committing to the pressing of hundreds or thousands of copies of singles for retail sale. Initially, these acetates would simply be the standard recording of a song that was yet to be released on a single; around 1968–69, however, they started to be exclusive mixes with some or all of the vocal mixed out. Producer Bunny Lee notes: Yeah… it was really VERSION those days it wasn’t dub yet beca’ it was jus’ the riddim. One day an incident: Ruddy’s (sound system operator Ruddy Redwood) was cutting dub, an when it start, Smithy (recording engineer Byron Smith) look like ‘im start bring on the voice and Ruddy’s say: no, mek it run and ‘im take the whole backing track off it. ‘Im say, alright, run it again, and put in the voice. ‘Im didn’t do no more like that yet. After describing how Redwood then had his deejay first play the vocal version and then the instrumental version at a dance, and how popular this novelty was, Lee continued: The next day now, ‘im start it and just bring in the riddim. Or… down in the tune, bring a little voice and drop it out again… yes. Ruddy use to handle that part himself, drop in the voice and drop it out. All Smithy do was cut the dub… It is possible that the existing use of the word dub for other meanings in Jamaica around the time of the music’s origin may have helped to cement its use in the musical context. The most frequent meanings referred to either a form of erotic dance or sexual intercourse; such usage is frequently present in names of reggae songs, for instance, of the Silvertones’ “Dub the Pum Pum” (where pum pum is Jamaican slang for female genitalia), Big Joe and Fay’s “Dub a Dawta” ( is Jamaican patois for daughter). I-Roy’s “Sister Maggie Breast” features several references on sex: I man a-dub it on the side Say little sister you can run but you can’t hide Slip you got to slide you got to open your crotches wide Peace and love abide However, all three of these songs were recorded after the use of dub for a style of remixing was already prevalent.

Dub techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins and evolution#

Dub techno appeared as a combination of two distinct musical movements: dub music from 1960s-1970s Jamaica and techno from 1980s Detroit area of the USA. Dub music evolved from reggae, characterized by slow tempo, instrumental remixes featuring heavy reverb, delay, deep bass and a laid-back, organic feel. Techno, pioneered by Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson in Detroit, used much faster-paced synthetic sounds and repetitive structures aimed at dance floors of nightclubs. By the early 1990s, these seemingly opposite genres morphed into an unlikely hybrid in Berlin, where the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet withdrawal created a surplus of cheap or abandoned properties. Which, in turn, attracted musicians, rave organizers and party goers in a city living a brief period of quasi anarchy, low costs of living and fertile ground for cultural experimentation. Although precise historical data are sparse, the foundational moment in dub techno came when Moritz von Oswald, a percussionist from Hamburg, moved to join that Berlin’s effervescent techno scene and met Mark Ernestus, who ran the Hard Wax record store there. In 1993, they formed Basic Channel, the duo credited with merging the echo-heavy production techniques of dub with the minimal structures of techno. Their early releases, first under the pseudonym of Maurizio, introduced a new sound, blending Detroit techno’s mechanical rhythms with the spacious, hypnotic effects of dub. Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus later expanded on these musical ideas through projects like Burial Mix and Rhythm & Sound, which included collaborations with Caribbean vocalists from Jamaica and Dominica. These projects reissued early works in a new form, highlighting a historically rare, two-way relationship between European electronic music and Caribbean dub traditions, countering the more common practice of cultural appropriation by the First World Countries.

Dubstep

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

The music website AllMusic has described dubstep’s overall sound as “tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals.” According to Simon Reynolds, dubstep’s constituents originally came from “different points in the 1989—99 UK lineage: bleep ’n’ bass, jungle, techstep, Photek-style neurofunk, speed garage, and 2 step.” Dubstep is generally instrumental. Similar to a vocal garage hybrid – grime – the genre’s feel is commonly dark; tracks frequently use a minor key or the Phrygian mode, and can feature dissonant harmonies such as the tritone interval within a riff. Compared to other styles of garage music, dubstep tends to be more minimalistic, focusing on prominent sub-bass frequencies. Some dubstep artists have also incorporated a variety of outside influences, from dub-influenced techno such as Basic Channel to classical music or heavy metal. A softer and more melodic offshoot of dubstep, known as chillstep, also emerged in the late 2000s. It incorporates elements of ambient and chill out music.

EDM trap music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Around 2012, a new style of electronic dance music (EDM) emerged which incorporated elements of trap music, This genre saw the use of techno, dub, and electro sounds combined with the Roland TR-808 drum samples and vocal samples typical of hip hop trap. The music was initially dubbed simply as “trap” by producers and fans, which led to the term “trap” being used to address the music of both rappers and electronic producers, to much confusion among followers of both. The term “trap” continued to be used to describe two separate genres of hip hop and dance music. The new wave of the genre has been labeled by some as “EDM trap” to distinguish it from the hip hop genre. The terms “trap-techno” and “trapstep” are often labeled by producers to describe the musical structure of an individual track. The evolving EDM trap has seen incorporation and stylistic influences from dubstep, in which trap has been hailed as the superseding phase of dubstep during the mid-2010s. The new phase typically plays at 140 BPM with strong bass drops, which began growing in popularity from 2013. In 2013, a fan-made video by Filthy Frank (also known as Joji), of EDM trap producer Baauer’s track “Harlem Shake”, became an internet meme, propelling the track to become the first EDM trap song to hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. This challenge the track was used for consisted of one person dancing to the rhythm of the song until the beat dropped, in which then whoever else within the video would dance along with the person dancing in the beginning. Five EDM trap producers performed at the 2013 Ultra Music Festival in the United States, including DJ Craze, Baauer and Flosstradamus. it reached number two in the iTunes dance chart with Vibe stating it was “the world’s biggest-selling EDM trap album ever.” EDM trap music has also found fame internationally, especially in South Korea. South Korean boy band BigBang was one of the earliest groups to bring EDM trap into the K-pop sphere with commercial hit singles such as “Good Boy” (2014) by its members GD X Taeyang and “Bang Bang Bang” (2015). In 2018, South Korean girl group Blackpink released the commercially and critically successful single “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du”, which propelled the EDM trap sound to “global heights”. Rolling Stone recognized “Ddu-Du Ddu-Du” for having perfected and popularized K-pop’s EDM trap template, and named it the sixth best Korean song of all time. EDM trap began to fuse with synth-pop and emo pop in the late 2010s when Philadelphia producer group Working on Dying began to produce Eternal Atake, the third studio album by Francisville rapper Lil Uzi Vert. Brandon Finessin of Working on Dying earned eight producer credits on Lil Uzi Vert’s emo rap album, adding hyperpop and EDM elements to traditional trap drum sequences. This led to Lil Uzi Vert and Brandon Finessin leading the Billboard charts collaboratively on the Producers and Songwriters Top 100s. This caused an offshoot scene of hyperpop trap beats to emerge from minor YouTube producers based on Working on Dying’s electronic approach to trap music. A new subgenre of EDM trap music referred to as trapwave (or hardwave) emerged also in late 2010s that fuses trap music with synthwave.

Egg punk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

The nomenclature of egg punk originated from a series of internet memes circulated in 2017 that proposed a spectrum of punk rock music between “egg punk” and “chain punk”. The meme was intended to distinguish between the traditionalism and aggression of those deemed “chain punk” with the more experimental and satirical approach of those considered “egg punk”. Pitchfork described the genre as “subversive”, “experimental”, and typified by “wry lyrics and cheapo keyboards”.

Electro (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition and characteristics#

From its inception, one of the defining characteristics of the electro sound was the use of drum machines, particularly the Roland TR-808, as the rhythmic basis of the track. As the genre evolved, computers and sampling replaced drum machines in electronic music, and are now used by the majority of electro producers. Although the electro of the 1980s and contemporary electro (electronic dance music) both grew out of the dissolution of disco, they are now different genres. Classic (1980s) electro drum patterns tend to be electronic emulations of breakbeats with a syncopated kick drum, and usually a snare or clap accenting the backbeat. The difference between electro drumbeats and breakbeats (or breaks) is that electro tends to be more mechanical, while breakbeats tend to have more of a human-like feel, like that of a live drummer. The definition however is somewhat ambiguous in nature due to the various uses of the term. The Roland TR-808 drum machine was released in 1980, defining early electro with its immediately recognizable sound. Staccato, percussive drumbeats tended to dominate electro, almost exclusively provided by the TR-808. As an inexpensive way of producing a drum sound, the TR-808 caught on quickly with the producers of early electro because of the ability of its bass drum to generate extreme low-frequencies. This aspect of the Roland TR-808 was especially appealing to producers who would test drive their tracks in nightclubs (like NYC’s Funhouse), where the bass drum sound was essential for a record’s success. Its unique percussion sounds like handclaps, open and closed high-hat, clave and cowbell became integral to the electro sound. A number of popular songs in the early 1980s employed the TR-808, including Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing,” Cybotron’s “Clear,” and Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock.” The Roland TR-808 has attained iconic status, eventually being used on more hits than any other drum machine. Through the use of samples, the Roland TR-808 remains popular in electro and other genres to the present day. Other electro instrumentation was generally electronic, favoring analog synthesis, programmed bass lines, sequenced or arpeggiated synthetic riffs, and atonal sound effects all created with synthesizers. Heavy use of effects such as reverbs, delays, chorus or phasers along with eerie synthetic ensemble strings or pad sounds emphasized the science fiction or futuristic themes of classic (1980s) electro, represented in the lyrics and/or music. Electro hip hop group Warp 9’s 1983 single, Light Years Away, produced and written by Lotti Golden and Richard Scher, exemplifies the Sci-Fi, afrofuturist aspect of electro, reflected in both the lyrics and instrumentation. The imagery of its lyrical refrain space is the place for the human race pays homage to Sun Ra’s 1974 film of the same name, while its synth lines and sound effects are informed by sci-fi, computer games, and cartoons,“born of a science-fiction revival.”. Although primarily instrumental, early electro utilized rap. Male rap dominated the genre, however female rappers are an integral part of the electro tradition, whether featured in a group as in Warp 9 or as solo performers like Roxanne Shante. The lyrical style that emerged along with electro became less popular by the 1990s, as rapping continued to evolve, becoming the domain of hip hop music. About electro origins:

Electro house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Simon Reynolds described electro house, as a style attributed to artists like Zedd, Erol Alkan and Bloody Beetroots. This is often in the form of buzzing basslines, It is also often in the form of large bass drum sounds but it can contain melodic elements

History#

Reynolds described the sound as being influenced by Discovery by Daft Punk and further developed by Justice and Digitalism. Early songs that have been labelled retroactively as electro house include “Dark Invader” (1996) by Arrivers and “Raw S*it” (1997) by Basement Jaxx. Mr. Oizo’s “Flat Beat” (1999) has also been considered an early example of the genre. Andy Kellman of AllMusic described “Satisfaction” (2002) by Italian DJ Benny Benassi as being a precursor to electro-house. By the mid-2000s, electro house saw an increase in popularity. Since then, electro house producers such as Feed Me, Knife Party, The M Machine, Porter Robinson, Yasutaka Nakata and Dada Life have emerged.

Electro swing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Notable artists#

AronChupa
Boogie Belgique
Caravan Palace
Caro Emerald
DelaDap
Deluxe
Dimie Cat
Dutty Moonshine Big Band
Electric Swing Circus
Gramophondzie
Kormac
The Living Tombstone
Parov Stelar
Scatman John
Yolanda Be Cool
Waldeck

Chart performances of notable releases#

“I’m an Albatraoz” by the Swedish DJ AronChupa has received multiple platinum certifications.
Robot Face, an album by French band Caravan Palace placed at No. 3 on the US Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart in 2015.
“We No Speak Americano” by Australian musicians Yolanda Be Cool and DCUP was a major hit in Australia and Europe, and reached No. 29 on the US Billboard Hot 100.
Other notable songs include “Doop” by Doop (UK No. 1); “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)” by Fergie, Q-Tip and GoonRock (US platinum); “Bang Bang” by will.i.am (UK platinum); “Emergency” by Icona Pop (US Dance No. 1); and “Bboom Bboom” by Momoland (South Korea platinum).

Electro-industrial

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

After the EBM (electronic body music) movement faded in the early 1990s, electro-industrial increasingly attained popularity in the international club scene. In contrast to the straight EBM style, electro-industrial groups use harsher beats and raspy, distorted, or digitized vocals. In contrast to industrial rock, electro-industrial groups mostly avoided guitars, other than Skinny Puppy, who used electric guitar elements since the mid-’80s in songs like “Testure” or “Dig It”, and Numb on songs like “God Is Dead”. While EBM has a minimal structure and clean production, electro-industrial tends to have a grittier, complex and layered sound with a more experimental approach. Electro-industrial was anticipated by 1980s groups such as SPK, Die Form, Test Dept, Borghesia, Klinik, Cabaret Voltaire, Front 242, Skinny Puppy, Numb, Prominent electro-industrial groups of the 1990s include Mentallo and the Fixer, Nine Inch Nails, Yeht Mae, Velvet Acid Christ, and Pulse Legion (U.S.); Numb and Decoded Feedback (Canada); X Marks the Pedwalk, Plastic Noise Experience, Wumpscut, Haujobb, Forma Tadre, KMFDM, Putrefy Factor 7, and Abortive Gasp (Germany); Leæther Strip (Denmark); and early Hocico, Cenobita, and Amduscia (Mexico). Since the mid-1990s, some electro-industrial groups added guitars and became associated with industrial metal; other groups, e. g. Skinny Puppy, Download, Gridlock, and Haujobb, have incorporated elements of experimental electronic music styles like drum and bass, IDM, glitch, and other electronica genres.

Electroacoustic music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tape music#

Tape music is an integral part of musique concrète, which uses the tape recorder as its central musical source. The music can utilise pre-recorded sound fragments and the creation of loops, which can be altered and manipulated through techniques such as editing and playback speed manipulation. The work of Halim El-Dabh is perhaps the earliest example of tape (or, in this case, wire recording) music. El-Dabh’s The Expression of Zaar, first presented in Cairo, Egypt, in 1944, was an early work using musique concrète–like techniques similar to those developed in Paris during the same period. El-Dabh would later become more famous for his work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, where in 1959 he composed the influential piece Leiyla and the Poet. Composer John Cage’s assembly of the Williams Mix serves as an example of the rigors of tape music. First, Cage created a 192-page score. Over the course of a year, 600 sounds were assembled and recorded. Cut tape segments for each occurrence of each sound were accumulated on the score. Then the cut segments were spliced to one of eight tapes, work finished on January 16, 1953. The premiere performance (realization) of the 4'15" work was given on March 21, 1953, at the University of Illinois, Urbana.

Electroclash

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Terminology and characteristics#

The term electroclash describes a musical movement that combined synthpop, techno, punk and performance art. The genre was in reaction to the rigid formulations of techno music, putting an emphasis on song writing, showmanship and a sense of humour, DJ Hell is widely credited as inventor and name giver of the genre, while DJ and promoter Larry Tee later popularized the term in the US by naming the Electroclash 2001 Festival in New York

Electronic body music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term electronic body music was first used by Ralf Hütter of the German electronic band Kraftwerk in an interview with British music newspaper Sounds in November 1977. In June 1978 Hütter reused the phrase in an interview with WKSU radio (Kent, Ohio) to explain the more physical character of the Kraftwerk album The Man-Machine. Although the term originated in the late 1970s, it was not until the 1980s when it reappeared and started to come into popular use. In 1981, DAF from Germany employed the term “Körpermusik” (body music) to describe their danceable electronic punk sound. The term “electronic body music” was later used by Belgian band Front 242 in 1984 to describe the music of their EP of that year titled No Comment ; in the documentary Industrial Accident: The Story of Wax Trax! Records, Jean-Luc De Meyer explained that the band tried to have a more distinct, aggressive stage presence as opposed to what they perceived as the “stiff” electronic acts who stood still behind their keyboards: “We’re doing electronic music, but it’s also talking to the body.”

Electronic rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Subgenres and other terms#

The term “progressive rock” (or “prog rock”) was originally coined in the 1960s for music that would otherwise be described as “electronic rock,” Electronic rock is also associated with industrial rock, synth-pop, dance-punk, indietronica, and new wave,

Synth-punk#

Synth-punk (originally techno-punk or electropunk) is a style of electronic music that mixes the aggression of punk rock with the use of synthesizers. Originally pioneered by New York band Suicide, formed in 1970. Their sound over their five studio albums mixed punk rock with various electronic-based genres such as electronic rock, synth-pop, and disco. Other artists such as Californian band the Screamers were labeled “techno-punk” by the Los Angeles Times in 1978. Rather than the usual electric guitars, the band’s instrumentation included a heavily distorted Fender Rhodes electric piano and an ARP Odyssey synthesizer. The term synth-punk (or electropunk) was coined in 1999 by Damien Ramsey. In the early 1980s, synth-punk fused with various electronic genres to create electronic body music, which would influence a number of subsequent industrial dance, industrial rock and industrial metal acts. It also influenced the hardcore punk inspired digital hardcore, which combines hardcore punk with electronic music, noise and heavy metal. It typically features fast tempos and aggressive sound samples. dance punk,

Electronicore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Reception#

Attack Attack! is often recognized as the primary American contributor of the style, being inspired by British band Enter Shikari. Enter Shikari is an electronicore band that began in 1999 as Hybryd, adding their last member and adopting their current name in early 2003, in St Albans, England. The group has received international radio airplay and a substantial number of musical awards, from Kerrang!, NME, Rock Sound Magazine and BT Digital Music Awards. They express a relationship with electronic music genres such as trance and have been referred to as the “kings of trancecore.” In 2020, British band Bring Me The Horizon released Post Human: Survival Horror, which has notable elements of electronicore in a few tracks such as 1x1 which features duo Nova Twins.

Electronics in rock music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Technology#

Experiments in tape manipulation or musique concrète, early computer music and early sampling and sound manipulation technologies paved the way for both manipulating and creating new sounds through technology. The world’s first computer to play music was CSIRAC in 1950–1, designed and built by Trevor Pearcey and Maston Beard and programmed by mathematician Geoff Hill. Early electronic instruments included the theremin, which uses two metal antennas that sense the position of a player’s hands and control oscillators for frequency with one hand, and amplitude (volume) to produce an eerie but difficult to manipulate sound. It was used by avant garde and classical musicians in the early twentieth century and was used on a large number of 1940s and 50s science fiction films and suspense. Electronic musical synthesizers that could be used practically in a recording studio became available in the mid-1960s, around the same time as rock music began to emerge as a distinct musical genre. The Mellotron, an electro-mechanical, polyphonic sample-playback keyboard, which used a bank of parallel linear magnetic audio tape strips to produce a variety of sounds enjoyed popularity from the mid-1960s. The initial popularity of the Mellotron would be overtaken by the Moog synthesizer, created by Robert Moog in 1964, which produced completely electronically generated sounds which could be manipulated by pitch and frequency, allowing the “bending” of notes and considerable variety and musical virtuosity to be expressed. The early commercial Moog synthesiser was large and difficult to manipulate, but in 1970 Moog responded to its use in rock and pop music by releasing the portable Mini-moog, which was much simpler, easier to use, and proved more practical for live performance. Early synthesisers were monophonic (only able to play one note at a time), but polyphonic versions began to be produced from the mid-1970s, among the first being the Prophet-5. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) was created in 1982, as an industry-standard protocol that enables electronic musical instruments (synthesizers, drum machines), computers and other electronic equipment (MIDI controllers, sound cards, samplers) to communicate and synchronize with each other. Unlike previous analog devices, MIDI does not transmit an audio signal, but sends event messages about pitch and intensity, control signals for parameters such as volume, vibrato and panning, cues, and clock signals to set the tempo, allowing the building of more complex music and the integration of different devices. In the new millennium, as computer technology become more accessible and music software has advanced, interacting with music production technology is now possible using means that bear no relationship to traditional musical performance practices: for instance, laptop performance (laptronica) In the last decade a number of software-based virtual studio environments have emerged, with products such as Propellerhead’s Reason, Ableton Live and Native Instruments Reaktor finding widespread appeal. Such tools provide viable and cost-effective alternatives to typical hardware-based production studios, and thanks to advances in microprocessor technology, it is now possible to create high quality music using little more than a single laptop computer. Such advances have been seen as democratizing music creation, leading to a massive increase in the amount of home-produced electronic music available to the general public via the internet.

Electropop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early 1980s#

Depeche Mode’s composer Martin Gore said: “For anyone of our generation involved in electronic music, Kraftwerk were the godfathers”. During the early 1980s, Japanese artists such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and Ryuichi Sakamoto and British artists such as Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, the Human League, Soft Cell, John Foxx and Visage helped pioneer a new synth-pop style that drew more heavily from electronic music and emphasized primary usage of synthesizers.

Ethnic electronica

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the Western Balkans, a Southern European subgenre of contemporary pop music known as “turbo-folk” (sometimes referred to as “popular folk”) initially developed during the 1980s and 1990s, with similar music styles in Greece (Skyladiko), Bulgaria (Chalga), Romania (Manele) and Albania (Tallava). It’s a fusion genre of popular music blending Serbian folk music with other genres such as pop, rock, electronic, and/or hip-hop. Other notable examples of 1980s ethnic electronica include Angolan kuduro, Mexican tecnocumbia and the Indian album Synthesizing: Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat. In the late 2010s, the Ukrainian ethnotronica scene had a rise, when such artists as Go_A, Onuka, Yuko, Mavka became popular outside their country.

Eurobeat

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Use of the term#

British record producer Ian Levine’s Eastbound Expressway, released the single “You’re a Beat” in recognition of the slower tempo of hi-NRG music emerging from Europe. Many European acts managed to break through under this new recognition, namely the likes of Modern Talking, Bad Boys Blue, Taffy, and Spagna. The term “Eurobeat” was subsequently used commercially to describe the Stock Aitken Waterman–produced hits by Dead or Alive, Bananarama, Jason Donovan, Sonia, and Kylie Minogue which were heavily based on the British experience with Italo disco. During 1986–1988, it was used for specific Italian 1980s Eurodisco imports, such as Sabrina Salerno, Spagna, and Baltimora but was also used in the United States as a catch-all term for UK-based dance and electropop groups of the time such as Pet Shop Boys, purported to have a “European beat”, hence Eurobeat. By 1989, with the advent of Eurodance and Euro house, the term was dropped completely in the UK. In Japan, starting in the mid-1980s, the term Eurobeat used to refer to Italo disco imports from Italy. When Japanese label Alfa Music offered a deal with Italo disco singer, songwriter and producer Mauro Farina, he happily accepted and thus the That’s Eurobeat compilation series was born. Its name comes from Farina’s answer to a question by a spokesperson of Alfa’s. The spokesperson asked in English the name of the genre in which the songs Alfa was interested in belonged, but because they chose songs that Farina’s team tucked away worried that they would not sell well in Italy, he did not have an answer ready and so in a hurry he improvised a reply by combining the fact that he was located in Europe and the word beat, which he though was appropriate with the style of those songs, and answered to the spokesperson with that’s Eurobeat.

Eurodance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Eurodance songs are typically created by independent groups of European producers, accompanied by hired singers and rappers who serve as frontmen for these groups. These frontmen are often English-speaking performers of color from the United States and United Kingdom. Eurodance fuses late-1980s hip hop music and electronic dance music. Among dance music styles, Eurodance takes particular influence from disco, Hi-NRG and techno. and focusing more on creating popular singles rather than albums. with a bass drum on each beat and a quiet snare on the second and fourth beats. Musicologist Nico Thom describes the lyrics as “characteristically hedonistic”, being simplistic and often revolving around romance and partying. He also describes the production as heavily condensed, which he says leads to a “compact, superficial listening experience”.

Eurodisco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The term “Euro-disco” was used during the mid-1970s to describe the non-UK based disco productions and artists such as D.D. Sound, West Germany groups Arabesque, Boney M., Dschinghis Khan and Silver Convention, the Munich-based production trio Giorgio Moroder, Donna Summer and Pete Bellotte, the Italian singer Gino Soccio, French artists Amanda Lear, Dalida, Cerrone, Hot Blood, Banzai (single “Viva America”) and Ottawan, Dutch groups Luv’ and Eurovision song contest winners Teach-In. In Spain, disco took off after the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, with Baccara. Swedish group ABBA gained the big hit “Dancing Queen”. 1970s Eurodisco soon had spinoffs and variations. The most notable spin-off is space disco. Another popular variation, with no specific name, appeared in the late 1970s: a “Latin”-like sound added to the genre, which can be heard in Italy’s Raffaella Carrà, La Bionda (D. D. Sound), Easy Going and France’s Gibson Brothers. German pop duo Modern Talking was an icon of Eurodisco between 1985–1987 and became the most successful Eurodisco project. That style became very popular in Eastern Europe and remained popular until the early 1990s. Next to the numerous productions of Modern Talking member Dieter Bohlen, further German-based group and artists including Arabesque, Sandra, C. C. Catch, Bad Boys Blue, and Fancy enjoyed international success. In Poland, disco polo, a local music genre relying heavily on Eurodisco was developed at the verge of the ’80s and ’90s. Meanwhile, a sped-up version of Eurodisco with dance-pop elements also became successful in the US, under the term “hi-NRG”. By the early 1990s, Eurodisco was influenced by the emergence of genres such as house, acid house and the electro music styles, and replaced (or evolved) by other music styles. Technically, the last form of Eurodisco is French house, a music style that appeared in France during the mid-1990s and slowly became widespread in Europe. French house is more of a “back to the roots” music style with 1970s Eurodisco influences.

Florida breaks

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Late 1980s – early 1990s#

The style emerged during the late ’80s at the Beacham Theatre in Orlando Genre pioneer Eddie Pappa, influenced by nights spent at the Beacham, honed his skill at The Edge when it opened in 1992. In 1993, it gained prominence state-wide and, propelled by large events at the Edge, elsewhere in the U.S. and Europe.

Mid-1990s popularity#

The Breaks influenced producers who mixed breakbeat with progressive and trance, producing a mixture that became known as “The Orlando Sound” or Florida breaks. There is only general consensus on the defining elements of the genre, which spawned regional and preference variations. The genre received limited local radio play in Central Florida on radio stations WXXL (106.7 FM) and on college radio WPRK (91.5 FM), as well as WUCF (89.9 FM), WFIT (89.5 FM on Space Coast), and WMNF (88.5 FM in Tampa).

Folktronica

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The 1991 album Every Man and Woman is a Star by Ultramarine was described in a 2014 PopMatters article as a progenitor of the genre; it featured a pastoral sound and incorporated traditional instruments such as violin and harmonica with techno and house elements. The term folktronica was coined in the late 1990s, presumably first by the British press in reference to the musician Kieran Hebden (Four Tet). In the early 2000s, indie electronic acts such as Múm, Four Tet, Isan, Bibio and the Books began releasing formative music in the genre. According to The Sunday Times Culture’s Encyclopedia of Modern Music, essential albums of the genre are Four Tet’s Pause (2001) and Rounds (2003), Tunng’s Mother’s Daughter and Other Songs (2005), and Caribou’s The Milk of Human Kindness (2005), some of which had a cross-genre influence on artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead and J Dilla. In addition to its roots in underground indie and electronic music, some commentators have noted that elements of folktronica entered the mainstream through pop artists who experimented with blending acoustic textures and electronic production. Madonna incorporated aspects of folktronica into her early-2000s work, particularly on her 2003 album American Life, after starting to explore a similar genre-crossing by blending country and dance-pop on Music (2000). She has been credited with helping to introduce the hybrid sound to a broader audience beyond the indie scene.

Footwork (genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The name “footwork” given to the genre refers to the footwork dance that accompanies it and is characterized by very fast structured dance footwork. The arguably first mention of the term “footwork” within the ghetto house scene of Chicago was WaxMaster’s “Foot work” track in 1995. The term juke, as being applied to particular styles of ghetto house, came into use from DJ Puncho and Gant-Man in the late 1990s Sometimes, the combined terms juke and footwork (or footwork and juke) are used to describe the single musical scene or musical movement, born from Chicago ghetto house.

Free tekno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Tekno evolved in tandem with the teknival movement in the early 1990s since many of the teknival organisers and DJs were also making music. At first the music took off from acid house and then drew on influences such as hardcore, jungle, early hardcore and techno, with the producers taking the sound in a darker direction. Spiral Tribe was the first to start making and widely disseminating this genre, taking it to France and Eastern Europe after the Criminal Justice act was implemented in the UK. An emphasis is placed on samples from TV shows, films and popular culture which are placed at strategic moments in the tracks. The music was produced with whatever was available: drum machines, synthesisers and keyboards as well as computer programs such as audio/MIDI sequencers and Trackers, sometimes even hitting a random table with a pen. Starting from year 2001 there has been a trend using laptop and laptops for live performances, because the capabilities of both the hardware and software were improving very quickly. Many artists, however, still use hardware for live performance and create a unique track at every freeparty. The sounds are lot simpler making them sound more oldschool and easier to dance to. The main genre that is still played with hardware, is tribe, a relatively underground subgenre of tekno. With the evolution of the genre it has come to be known by a number of names, including spiral tekno, hardtek, tribetek, tribe and lately evolved in many other subgenres like pumping tek, hardfloor and Frenchcore which is a sort of mixture between mainstream hardcore and hardtekno, with funny and pumping samples taken from different media sources. Artists within this genre usually follow a very different ideology when compared to more modern and mainstream producers: * Artists often use many pseudonyms, as they are not interested in mainstream success or recognition * Most are not interested in profit * They also support the free distribution of their works, as they do not see it as their own material, but as something that belongs to the fans and the community This is described as “returning to the roots”.

Freestyle music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1982–1987: Origin#

Freestyle music developed in the early 1980s, primarily simultaneously in the Hispanic (mainly Puerto Rican/Latin) communities of Upper Manhattan, Brooklyn, and The Bronx and in the Italian-American communities in Brooklyn, the Bronx, other boroughs of New York City, New Jersey, Westchester County and Long Island. It initially was a fusion of synthetic instrumentation and syncopated percussion of 1980s electro, as favored by fans of breakdancing. Sampling, as found in synth-pop music and hip-hop, was incorporated. Key influences include Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force’s “Planet Rock” (1982) and Shannon’s “Let the Music Play” (1983), the latter was a top-ten Billboard Hot 100 hit. In 1984, a Latin presence was established when the first song recorded in the genre by a Latin American artist, “Please Don’t Go”, by newcomer Nayobe (a singer from Brooklyn and of Cuban descent) was recorded and released. The song became a success, reaching No. 23 on the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart. In 1985, a Spanish version of the song was released with the title “No Te Vayas”. By 1987, freestyle began getting more airplay on American pop radio stations. Songs such as “Come Go with Me” by Exposé, “Show Me” by the Cover Girls, “Fascinated” by Company B, “Silent Morning” by Noel, and “Catch Me (I’m Falling)” by Pretty Poison, brought freestyle into the mainstream. House music, based partly on disco rhythms, was by 1992 challenging the relatively upbeat, syncopated freestyle sound. Pitchfork considers the Miami Mix of ABC’s single “When Smokey Sings” to be proto-freestyle, despite that version being released in 1987. Many early or popular freestyle artists and DJs were of Hispanic or Italian descent, including Jellybean, Tony Torres, Raul Soto, Roman Ricardo, Mickey Garcia (who is of both Italian and Puerto Rican descent), Lil Suzy, and Nocera, which was one reason for the style’s popularity among Hispanic Americans and Italian Americans in the New York City area and Philadelphia.

French electronic music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Phonautograph (1857)#

The earliest known sound recording device was the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville.

Ondes Martenot (1928)#

In 1928, the Ondes Martenot was invented by Maurice Martenot, who debuted it in Paris. This electronic musical instrument was most famously used in the Turangalîla-Symphonie by Olivier Messiaen as well as other works by him. The Ondes Martenot was also used by other composers such as Andre Jolivet, Pierre Boulez, Arthur Honegger, Charles Koechlin, Darius Milhaud, Gilles Tremblay and Edgard Varèse.

French house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History and influences#

French house was influenced by American dance music, Euro disco, and the space disco music styles. Space disco was popular in France during the late 1970s and early 1980s, especially with artists such as Cerrone and Sheila and B. Devotion. American P-Funk also influenced the genre’s sound, especially the work of George Clinton and Bootsy Collins. P-Funk was played alongside disco in many French discothèques, notably after Disco Demolition Night took place in the United States. The French duo Motorbass were among the first in France to produce house tracks largely based around samples and filtered loops and released their seminal album, Pansoul in 1996. Parisian producer St. Germain also produced jazz-inspired house tracks. Other known French producers during this time period, such as François Kevorkian and Laurent Garnier, remained distant from the emerging French house label. UK dance music and European DJs first recognized French house experiments in the mid-1990s with commercial success occurring in 1997. The emergence of the French sound coincided with dance music’s popularity in the UK market, which was also experiencing a surge of interest in general electronic music.

Funkot

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Funkot was born in 1990 by a music group from Indonesia, Barakatak. Barakatak was initially recruited by Doel Sumbang, a Sundanese musician from West Java, hence, Barakatak made Sundanese music. However, Barakatak changed their genre to House after moving to Jakarta and working with Rony Loan. They were invited to a discotheque in Jakarta called Diskotik Zodiak, where they tried to take drugs (No anti-narcotics law exist yet in Indonesia at that time). This influenced them to attempt making music with new lyrics and musical styles. They came up with a song titled Musiknya Asyik, inspired by the sensation of taking drugs (previously titled Sudah or Belum?). This song is regarded as the origin of Funkot music, which became popular in the country.

Funkstep

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Since the dubstep movement in 2001, funkstep has gained more listeners and therefore more record producers to produce this music style. Funkstep took shape since 2012 by blending the genres of dubstep, drumstep, drum and bass, UK funky and electro house.

Characteristics#

The changes of speed in funkstep are evident, since drumstep will register at anywhere from 150 to 170 BPM as a result of its 2-step beat and French and electro house by contrast between 120 and 130 BPM. This problem is usually solved by playing the song during its drumstep or even dubstep parts in half speed, as compared to the occurring house in similar parts. Most funkstep songs start with calm intros, which can sometimes be mixed up with drumstep because of its dubstep and drum and bass-like drums. But after starting with a typical funkstep riff and changing the bassdrum to a consistent four on the floor, it is easy to recognize the bridge to more complex house music, which is typical for a funkstep song. A song can contain these bridges and changes repeatedly, which mostly indicate the drops and highlights. Funkstep is also often associated with glitch because of its arsenal of distorted sounds. Since funkstep contains parts sounding similar to different variations of house, drum and bass and drumstep, it is attractive for listeners of several styles of music and pretty diverse. Since 2009, notable scene reports were trying to simply explain the idea of funkstep to the audience, posting headlines like “Dubstep + Funky House = Funkstep”.

Funky house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Production and characteristics#

Funky house music draws inspiration from the rhythmic complexity and soulful vibe of 1970s and 1980s funk and disco. Key production characteristics include disco strings, funk-inspired basslines, vocal samples, and tempo and synth effects. A description of those characteristics features lush, orchestral disco strings that contribute to a vibrant and immersive sound. The deep, groovy basslines provide rhythmic depth, creating a compelling foundation for each track. The genre often incorporates vocal loops or samples from older soul and disco records, blending familiar elements with fresh, innovative twists. Typically produced at around 128 BPM, funky house tracks are characterized by synthesized effects such as swooshes, swirls, and filters, lending the music a bouncy, uplifting vibe that defines its unique energy.

Future bass

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The genre was pioneered by Scottish producers Rustie and Hudson Mohawke, who began producing future bass tracks in 2010. One of the first popularity-fueling releases in the genre was Rustie’s album Glass Swords, released in 2011. Later, in 2013, the Flume remix of Disclosure’s song “You & Me” brought the genre into the mainstream, and through the mid-2010s future bass became popular in the United Kingdom, United States, Japan, China, Korea and Australia.

Future garage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Details#

Future garage incorporates a variety of influences from UK garage and softer elements from 2-step garage. The name was coined by Whistla before the appearance of Future Garage Forum in November 2009. In Issue 108 of MusicTech Magazine from March 2013, it was suggested that future garage should employ re-pitched vocals, soft leads with a round attack or an acoustic lead, subbass or a square wave bass with a modulating filter, and a four-to-the-floor or 2-step garage drum beat with off-the-grid hi-hats. The distinct swing in future garage drum beats is the focus on “late” or humanized hi-hats between the kick and snare patterns.

Future house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “future house” was coined by French DJ Tchami and was first used to categorise his 2013 remix of Janet Jackson’s “Go Deep” on SoundCloud. Tchami used the term without considering it a genre saying in a 2015 interview “Future house was meant to be ‘any kind of house music that hasn’t been invented yet,’ so I never considered it as a genre. I guess people made it what it is because my music was specific and leading to build a bridge between house and EDM, which isn’t a bad thing”. Later, in 2016, the popular online music store for DJs Beatport added Future house as one of three new genre tags. The genre has been credited as also being pioneered by Oliver Heldens and Don Diablo.

Future rave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In 2019, French producer David Guetta and Danish producer Morten Breum paired together to produce some tracks, the style of which they would later call Future Rave. The first two tracks produced in this style by the pair were “Never Be Alone” with Aloe Blacc and an official remix of Avicii’s “Heaven.” In 2022, the pair went on a US Tour under the title Future Rave, including an appearance at EDC, and started a residency at Hï Ibiza under the same title. In 2022, after a 4-year hiatus, Hardwell came back to play the Ultra Music Festival and his set was described as Future Rave and Future Techno. He released the track Black Magic which has been described as “synth-packed, captivating track that immerses its listeners into the world of techno.”

Futurepop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Futurepop is mainly characterized by its “technoid” Tom Shear of Assemblage 23 described the style ironically as “mostly people who can’t sing over ’90s era trance patches”.

Etymology#

Ronan Harris of VNV Nation credited himself with the term “futurepop” during a discussion with Apoptygma Berzerk vocalist Stephan Groth to describe the sounds of their music and similar groups at the time. According to Sorted Magazine writer “Girl the Bourgeois Individualist”:

Galician rumba

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origin#

According to Miguel Pérez Lorenzo, there are testimonies about the inclusion of the “Rumba” in the Galician bagpipe’s (gaita) repertoire since the 19th century. He also says in reference to the bagpiper from Ourense, Xoán Ferreiro: “He played, we imagine, those pieces that he heard from his father, other bagpipers, and the band… Jerónimo (father of this bagpiper, who passed away in 1940) emigrated to Cuba, where he lived until five years before his death… those years in Cuba served him to include “rumbas and “boleros” in his repertoire… which now Don Xoán plays. With the exception of the processional pieces that Don Xoán used to play; sometime in the mass and other times walking behind the “Saint” in the procession, the rest was mainly for the people to dance in the fests and romerías.

Garage house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

In comparison to other forms of house music, garage includes more gospel-influenced piano riffs and female vocals.

History#

Garage house was developed in the Paradise Garage nightclub in New York City and Club Zanzibar in Newark, New Jersey, United States, during the early-to-mid 1980s. There was much overlap between it and early house music, making it difficult to tell the two apart. It predates the development of Chicago house, The direction of garage music was primarily influenced by the New York City discothèque Paradise Garage where the influential DJ Larry Levan, known for his musical versatility and innovation, played records. According to Blues & Soul, contemporary garage music started with Boyd Jarvis and Levan’s The Peech Boys. Jarvis, using the Visual moniker, was behind 1983 recordings “Somehow, Someway” and “The Music Got Me” , the latter especially influential, The popularity of the genre in the UK gave birth to a derivative genre called UK garage.

German electronic music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Musical elements#

Electronic music is itself a broad term, characterised only by the specific use of electronic or digital musical instruments. German electronic music hence lacks distinctive musical characteristics other than varying usage of circuitry-based technology. Generally, polyphonic synthesisers, electronic drums, turntables and drum machines were frequent. The musical elements of German electronic music are very specific to the style and artist. Krautrock, a genre of electronic rock, involved experimental mixes of psychedelic and progressive rock with ambient music, electronic sounds, minimalist avant-garde musique concrete and jazz. Kraftwerk, a famous German electronic band, utilised metronomic melodies, while Faust, another musical group, maintained minimalism by using one or two chords or riffs played at high volumes. In contrast, electroclash fused musical elements of electro, techno, new wave, punk, synth-pop and performance art to form their sounds.

Ghetto house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Juke music#

The late 1990s saw a rise in juke music (also known as juke house or Chicago juke), Juke songs are generally around 150–165 BPM with kick drums, pounding rapidly (and at times very sparsely) in syncopation with crackling snares, claps, high hats, samples in very short increments and other sounds reminiscent of old drum machines. The production style is often markedly lo-fi, much like baile funk. Juke evolved to match the energy of footwork, a dance style born in the disparate ghettos, house parties and underground dance competitions of Chicago. RP Boo, a former footwork dancer, is generally credited with making the first songs that fall within the canon.

Ghettotech

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Key record labels#

Twilight 76
Databass
Electrofunk
Jefferson Ave
Motor City Electro Company
Intuit-Solar
666aline
Dance Mania

Glitch (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Precursors#

The origins of the glitch aesthetic can be traced to the early 20th century with Luigi Russolo’s Futurist manifesto L’arte dei rumori (The Art of Noises) published in 1913, which became the basis of noise music. He constructed mechanical noise generators, which he named intonarumori, and wrote multiple compositions to be played by them, including Risveglio di una città (Awakening of a City) and Convegno di automobili e aeroplani (Meeting of Automobiles and Airplanes). In 1914, a riot broke out at one of his performances in Milan, Italy. Christian Marclay began in 1979 to use mutilated vinyl records to create sound collages, while Yasunao Tone used damaged CDs in his Techno Eden performance of 1985. The 1992 album It Was a Dark and Stormy Night by Nicolas Collins included a composition featuring a string quartet playing alongside the stuttering sound of skipping CDs. Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima’s electronic soundtrack for the 1994 video game Streets of Rage 3 used automatically randomized sequences to generate “unexpected and odd” experimental sounds.

Goa trance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The music has its roots in the popularity of Goa, India as a hippie capital in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Throughout the 1980s, music incorporating elements of industrial music, new beat and electronic body music (EBM), with the spiritual culture in India were commonplace, although Goa trance did not appear as a style until the early 1990s. The music played was a blend of styles loosely defined as techno, new beat and various genres of “computer music” (e.g., high energy disco without vocals, acid-house, electro, industrial-gothic, various styles of house and electronic-rock hybrids). It arrived on tape cassettes by traveller-collectors and DJs and was shared (copied) tape-to-tape among Goa DJs, in an underground scene not driven by labels or the music industry. Prior to the 1980s, the music played at parties was performed by live bands and tapes were played in between sets. In the early 1980s, sampling synth and MIDI music appeared globally and DJs became the preferred format in Goa, with two tape decks driving a party without a break, facilitating continuous music. Cassette tapes were used by DJs until the 1990s, when DAT tapes were used. DJs playing in Goa during the 1980s included Fred Disko, Dr Bobby, Stephano, Paulino, Mackie, Babu, Laurent, Ray, Fred, Antaro, Lui, Rolf, Tilo, Pauli, Rudi, and Goa Gil. The music was eclectic in style but based around instrumental dub versions of tracks that evoked mystical, cosmic, psychedelic, and existential themes. Special mixes were made by DJs in Goa that were the editing of various versions of a track to make it longer. By 1990–91, Goa had become a hot destination for partying and was no longer under the radar: the scene grew bigger. Goa-style parties spread like a diaspora all over the world from 1993, and a multitude of labels in various countries (UK, Australia, Japan, Germany) dedicated themselves to promoting psychedelic electronic music that reflected the ethos of Goa parties, Goa music and Goa-specific artists and producers and DJs. Mark Maurice’s ‘Panjaea’s focal point’ parties brought it to London in 1992 and its programming at London club megatripolis gave a great boost to the small international scene that was then growing (October 21, 1993 onwards). The golden age and first wave of Goa trance was generally agreed upon aesthetically between 1994 and 1997. Goa trance in the music industry and as a collective party fashion did not gain global recognition until 1994, when Paul Oakenfold began to champion the genre via his own Perfecto label and in the media, most notably with the release of his 1994 Essential Mix, or more commonly known as the Goa Mix.

Gqom

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lexicology and morphology#

The word gqom derives from an onomatopoeic combination of click consonants in the Zulu language (isiZulu) which could be interpreted as a “hitting drum”, “ricochet” or “bang”. Isgubhu and igqom are IsiZulu words to describe a drum sound or beat emanating from speakers, that became synonymous with Durban kwaito. The term “three-step” (3 step) was coined in the mid-2010s by gqom record producers Sbucardo and Citizen Boy to describe gqom music not only as a name, moreover attributed to a specific beat structure or pattern of gqom music preceding developing into a distinct subgenre of gqom.

Grime music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Grime emerged in the early 2000s in East London. It has origins tied with UK pirate radio stations such as Rinse FM, Deja Vu, Major FM, Delight FM, Freeze 92.7 and Mission. In the late 1990s, UK garage grew in popularity and also found crossover commercial success with shows on Kiss 100 and BBC Radio 1. Whilst much of the popular UK garage sound fused soul and R&B influences, a ‘darker garage’ sound was also appearing which was more instrumental and less vocal, which allowed MCs to lay down lyrics over them. The role of MCs became more prominent on radio shows, and collectives such as So Solid Crew (on Delight FM), Heartless Crew (on Mission), and Pay As U Go (on Rinse FM) would begin to pave the way for what would eventually be called “grime”. Members of these crews would begin to experiment with accessible music creation software such as Fruityloops to write their own instrumentals which were cut to dubplate for shows. The first definitive grime release is often debated. Some will credit Pay As U Go’s “Know We” or So Solid Crew’s “Dilemma” (both were released in 2000), however, “Eskimo” by Wiley (produced in Christmas 1999 or early 2000, but released in 2002) and “Pulse X” by Youngstar (released in 2002), a member of Musical Mobb, are also often considered to be contenders. Dizzee Rascal personally claimed his song “Crime”, released in 2000, was the first grime song. DJ Slimzee and DJ Karnage have also suggested “Year 2000” (released 2000) by Wiley as a contender. Other tracks that were among the first to be labelled as “grime” include “Ice Rink” and “Igloo” by Wiley, “Creeper” by Danny Weed, and “Dollar Sign” by Sticky featuring Stush. Several earlier electronic music tracks have been noted for sharing elements of what would later become grime music. “Bamboo Houses” (1982) by Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian “accidentally predicted” grime and was “the earliest example of proto-grime” according to Fact, with a “gleaming synth lead, syncopated drumming and the type of vaguely Asian motif that would go on to define much of Wiley and Jammer’s early work” in Sinogrime. It later appeared on Kode9’s DJ sets and was remixed by Slackk, becoming “a grime touchstone” by the early 2010s. Also of note is the 1994 Super Nintendo video game soundtrack Wolverine: Adamantium Rage, composed by Shahid Ahmad and Dylan Beale. According to Fact, it features “all the hallmarks of early grime instrumentals: staccato strings, eski bleeps and square wave bass”. It predates the first recognized grime instrumentals by eight years. Wiley at the timed dubbed the sound ’eskibeat’ rather than “grime”, which had yet to gain popular usage. At this point, the style was known by a number of names, including 8-bar (meaning eight-bar verse patterns), nu shape (which encouraged more complex 16-bar and 32-bar verse patterns), sublow (a music style and movement created by Jon E Cash with Dread D (T Williams) and crew “The Black Ops”, the name sublow being a reference to the very low bassline frequencies, often around 40 Hz) and eskibeat, a term applied specifically to a style initially developed by Wiley and his collaborators, incorporating dance and electro elements. This indicated the movement of UK garage away from its house influences towards darker themes and sounds. Wiley’s song “Wot Do U Call It” was released in 2004 and was made to address the identity problems grime was experiencing at the time, and to establish its separation from garage. there are other contributing factors to its rapid and widespread growth in popularity. The MCs producing current grime music are overwhelmingly young as a group, the most well known names in the industry, Dizzee Rascal and Kano, both getting their first hits at the age of 16 with “I Luv U” and “Boys Love Girls” respectively, and the resultant package of “youth making music for youth” is seen as a crucial factor for grime’s success. Grime producers often battle in so-called “war dubs”. Clashing between MC’s is generally considered to be an important part of grime culture.

Gufeng music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Gufeng music was usually called Xianxia music (仙侠; xianxia being a genre of Chinese fiction that is similar to wuxia, but with more mythological elements), and what now seems like a movement began rather quietly in 2005, calling for netizens to write lyrics with ancient-styled poems for the music in some popular PC games, including The Legend of Sword and Fairy and Xuan-Yuan Sword. The name seems to derive from the namesake lyricist column on Fenbei, and the basic concept of Chinoiserie music, a term which describes Western approximations of Chinese music.

Hard NRG

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1980s–early 1990s: Roots in UK hard house and EU techno#

Acid house of the late 1980s was the ‘happier’ (playful/fun) side of dance music exemplified by Italian piano-house (Italo disco/hi-NRG of the early 1990s) and this began to progress into a scene of its own. Throughout the first half of the 1990s, house music which was more akin to the soulful, disco influenced dance music of the 1980s, continued to flourish. By the mid-1990s, uplifting house music in this vein was in abundance and producers in the UK such as The Sharp Boys were providing their own interpretation of the sound. They upped the BPMs a little, chopped up the disco samples into bite size loops, chucked a load of filters in and created music that was pure dance floor business. This was the sound that provided the basis for the origins of UK hard house. At the time, it was exclusive to the gay scene in the UK and for a while known as “Hand Bag House” or “Hard Bag”. Hard house as a style was epitomized in the early days by producers such as Paul Janes, The Tidy Boys, Pete Wardman, Steve Thomas, Ian M, Alan Thompson, Captain Tinrib, DJ Ziad and Tony De Vit. Some of the above-mentioned names were heavily involved in the club night ‘Trade’, which is widely regarded as the home and birthplace of UK hard house with Tony De Vit as the ‘godfather’ of UK hard house. In the early 1990s, producers like Joey Beltram had transposed the sound of U.S. techno to Belgium, and added their own twist to it. This new brand of techno was darker, harder, and generally nastier than anything that had preceded it. The techno that had emerged from Detroit in the US had the seemingly paradoxical quality of somehow being soulful while at the same time being 100% electronic. The Belgian techno sound ripped out this soul, and replaced it with something altogether more sinister. It was this style of music that gave birth to the sound of the “Hoover”, a gritty sound produced by the Roland Alpha Juno 2 synthesizer and so called because of its apparent similarity to the noises made by vacuum cleaners.

Hard trance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The hard trance sound developed out of the breakbeat hardcore/hardcore era which itself developed from Belgian New Beat industrial style of Techno. When the hardcore breakbeat production community split into its separate subgenres, hard trance began to develop within the breakbeat hardcore production community. Hard trance went on to become one of the dominant and most successful electronic music styles throughout the 1990s in mainland Europe and around the world. The British electronic music scene split off into other styles such as jungle/drum and bass, hardcore, techno and house.

Hardbag

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Examples#

The following releases are considered notable examples of the genre: *1992: “Don’t You Want Me” – Felix (Deconstruction label, UK No. 6) *1994: “La Luna” – The Ethics (produced by Patrick Prins) (Effective label, UK No. 13) *1994: “Crazy Man” – Blast (Media label, UK No. 22) *1994: “The Ultimate” – Antic (Hooj Choons, UK No. 71) *1995: “Burning Up” – Tony De Vit (:VC: label, UK No. 25) *1995: “Hooked” – 99th Floor Elevators feat. Tony De Vit (Labello Dance, UK No. 28) *1995: “To the Limit” – Tony De Vit (:VC: label, UK No. 44) *1995: “Play this House” – BB Club (Positiva label, UK No. 65) *1994: “Bits & Pieces” – Artemesia (Hooj Choons, UK No. 46) *1995: “Let’s Whip it Up” – Sleaze Sisters Feat. Vicki Shepard (UK No. 46) *1995: “Listen to the Rhythm Flow” – Diva Rhythms (Tripoli Trax) *1995: “Fee Fi Fo Fum” – Candy Girls (:VC: label, UK No. 23) *1995: “Wham Bam” – Candy Girls (:VC: label, UK No. 20) *1995: “Oh! What a World” – Sister Bliss (Go! Beat label, UK No. 40) *1995: “U Girls” – Nush (:VC: label, UK No. 15) *1995: “Passion” – Amen UK (Deconstruction label, UK No. 15) *1995: “Joanna” – Mrs Wood (React label, No. 34; “Joanna” was remixed by Sash! in 1997, peaking at No. 31) *1996: “Forever Young” (Red Jerry remix – Interactive, UK No. 28) *1996: “There’s Nothing I Won’t Do” - JX (Hooj Choons, UK No. 4)

Hardbass

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Hardbass first began to emerge in the late 1990s, mainly in the Saint Petersburg electronic dance music underground, when the pumping house genre, built around the bamboo bass, or donk bass (a type of metallic bass synthesizer sound, first invented by Klubbheads in 1997), became a staple in local raves. To increase the energy of the parties, Saint Petersburg producers and DJs started to increase the BPM of the pumping house they played and produced, eventually reaching 150 BPM and beyond. Saint Petersburg producers would include distinct whistles and other samples into their production, which would later crystallize into the hardbass sound as it is generally known. At the same time the characteristic lingo of hardbass formed, such as terms for hardbass music itself, like; kolbasa meaning sausage, a derivative of kolbasitsya, a jargon verb meaning hard partying; pump, or pamp, short for pumping house; nasos, the literal translation of the word pump into Russian. In 2010, XS Project, a group of four music producers from Saint Petersburg, released a satirical movie on YouTube, together with radio presenters of Gop FM station, accompanying their Bochka, Bass, Kolbasyor (kick drum, bass and kolbasyor) track, which was released in 2003. In the movie, several artists, DJs, and radio presenters, disguised as gopniks, danced in gopnik style on a Saint Petersburg children’s playground. The movie was intended to mock the so-called subculture of rave gopniks – young people in tracksuits who would go to rave parties in Russia not to have a good time, but to get intoxicated and cause trouble. The dance moves for hardbass dancing mostly included disorganized feet stomping, jumping and specific hand gestures, with hands clenched in fists with thumb and pinky fingers protruding.

Hardcore (electronic dance music genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early 1970s to early 1980s#

Hardcore is rooted in the 1970s and early 1980s industrial music, specifically the elements of hard electronic dance music. Groups such as Throbbing Gristle, Coil, Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, Foetus and Einstürzende Neubauten produced music using a wide range of electronic instruments. The message diffused by industrial was then very provocative. Some of the musical sounds and experimentation of industrial have directly influenced hardcore since the beginning of the movement.

Hardstyle

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The exact origin of hardstyle cannot be specifically defined; however, it is clear the characteristic of hardstyle originates from hard trance (notably hard trance’s ‘reverse bass’, and artists such as German deejay Scot Project) with influence from other genres such as hardcore, this genre is what is now known as early hardstyle. As it progressed, the genre gathered characteristics from other electronic music genres and refined its own sound and identity. Over time, the BPM of hardstyle music increased, from a range of 135 to 150 to a range of 150 to 160. Some hardcore producers brought hardstyle elements back to the hardcore scene, which made modern hardstyle and hardcore very similar and often indistinguishable in some cases, only differing in BPM. The first event credited as a hardstyle event was Qlubtempo, which took place in the year 2000 in Zaandam. Qlubtempo was the first event produced by Q-dance, a Dutch event company which would later go on to produce hardstyle festivals in other countries in Europe, Australia, North America, South America and Asia. In 2001, Q-dance produced the first edition of Qlimax. Q-dance trademarked the term “hardstyle” on the 4th of July, 2002, after both Qlimax and Qlubtempo proved to be successful. Since its inception, Q-dance has guided the evolution of hardstyle music with its events and is often involved with hardstyle artists on a creative level. In 2003, Q-dance hosted the first edition of Defqon.1. The first few years of hardstyle were characterized by a tempo of around 140–150 BPM, a distorted kick drum sound, vocal samples, dissonant synth sounds known as “screeches” and the use of a “reverse bass”, a hard kick distorted offbeat bass within the same beat. Around 2002, more hardstyle labels emerged. Fusion Records (with DJ Zany and others) and Scantraxx (founded by Dov Elkabas) were the two largest Dutch Hardstyle labels in that period. At this point in time, hardstyle artists were primarily from either the Netherlands or Italy.

Hardvapour

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Beginnings#

On 29 November 2015, Canadian vaporwave producer Wolfenstein OS X (or WosX for short) released End of World Rave, the earliest notable hardvapour release, The album featured music that intentionally opposed aspects that were typically associated with the vaporwave sound. which announced the “death” of vaporwave and a “new era.” The album features a spoken word track with the lyrics, “Now, in the beginnings of the end of the world, vaporwave is dead. From now on, it will only be… the hardvapour.”

Hauntology (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term hauntology was introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book Specters of Marx as a term for the post-Marxist understanding of what is perceived as the tendency of Karl Marx’s ideas to “haunt Western society from beyond the grave”.

Characteristics#

In music, hauntology is predominantly associated with a British electronic music trend but it can apply to any art concerned with the aesthetics of the past. The trend is often tied to notions of retrofuturism, whereby artists evoke the past by utilising the “spectral sounds of old music technology”. The trend involves the sampling of older sound sources to evoke deep cultural memory. Critic Simon Reynolds stated in a 2006 article that “this strand of ‘ghostified’ music doesn’t quite constitute a genre, a scene, or even a network. … more of a flavour or atmosphere than a style with boundaries”, Hauntological music draws on varied postwar cultural sources Other British influences include obscure musique concrète composers and Joe Meek’s album I Hear a New World, Sampling is used to “evoke ‘dead presences’” which are transformed into “eerie sonic markers”. Artists often mix antique synthesiser tones, acoustic instruments, and digital techniques, as well as found sounds, abstract noise, and industrial drones.

HexD

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

According to Sticki, the founder of the netlabel Dismiss Yourself, the term “hexD” originally emerged through the music collective Hexcastcrew, who “hex songs—in their words, they cast spells via bitcrushing the music.” The process of “hexxing” a song involves a style of DJ mixing that makes heavy use of bitcrushing and digital effects. after the Dismiss Yourself compilation album Surge Compilation Vol. 1 (2020). The visual aesthetics of hexD draw influence from anime, internet aesthetics, and early Web 2.0 era iconography and artwork primarily associated with the 2006 online GIF editor Blingee as a form of childhood nostalgia that has been compared to the vaporwave microgenre. According to WKNC-FM, the mixing style is reminiscent of early Internet “low quality trance/adjacent EDM” anime AMVs. Alternative Press magazine described the style as “sped up, bitcrushed and glitched out”.

Hi-NRG

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Whether hi-NRG is more rock-oriented than standard disco music is a matter of opinion. Hi-NRG can be heavily synthesized but it is not a prerequisite, and whether it is devoid of “funkiness” differs among the opinions of listeners. Many artists perform their vocals in R&B and soul styles on hi-NRG tracks. Lyrics tend to be overtly camp, kitschy, tongue-in-cheek, sexually suggestive with double entendres but also occasionally sentimental or maudlin. The sound of high energy dance tracks, particularly electronic dance or disco, is immediately identifiable by its iconic basslines, pioneered by producer Giorgio Moroder, often programmed in repeating bass sequences, particularly 16th notes, which is characteristic of the hi-NRG electronic dance sound as in “I Feel Love” performed by Donna Summer and produced by Moroder. The rhythm is characterized by an energetic, staccato, sequenced synthesizer sound of octave basslines or/and where the bass often takes the place of the hi-hat, alternating a more resonant note with a dampened note to signify the tempo of the record. There is also often heavy use of the clap sound found on drum machines. One form of hi-NRG, as performed by Megatone Records artists and Ian Levine, is any uptempo disco and dance music, whether containing octave basslines or not, that often features covers of “classic” Motown hits (Boys Town Gang) and torch songs, and is often “theatrical” in performance, featuring female (and male) musicians with facetious diva personas and male musicians sometimes in “drag” (Sylvester, Divine), cabarets/musical theater (Vicki Sue Robinson, Sharon Redd). This style, that Stock Aitken Waterman were influenced by, had a large cult following among gay club-goers in the 1980s, especially San Franciscan black and white gay men. and early Chicago house, primarily focuses on its characteristic sequenced “octave-jumping basslines” above anything else and in this form hi-NRG managed to surge into the mainstream with Stacey Q, Kim Wilde, and Laura Branigan. The octave basslines are also found in electroclash and in both cases may be traced to synth-pop and even further back to Giorgio Moroder (“I Feel Love”).

Hindi dance music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recognition#

While Hindi dance music forms part of the music of Hindi cinema, the wide-based genre songs became popular by the early-to-mid-2000s after the worldwide success of the Punjabi song “Mundian To Bach Ke” which charted in various international music charts, and other famous dance songs such as “Kajra Re”. By the late 2000s, Hindi dance music attained worldwide recognition following the success of the Oscar-winning song “Jai Ho”. By the 2010s, due to the growing fan base of EDM, Hindi dance music began incorporating EDM, prompting the recognition of songs such as “Baby Doll”. The style of music was also an influence for British singer M.I.A. and her album Matangi. Not to mention; Hindi songs are often sampled in some of today’s hits and even songs from over the years; songs like “Whoopty” by CJ came from the Bollywood title song “Sanam Re”, even Britney Spears’ song “Toxic” came from an old school Hindi film song.

Hip house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

A British collaboration between the electronic group Beatmasters and the rap duo Cookie Crew entitled “Rok da House” is cited as one of the first hip house tracks. Minor controversy ensued in 1988 when a U.S. record called “Turn Up the Bass” by Tyree Cooper featuring Kool Rock Steady claimed it was the “first hip house record on vinyl”. The Beatmasters disputed this, pointing out that “Rok da House” had originally been written and pressed to vinyl in 1986. The outfit then released “Who’s in the House?” featuring British emcee Merlin, containing the lines “Beatmasters stand to attention, hip house is your invention” and “Watch out Tyree, we come faster”. More claims to the hip-house crown were subsequently laid down by Fast Eddie in “Yo Yo Get Funky!”, Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock with “It Takes Two”, and Tony Scott’s “That’s How I’m Living”. After successful releases by the Beatmasters, Deskee, Tyree, KC Flightt, Doug Lazy and Mr. Lee, hip-house became popular in the acid house warehouse scene and nightclubs. Hip house also garnered substantial chart success. The style complemented sample-based records of the period, produced by British artists such as S-Express, Bomb the Bass and MARRS. Hip house tracks featured on popular dance compilations including Telstar’s Deep Heat compilation series and was championed by DJs such as Chad Jackson. As house music emerged as a worldwide industry by the late 1980s, U.S. acts such as C+C Music Factory would use the hip house formula in hits such as “Gonna Make You Sweat”, as well as the Eurodance particularly with hits by the Belgian group Technotronic and the German groups Snap! and Real McCoy.

House music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

In its most typical form, the genre is characterized by repetitive 4/4 rhythms including bass drums, off-beat hi-hats, snare drums, claps, and/or snaps at a tempo of between 120 and 130 beats per minute (bpm); synthesizer riffs; deep basslines; and often, but not necessarily, sung, spoken or sampled vocals. In house, the bass drum is usually played on beats one, two, three, and four, and the snare drum, claps, or other higher-pitched percussion on beats two and four. The drumbeats in house music are almost always provided by an electronic drum machine, often a Roland TR-808, TR-909, or a TR-707. Claps, shakers, snare drum, or hi-hat sounds are used to add syncopation. One of the signature rhythm riffs, especially in early Chicago house, is built on the clave pattern. Congas and bongos may be added for an African sound, or metallic percussion for a Latin feel. The electronic drum machines and other gear used by house DJs and producers were formerly considered “too cheap-sounding” by “proper” musicians. House music producers typically use sampled instruments, rather than bringing session musicians into a recording studio. Even though a key element of house production is layering sounds, such as drum machine beats, samples, synth basslines, and so on, the overall “texture…is relatively sparse”. Unlike pop songs, which emphasize higher-pitched sounds like melody, in house music, the lower-pitched bass register is most important. jazz-funk, or funk House tracks build up slowly, by adding layers of sound and texture, and by increasing the volume. House tracks may have vocals like a pop song, but some are “completely minimal instrumental music”. If a house track does have vocals, the vocal lines may also be simple “words or phrases” that are repeated.

Hyperpop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Hyperpop artists embody an exaggerated, eclectic, and self-referential approach to pop music and typically employ elements such as brash synth melodies, Auto-Tuned “earworm” vocals, and excessive compression and distortion, as well as surrealist or nostalgic references to 2000s Internet culture and the Web 2.0 era. Common features include vocals that are heavily processed; metallic, melodic percussion sounds; pitch-shifted synths; catchy choruses; short song lengths; and “shiny, cutesy aesthetics” juxtaposed with angst-ridden or ironic lyricism. According to Vice journalist Eli Enis, hyperpop is not so much about following music rules, but “a shared ethos of transcending genre altogether, while still operating within the context of pop”. The movement is often associated with the LGBTQ+ community, drawing primary influences from queer culture. The microgenre’s emphasis on vocal modulation has allowed artists to experiment with gender presentation and androgyny in their voices, Joe Vitagliano, writing for American Songwriter, said hyperpop is an “exciting, bombastic, and iconoclastic genre – if it can even be called a ‘genre and has “saw synths, auto-tuned vocals, glitch-inspired percussion and a distinctive late-capitalism-dystopia vibe”. According to Kieran Press-Reynolds writing for Pitchfork, artists in this style mix the avant-garde and pop music, often balancing between being addictively fun and a bit too much. He added that in 2024, hyperpop had become a “Frankensteinian macro-genre”. The Atlantic said the genre “swirls together and speeds up Top 40 tricks of present and past: a Janet Jackson drum slam here, a Depeche Mode synth squeal there, the overblown pep of novelty jingles throughout,” but also said “the genre’s zest for punk’s brattiness, hip-hop’s boastfulness, and metal’s noise”. According to Rolling Stone magazine, collectives such as Novagang and Helix Tears “feature artists of variously different styles and sounds, but find community with each other in their shared rejection of stylistic limits.”

Hypnagogic pop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

In August 2009, journalist David Keenan, who was known as a reporter of noise, freak folk, and drone music scenes, coined the term “hypnagogic pop” in issue 306 of British music magazine The Wire. His article was entitled Childhood’s End. Keenan applied the label to a developing trend of 2000s lo-fi and post-noise music in which artists engaged with elements of cultural nostalgia, The term reportedly originated with a comment by James Ferraro about the notion that 1980s sounds had seeped into the unconscious of contemporary musicians while they were toddlers falling asleep and their parents played music in another room. Among the artists discussed in Keenan’s article were Ariel Pink, Daniel Lopatin, the Skaters, the Savage Young Taterbug, Gary War, Zola Jesus, Ducktails, Emeralds, and Pocahaunted. According to Keenan, these artists drew on cultural sources subconsciously remembered from their 1980s and early 1990s adolescence while freeing them from their historical contexts and “hom ing in on the futuristic signifiers” of the period. He alternately summarized hypnagogic pop as “pop music refracted through the memory of a memory” and as “1980’s-inspired psychedelia” that engages with capitalist detritus of the past in an attempt to “dream of the future.” In a later article, Keenan identified Lopatin, Ferraro, Clark, and ex-Test Icicles member Sam Mehran as hypnagogic pop’s “most adventurous proponents”.

Illbient

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Boston Phoenix article
3,500+ releases tagged as Illbient on Discogs

Incelcore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

According to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, writer Dan Collen stated that incelcore draws from “internet culture, symbolism and terminology”. The genre draws musical influences from punk, electronic and alternative rock. Collen adds that not all artists and fans identify with the incel movement; however, they evoke the same themes of self-hate, hopelessness and misogyny. Collen further stated that incelcore was a musical and online subculture influenced by the “imagery, attitudes and irony” of internet image boards and that references to mass shooters were a common subject. Merchandise of Varg Vikernes’ project Burzum is noted as “not uncommon among incelcore fans”.

Industrial hip-hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

1980s#

The origins of industrial hip hop are in the work of Mark Stewart, Bill Laswell, and Adrian Sherwood. In 1985, former The Pop Group singer Mark Stewart released As the Veneer of Democracy Starts to Fade, an application of the cut-up style of industrial music, with the house band of Sugar Hill Records (Doug Wimbish, Keith LeBlanc, and Skip McDonald). In 1986, The Beatnigs were formed in San Francisco. As a collaboration between Michael Franti, Rono Tse and Kevin Carnes, The Beatnigs combined hardcore punk, industrial and hip hop influences, described as “a kind of avant-garde industrial jazz poets collective”. The band’s stage performance included the use of power tools such as a rotary saw on a metal bar to create industrial noise and pyrotechnics. In the late 1980s, Laswell’s Material project began to take increasing influence from hip hop. Adrian Sherwood was a major figure in British dub, as well as working with industrial groups such as Cabaret Voltaire, Einstürzende Neubauten, Ministry, KMFDM, and Nine Inch Nails. Tackhead, a collaboration between Sherwood and the Sugar Hill band, picked up where Mark Stewart left off. The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Consolidated from San Francisco, MC 900 Ft. Jesus from Texas and Meat Beat Manifesto from the UK are also early representatives of the style. The industrial group 23 Skidoo, Miles Davis’s album On the Corner, and the Nine Inch Nails single “Down in It” are also important precedents for the style.

Industrial metal

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early innovators#

Though electric guitars had been used by industrial artists since the early days of the genre, archetypal industrial groups such as Throbbing Gristle displayed a strong anti-rock stance. British post-punk band Killing Joke pioneered the crossing over between styles and was an influence on major acts associated with industrial metal such as Ministry, Godflesh, and Nine Inch Nails. Another pioneer industrial rock group, Big Black, also impacted some later groups. By the late 1980s industrial and heavy metal began to fuse into a common genre, with Godflesh’s self-titled EP and Ministry’s The Land of Rape and Honey at the forefront. Godflesh was founded by former Napalm Death guitarist Justin Broadrick. Drawing from a wide array of influences—power electronics forefathers Whitehouse, noise rock band Swans, ambient music creator Brian Eno Faith No More, and Fear Factory. Ministry emerged from the scene surrounding Wax Trax! Records, a Chicago indie label dedicated to industrial music. Ministry’s initial foray into guitar rock happened during a recording session of The Land of Rape and Honey on Southern Studios, in London. The band’s frontman, the Cuban-born Al Jourgensen, explained this transition: Jourgensen seemed particularly fond of thrash metal. After the release of Land, he recruited guitarist Mike Scaccia from Texas thrashers Rigor Mortis. On one occasion, Jourgensen told the press that Sepultura was his favorite band. He also expressed the desire to produce a Metallica album. Jourgensen’s interest in dance-oriented electronic music did not entirely fade, however; he also formed the side-project Revolting Cocks, a more electronic body music-inflected collaboration with Richard23 of Front 242. German band KMFDM was another seminal industrial metal group. Although not a metal fan, KMFDM leader Sascha Konietzko’s “infatuation with ripping off metal licks” stemmed from his experiments with E-mu’s Emax sampler in late 1986. He told Guitar World that, A Swiss trio, The Young Gods, brushed with the style on their second album, L’Eau Rouge (1989). Prior to its release, singer Franz Treichler declared: Canadian thrash metal band Malhavoc became one of the earlier acts of the genre when they began to mix extreme metal with industrial music in the late 1980s. Pigface, formed by Martin Atkins and including Ministry drummer Bill Rieflin, emerged as an industrial metal collective of sorts, participating with many figures from the noise rock and industrial worlds. Nine Inch Nails, the “one-man-band” formed by Trent Reznor, brought the genre to mainstream audiences with albums such as the Grammy-winning Broken and the best-selling The Downward Spiral, accompanied by their groundbreaking performance at Woodstock ‘94. The rivethead subculture also developed at this time, along with the so-called “coldwave” subgenre, which encompassed Chemlab, 16 Volt, and Acumen Nation. Some electro-industrial groups adopted industrial metal techniques in this period, including Skinny Puppy (on their Rabies, co-produced by Jourgensen), and Front Line Assembly. British band Pitchshifter, formed in 1989 by brothers Jon and Mark Clayden, also started as an industrial metal band. The band later included elements of drum and bass. Frontman JS mentions:

Industrial music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the genre was first named in 1942 when The Musical Quarterly called Dmitri Shostakovich’s 1927 Symphony No. 2 “the high tide of ‘industrial music’.” Similarly, in 1972, The New York Times described works by Ferde Grofé (especially 1935’s A Symphony in Steel) as part of “his ‘industrial music’ genre that called on such instruments as four pairs of shoes, two brooms, a locomotive bell, a pneumatic drill and a compressed-air tank”. Though these compositions are not directly tied to what the genre would become, they are early examples of music designed to mimic machinery noise and factory atmosphere. Italian Futurist Luigi Russolo laid the groundwork for industrial music with his book and work The Art of Noises (1913), which aimed to reflect “the sounds of a modern industrial society”.

Industrial rock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Industrial rock is defined by the merging of rock music with influences lifted from industrial music, electronic, and avant-garde music. Industrial rock bands are characterized by harsh, abrasive sounds, blending distorted, aggressive guitar riffs with electronic textures and experimental production techniques. Exemplified by artists who signed to industrial focused independent record label Wax Trax! Records, while some industrial rock artists later overlapped with industrial metal.

Forerunners#

Cromagnon’s 1969 record Orgasm has been credited with foreshadowing the industrial rock sound, with AllMusic describing it as sounding “like it could be a Ministry … recording from 1989”. Pitchfork labelled the opening track “Caledonia” as a “pre-industrial stomp”. During the 1970s, industrial music emerged through the early works of Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, NON, SPK and Z’EV. SAlongside, New York City band Suicide, formed in 1970, by Alan Vega and Martin Rev, whose 1977 debut album has been credited with providing “the blueprints for … industrial rock”. Furthermore, Iggy Pop who released his debut solo album The Idiot, produced by David Bowie, in 1977, was later retroactively recognized as a forerunner to industrial rock, particularly the closing track, “Mass Production’, which contains numerous “proto-industrial noises” created using tape loops, which Hugo Wilcken described as “early industrial electronica.” Ian Curtis of Joy Division, cited the album as an inspiration, and later influenced the work of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, who’d cover their song “Dead Souls”. Other influences on industrial rock include Einstürzende Neubauten, Alien Sex Fiend, and Come.

Industrial techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The origins of industrial techno date back to the early 1980s with the work of Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, then a member of Yellow Magic Orchestra. According to Fact and Louder Than War, Sakamoto’s solo album B-2 Unit (1980) anticipated the sounds of industrial techno. Some of the earliest musical projects in the genre include the band Final Cut, formed by Jeff Mills and Anthony Srock in Detroit during the late 1980s. Their 1989 debut industrial-techno album Deep into the Cut was described by The Wire as “a significant moment in the convergence of the classic industrial aesthetic and the emerging sound of Detroit techno”. Forward Strategy Group, Jeff Mills, Regis, Dominick Fernow and Mike Banks. Perc Trax record label has been credited with the revival of the genre in the UK, with artists such as Perc, Truss, Happa and Ansome. Some revival artists have subsequently been criticized for making the new music in the genre that “sounds old, that it’s overly indebted to a sound invented and thoroughly exhausted in the ’90s”, but despite this, innovation derived from the post-dubstep and garage scene have been highlighted. As a result, it has gained a significant fanbase from the post-dubstep audience.

Intelligent dance music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Intelligent techno and electronica#

The origins of IDM date back to the early 1980s with the work of Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). In 1980, YMO member Ryuichi Sakamoto’s solo album B-2 Unit anticipated the sounds of IDM. According to NME, “the entire album eschewed traditional song structures for atmosphere and tone, anticipating the rebellious wave of 1990s IDM” a “full decade beforehand.” According to Vice, the B-2 Unit track “E-3A” offered “a hint of the decade to come with its IDM-leaning cut-up complexities.” YMO’s 1981 album BGM was also a foundation for IDM. According to Analog Planet, the BGM track “Ballet” has an IDM-like electronic soundscape that combines “electronic drums, persistent hi-hats, and sustained synths” with a “melancholic emptiness.” In the late 1980s, ensuing from acid house and early rave party scenes, UK-based groups such as the Orb and the KLF produced ambient house, a genre that fused the pulses of house music, particularly acid house, with ambient music and sample-based soundscapes. By the early 1990s, the increasingly distinct music associated with dance music-oriented experimentation had gained prominence with releases on a variety of mostly UK-based record labels, including Warp (1989), Black Dog Productions (1989), R&S Records (1989), Carl Craig’s Planet E, Rising High Records (1991), Richard James’s Rephlex Records (1991), Kirk Degiorgio’s Applied Rhythmic Technology (1991), Eevo Lute Muzique (1991), General Production Recordings (1989), Soma Quality Recordings (1991), Peacefrog Records (1991), and Metamorphic Recordings (1992). In 1992, Warp released Artificial Intelligence, the first album in the Artificial Intelligence series. Subtitled “electronic listening music from Warp”, the record was a collection of tracks from artists such as Autechre, B12, Black Dog Productions, Aphex Twin and the Orb, under various aliases. This would help establish the ambient techno sound of the early 1990s. Steve Beckett, co-owner of Warp, has said the electronic music that the label was releasing then was targeting a post-club, home-listening audience. Following the success of the Artificial Intelligence series, “intelligent techno” became the favoured term, although ambient—without a qualifying house or techno suffix, but still referring to a hybrid form—was a common synonym. “armchair techno”, and “electronica”, but all were attempts to describe an emerging offshoot of electronic dance music that was being enjoyed by the “sedentary and stay at home”. At the same time, the UK market was saturated with increasingly frenetic breakbeat and sample-laden hardcore techno records that quickly became formulaic. Rave had become a “dirty word”, so as an alternative, it was common for London nightclubs to advertise that they were playing “intelligent” or “pure” techno, appealing to a “discerning” crowd that considered the hardcore sound to be too commercial.

Internet rap

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

According to music journalist Alphonse Pierre, writing for Pitchfork, the term “internet rappers” was once used as a dismissive label but later popularized by the “SoundCloud generation”. Writing for The Guardian, journalist Emilie Friedlander stated that during the blog era, bloggers “were trawling the internet to uncover the next great bedroom producer, internet rapper or hyper-specific musical trend.”

1990s–2000s: Forerunners#

During the mid-to late 1990s, Canibus became the first rapper to make references to the Internet in hip-hop. On the track “DJ Clue Freestyle” released in 1997, Canibus stated, “I’ll battle you on the net, I’ll battle you in the flesh.” In 1998, Florida rapper Trick Daddy also made reference to the internet and its visual aesthetics, with the release of his album www.thug.com, which was the URL of his official website.

Italo dance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Influences#

The sound of the genre evolved directly from Eurodance. Italo dance displays a great influence from Italo disco, a genre which was very popular in Italy during the 1980s. Italo disco was a direct continuation of disco music (which would never experience a rejection wave in Italy), incorporating the new sounds that had begun to emerge from the late 1970s. Another main influence comes from Italo house, an Italian-based form of house music also influenced by Italo disco.

Italo disco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Terminology#

The term “Italo”, a generic prefix meaning Italian, had been used on pop music compilation albums in West Germany as early as 1978, such as Italo Top Hits on the K-Tel label and the first volume of Italo Super Hits on the Ariola label. There is no documentation of where the term “Italo-Disco” first appeared, but its origins are generally traced to Italian and other European disco recordings released in the West German market. Examples include the phrase “Original Italo-Disco” on the sleeve of the West German edition of “Girls on Me” by Amin-Peck (Rome) and “Ask The Boss” by Flowchart (Bologna) in late 1982, and the 1983 compilation album The Best of Italo-Disco. These records, along with the Italo Boot Mix megamix, were released by Bernhard Mikulski on his ZYX label, who was therefore credited with coining the term “Italodisco”. The Best of and Boot Mix compilations each became a 16-volume series that culminated in 1991. Both series primarily featured disco music of Italian origin, often licensed from independent Italian labels which had limited distribution outside Italy, as well as songs in a similar style by other European artists. The presenters of the Italian music show Discoring (produced by RAI) usually referred to Italodisco tracks as “rock elettronico” (electronic rock) or “balli da discoteca” or “musica dance”. The term “Italodisco” was not really used in Italy until the 2000s.

Italo house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

While the name was not yet developed, early notable Italo-house acts would include Klein + M.B.O. and Alexander der Robotnick. The genre reached mainstream popularity in 1989, with Ride on Time reaching the top ten in all of Europe except Itality. “Italo-house” as it became known in the early 1990s was a happy, euphoric sound; pioneered essentially by the production stable of Gianfranco Bortolotti, whose alter egos included Cappella, R.A.F., East Side Beat, and the 49ers. Records produced in Italy dominated the UK dance charts of 1990/91 with tunes including Asha’s “JJ Tribute” (lead vocals by Joyce Chung), DJ H’s “Think About”, Last Rhythm’s “Last Rhythm”, and Jinny’s “Keep Warm” signifying the uplifting, happy vibe. Artists such as K-Klass, Bassheads, and Felix built on the Italian piano sound to create uplifting tunes still played out today, although the pioneers of the sound such as DJ Sasha have long since left the happy vibe of piano house to concentrate on other styles.

Jerk (music genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Writing for British magazine The Face, music journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds described jerk as “fidgety rhythms, staggered snares and mangled vocals”, and noted that a variety of jerk rappers “boast” but also showcase “a quirky and sensitive lyrical undercurrent that tends to lurk beneath the tough-guy facade”. he never listened to the original wave of jerk rap and is more inspired by Milwaukee hip-hop’s lowend scene in his “percussion choices”.

Jersey club

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style and characteristics#

Jersey club has been described as a “fast and aggressive dance music” with roots in the Baltimore club scene’s fusion of house music and hip-hop. 808 bass sounds and sampled breakbeats from Lyn Collins’ “Think (About It)” are commonly employed, as well as varied pop culture references. DJ Sliink summarized it as “a more urban take to dance music with chopped vocals and breaks.”

Origins: 1999–2002#

Club or house music has a long history in Newark, home to the older New Jersey sound electronic genre. Chicago house was popular in Newark’s 1990s club scene, where it was referred to generically by some as “club music.” DJ Tameil, who became known for his Chicago house mixtapes as a teenager, later established connections with the Baltimore scene; he was subsequently introduced to Baltimore stars such as DJ Technics and Rod Lee. Tameil did not put artist names on his mixes, making it difficult for other Jersey producers to identify his sources. He began playing Baltimore records at teen parties and clubs in the downtown Newark area. Tameil was among the first Jersey artists to produce his own club tracks in 2001 with the Dat Butt EP, released on his own label Anthrax Records. A week later the Newark group The OG’s also self-released an EP titled Official Ghetto Style. Tameil began to burn his own CDs and sold them on Broad Street in Newark. Around this time, DJs Tim Dolla and Mike V also began producing their own club tracks as the Brick Bandits to challenge Tameil’s monopoly on the market. The two parties initially feuded but Tameil later joined the group, coining the phrase “Brick City club” in 2002 in reference to Newark’s nickname “Brick City.” They released popular mixtapes which featured both club and house tracks. Club parties, hosted primarily in ballrooms and banquet halls, began emerging in Newark and surrounding suburbs such as East Orange and Irvington. Despite violence in the city, parties thrown by the Brick Bandits or at the Branch Brook Skating Rink were known to be safe spaces for kids.

Jota (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The medieval word “xiota” (pronounced or ), derives from Mozarabic šáwta “jump”, ultimately from Latin saltāre “to jump”. Due to phonetic changes, it has become jota (pronounced ) in modern Spanish (reborrowed to Valencian as , or ) and (pron. ) or (pron. ) in Aragonese; ; ; .

Aragonese jota#

The Aragonese jota is the best-known expression of Aragonese folklore. It dates as far back as the 18th century, and reached the pinnacle of its splendor in the 19th century. Due to the complexities of the dance steps and manner of singing, the jota has evolved. Since the end of the 19th century, heavily choreographed versions have often been made for zarzuelas, movies, contests, festivals, and other entertainments. The most pure forms of the jota can still be found in Calanda, Alcañiz, Andorra, Albalate, and Zaragoza. Nowadays there exist many modern varieties of the jota which are performed by various folkloric groups. Among the most popular can be found: Jota de San Lorenzo (Huesca), Jota Vieja, Aragón Tierra Bravía, Gigantes y Cabezudos, La Dolores (these two are taken from the zarzuela and opera respectively of the same names), and the danza de la Olivera.

Jumpstyle

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Late 1990s–early 2000s: Origins#

Jumpstyle is sometimes described as having roots in Chicago hard house, though it developed its distinct identity in Europe. The style emerged in Belgium around 1997–1998, where artists such as Da Boy Tommy helped popularise the term “jumpstyle”. In its early form, the genre remained relatively niche. During the early 2000s, further stylistic development in Germany and the Netherlands contributed to its growing popularity across Europe.

Jungle music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The breakbeat hardcore scene of the early 1990s was beginning to fragment by 1992 and 1993, with different influences becoming less common together in tracks. The piano and uplifting vocal style that was prevalent in breakbeat hardcore started to lay down the foundations of 4-beat/happy hardcore, whilst tracks with dark-themed samples and industrial-style stabs had emerged from late 1992 and named darkcore. Reggae samples and reggae-influenced tracks had been a feature of many breakbeat hardcore tracks since 1990, particularly from producers such as Shut Up and Dance; however, Paul Ibiza and the Rebel MC were arguably the first to bring the sound system influence solidly into releases. The track “We Are I.E.” by Lennie De Ice is often credited as being the track that laid down the foundations for jungle with its ragga bassline. During 1992 and 1993, the terms “jungle techno” and “hardcore jungle” proliferated to describe that shift of the music from breakbeat hardcore to jungle. The sound was championed at clubs such as AWOL, Roast and Telepathy, by DJs such as DJ Ron, DJ Hype, DJ Randall, Fabio & Grooverider, Micky Finn, DJ Rap and Kenny Ken, record labels Moving Shadow, V Recordings, Suburban Base and Renk, and on pirate radio stations such as Kool FM (regarded as being the most instrumental station in the development of jungle) but also Don FM, Rush and Rude FM. Tracks would span breakbeat styles, with notable releases including “Darkage” by DJ Solo, “Valley of the Shadows” by Origin Unknown, “Set Me Free” by Potential Bad Boy, “28 Gun Bad Boy” by A Guy Called Gerald, “Crackman” by DJ Ron, “A London Sumtin” by Code 071, “Finest Illusion” by Foul Play, “Learning from My Brother” by Family of Intelligence, “Lion of Judah” by X Project, and “Be Free” by Noise Factory. Techniques and styles could be traced to such a vast group of influencers, each adding their own little elements. According to Simon Reynolds, jungle was “Britain’s very own equivalent to US hip-hop. That said, you could equally make the case that jungle is a raved-up, digitised offshoot of Jamaican reggae. Musically, jungle’s spatialised production, bass quake pressure and battery of extreme sonic effects, make it a sort of postmodern dub music on steroids.” This is an example of the effects of the sonic diaspora and the wide influence musical genres have; Jungle is where these different Black Atlantic genres converge. Reynolds noted the audience of the genre evolved alongside the music itself; going from a “sweaty, shirtless white teenager, grinning and gurning” to a “head nodding, stylishly dressed black twenty-something with hooded eyes, holding a spliff in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other”. Jungle also served as “a site for a battle between contesting notions of blackness”.

Koplo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

The drum is the most important element of koplo. According to Cak Met, a popular koplo drummer, the regular dangdut is played in 3/4 bar while koplo is played in a faster 4/4 bar, thus requiring a more complex drumming technique. The standard drum pattern of dangdut is called chalte which consists of five types of sound, including three that are played by the large drum that is placed on the left side of the drummer and two that are produced by the small drum on the right. According to Andrew N. Weintraub of the University of Pittsburgh, the koplo drum pattern multiplies all of these sound elements and contains twice the sound of the large drum than the chalte of the standard dangdut. Weintraub traces the origin of these complex drum patterns to Sundanese drum players in West Java who played the traditional jaipongan music. The jaipongan drum pattern was reinterpreted by dangdut musicians in Surabaya and Banyuwangi, thus the making of koplo drum patterns went through a cross-cultural process between different ethnic groups. Because of the vital position of the drums in the koplo live performances, drum players often become icons. Among the well-known koplo drummers are Cak Met (also known as Ki Ageng), Waryo from OM Armega, and Cak Juri from OM Montana. Each region in East Java has its own style of koplo drums. Unique koplo drums can be seen in Sidoarjo, Gresik, Nganjuk, Madiun, Ponorogo, and Sragen. Dangdut, which employs these regional drums, is also called jaranan dangdut or jandhut. While drum patterns and rhythm are no different from the regular koplo, jandhut style uses additional drums called sabet and bem. Well known jandhut drummer includes Mas Malik from OM Lagista, hailed from Nganjuk.

Kosmische Musik

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Kosmische Musik was often instrumental and characterized by “spacy”, ambient soundscapes. Artists used synthesizers such as the EMS VCS 3 and Moog Modular, as well as sound processing effects and tape-based approaches. They often rejected rock music conventions, and instead drew on “serious” electronic compositions.

Etymology#

The term “kosmische Musik” was coined in 1971 by Edgar Froese and later used by record producer Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser as a marketing term for bands such as Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, and Klaus Schulze. The following year, Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser’s Ohr Records used the term when he released the compilation Kosmische Musik (1972) featuring tracks by Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel, and Popol Vuh. The style would later lead to the development of new-age music, with which it shared several characteristics. It would also exert lasting influence on subsequent electronic music and avant-garde rock.

Krautrock

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

Until around 1973, the word (“German Rock”) was used to refer to the new groups from West Germany. Other names thrown around by the British and American music press were “Teutonic rock”, “Überrock” and “Götterdämmer rock”. The British music press initially used as a pejorative, but the term lost its stigma after the music gained success in Britain. The term derives from the ethnic slur “kraut”. “Kraut” in German can refer to herbs, weeds, and drugs. The term was originally used by Virgin records in 1972. Various sources claim that “krautrock” was originally a humorous term coined in the early 1970s, either by British disc jockey John Peel or by the UK music newspaper Melody Maker, in which experimental German bands found an early and enthusiastic following. The first use of the term however, was found in a full-page advertisement from Popo Music Management and Bacillus Records promoting German Rock in the UK, in April 1971. The music emerging in Germany was first covered extensively in three concurrent issues of the UK music paper New Musical Express in the month of December 1972, by journalist Ian MacDonald. Its musicians tended to reject the name “krautrock”. This was also the case for “kosmische Musik”. Musicologist Julian Cope, in his book Krautrocksampler, says “krautrock is a subjective British phenomenon”, based on the way the music was received in the UK rather than on the actual West German music scene out of which it grew. For instance, while one of the main groups originally tagged as krautrock, Faust, recorded a seminal 12-minute track they titled “Krautrock”, they would later distance themselves from the term, saying: “When the English people started talking about krautrock, we thought they were just taking the piss… and when you hear the so-called ‘krautrock renaissance’, it makes me think everything we did was for nothing.”

Kuduro

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The roots of kuduro can be traced to the late 1980s when producers in Luanda started mixing African percussion samples with zouk béton (“hard” zouk) and soca to create a style of music then known as Batida (“Beat”). European and American electronic music had begun appearing in the market, which attracted Angolan musicians and inspired them to incorporate their own musical styles. Young producers began adding heavy African percussion to both European and American beats. In Europe, western house and techno producers mixed it with house and techno. Kuduro is primarily an electronic music genre. In addition to the aforementioned influences, Kuduro also incorporates regional styles that are based on global and local influences that highlight sonic expressions of personal and collective identities. These collective and personal identities were formed due to Angola’s turbulent history. The history of kuduro has come about in a time of Angolan civil unrest, and it provided a means of coping with hardship and positivity for the younger generation. Scholar Inês Cordeiro Dias describes how kuduro “became a popular form of artistic expression for Angolans, especially those living in the slums, to claim their space in the city, and to criticize society.” Angola experienced periods of war, repression, and some instances of political tranquility. The origin of Kuduro came from and due to this political instability. There was significant anti-colonial resistance to Portuguese rule and influence which created a transitional government composed of two political parties. These two parties engaged in power-based struggles and tensions that led to the Angolan Civil War. Such shift in attitude away from optimism was reflected through Kuduro’s increasing distortion in timbre and hardened aesthetics, while lyrics of the genre often reflected experiences of life in the musseques (Luanda’s informal, unpaved and marginal neighborhoods). After Angolan independence in 1975, the ruling party, the MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola or the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola) adopted the musical genre for use in political campaigns, recognizing its popularity. As Vivian Host points out in her article, despite the common assumption that “world music” from non-Western countries holds no commonalities with Western modern music, Angolan kuduro does contain “elements in common with punk, deep tribal house, and even Daft Punk.” And although Angolan kuduro reflects an understanding and an interpretation of Western musical forms, the world music category that it fits under, tends to reject the idea of Western musical imperialism. Kuduro also was birthed out of the political climate that was taking place at the time of its origins. When looking at certain dance moves within the Kuduro genre, one can notice that the moves emulate that of a disabled person and their stature or movements. Given that there was a civil war taking place during the birthing of Kuduro and there were actual mine fields that blew off people’s limbs, it is discernible to see why Kuduro dance moves mimic an amputee’s movement. Kuduro as a dance genre is different than most in the fact that expands it inclusivity to disabled bodies and rewrites notions and narratives of Black disabled sexuality, given the erotic heteronormative nature of the dance moves. Kuduristas use body movements that often emanate movement/stillness, incoordination, falling, pop & lock, and breakdancing. This style of dance seems to “break down” body parts into isolations and staccato movements, serving as a reflection of debility and the mixture of abled/disabled bodies in performance. Kuduro is usually performed in the streets, where groups gather in circles and one by one come into the center and perform their movements while impressing the crowd. Usually, participation is open to everyone, and the audience claps and cheers on the dancers. Kuduristas contort their bodies in direct response to their spatial environments: “Kuduristas, acutely aware of the six to twenty million landmines still waiting to be detonated, as well as the fact that one out of every 334 Angolans has lost a limb as a result of landmine detonation, emulate to various degrees the movements of the land mine victims around them, and are themselves victims.” Young also argues that kuduristas use their dancing “to signify on the normative landscape of the black body,” and by extension, their spatial order. Acts of oppression (colonialism) and violence have composed their environments as sites of subjugation, but these dancers influence the essence of their settings by taking up space and recasting it through their bodies and movement.

Kwaito

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The word kwaito originates from the South African slang “kwaai,” which conveys the meaning of “cool” or “bad” in a positive context. The term “kwaai” itself is rooted in Afrikaans, where it initially signified “angry” or “fierce.” However, within the framework of South African youth culture, its connotation had shifted to represent something fashionable or noteworthy. Kwaito led a post-Apartheid township subculture into the mainstream despite the fact that the Afrikaans language is associated with the apartheid regime and racial oppression, Afrikaans words are often drawn into the Sabela and Tsotsitaal and Camtho vocabularies, reshaped and used in a related or new context. M’du Masilela, a pioneering kwaito artist, said, “When house music got popular, people from the ghetto called it Kwaito after the Afrikaans slang word kwai , meaning those house tracks were hot, that they were kicking.” An Isicamtho word derived from the Afrikaans word kwaai is amakwaitosi, which means gangster. Arthur Mafokate described the relationship between kwaito and gangsterism as music revolving around ghetto life.

Latin house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

In the second half of the 1980s, some of the pioneers of house music of Latin-American descent gave birth to this genre by releasing house records in Spanish. Early examples include Jesse Velez’s “Girls Out on the Floor” 1985, “Amor Puertorriqueño” by Raz on DJ International and “Break 4 Love” by Raze.

1990s to present#

In the 1990s, a new generation of producers and labels broke into the market. Nervous Records released “Quiero Saber” by the Latin Kings, produced by Todd Terry, as well as “Everything’s All Right” by Arts of Rhythm and “Philly The Blunt” by Trinidad. Strictly Rhythm employed producer Armand van Helden, who released “Pirates of The Caribbean Vol. III”. Songs from the same label include DJ Dero’s “Sube”, The Tribe’s “Go-san-do”, R.A.W.’s “Asuca” produced by Erick Morillo, Rare Arts’ “Boricua Posse”, Escandalo’s “Mas Buena” and Fiasco’s “Las Mujeres” produced by Norty Cotto, Latin Kaos’ “El Bandolero” and “Muevete Mama” and “Sugar Cane” by Afro-Cube. During the same period (1991 -1992), Chicago native Pizarro produced “The Five Tones”, New Perspective EP, “Plastica”, “Caliente” and “Perdoname”. Other producers like Ralphi Rosario and Masters at Work created Latin house classics, for instance Ralphie’s production “Da-Me-Lo” and his remix of Albita’s “No se parece a nada” as well as “Sul Chu Cha” by Rosabel, the Louie Vega and Kenny Gonzales remix of “Sume Sigh Say” by House of Gypsies (Todd Terry), and “Robi Rob’s Boriqua Anthem” by C+C Music Factory. Hybrid experiments were put on the market by the likes of New York’s Proyecto Uno, who combined house and merengue in their LPs Todo el mundo and In da House. Their female counterpart is Lisa M from Puerto Rico, who can be heard on the No lo derrumbes and Flavor of the Latin albums. Another merengue-house record worth of mention is “Así mamacita” by Henry Rivera on Los Angeles Aqua Boogie. Also from Los Angeles we had producer DJ Juanito who released Latin house hits like ‘A Mover la colita’ and ‘Esa Nena Linda". The duo Sandy & Papo are known for their LPs Sandy & Papo and Otra Vez. During the mid-1990s, Cutting broke into the Latin house scene and became the most representative label of this genre. Cutting’s DJ Norty Cotto was deemed the most representative producer of Latin house. Among the various hits are 2 in a Room’s “Las Mujeres”, “Carnival” and “Dar la vuelta”, Fun City’s “Padentro” and “Baila”, Sancocho’s “Tumba la Casa”, “Alcen las manos” and “Que siga el party” (LP) and Los Compadres’ “La Rumba”. Norty Cotto’s mixed compilations also became classics. Fulanito and their LP El hombre mas famoso de la tierra is a combination of house and Latin-American rhythms from that time. El General’s “Muevelo” was another of the tunes of that time remixed to the sounds of Latin house by DJ/producers Pablo Pabanor Ortiz and Erick More Morillo, and Latin House Party 2 in collaboration with producers Rafael Torres, Ray Abraxas and Davidson Ospina. Today many other Latin house artists have emerged to create many successful songs of this genre, and also remixes.

Lento violento

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The first tracks with the lento violento sound were “Anima Ladina” by Ottomix (1991), “Panic Mouse (stress mix)” by Gigi D’Agostino (1996), “Ibiza” by Ottomix (1998) and Alex Castelli’s “Enjoy”, that was co-produced by Ottomix. Although at that time, they were not called “lento violento” yet. These tracks were influenced by the more techno and trance-oriented tracks like Mauro Picotto’s “Lizard”, “Iguana”, “Pulsar”, “Tuttincoro” or “Raggattak” by Joman (Joy Kitikonti), all from the Italian BXR label. While some individual tracks were popular in the clubs, the style itself was not established until DJ/producer Gigi D’Agostino started with a series of productions in 2003, like “Ripassa”. Indeed, he coined the name for this style, and he releases most of his lento violento songs on his own label Noise Maker, using aliases like Dottor Dag, Lento Violento Man, Uomo Suono, Orchestra Maldestra, or La Tana Del Suono, to distinguish these songs from his Italo dance work. Other artists started to create similar tracks after the success of this style. Also several compilation CDs are released with lento violento music, like the Movimentolento series.

Liquid drum and bass

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

In 1999, Fabio alongside Sarah Sandy began championing a new form of drum and bass they called “liquid funk”, with a compilation release of the same name on their Creative Source label. This was characterized by influences from ambient, funk, disco, house and trance music, and widespread use of vocals. Although slow to catch on at first, the style grew massively in popularity around 2003–2004, and by 2005 it was established as one of the biggest-selling subgenres in drum and bass, with labels like Good Looking Records (although this label is strongly cross-genred with atmospheric drum and bass), Hospital Records, Liquid V, Creative Source, Shogun Limited, Fokuz Recordings, and artists like Calibre, Netsky, LTJ Bukem, High Contrast, Logistics, London Elektricity, Nu:Tone, Shapeshifter, DJ Marky, Makoto, and Solid State among its main proponents. Liquid drum and bass is very similar to intelligent drum and bass and atmospheric drum and bass, but has subtle differences. Liquid drum and bass has stronger influences from soca, Latin, jazz, disco, breakbeat, and funk music, while intelligent D’n’B or atmospheric D’n’B creates a calmer yet more synthetic sound, using smooth synth lines, deep bass and samples in place of the organic element achieved by use of real instruments.

Live electronic music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early electronic instruments#

Early electronic instruments intended for live performance, such as Thaddeus Cahill’s Telharmonium (1897) and instruments developed between the two world wars, such as the Theremin (1919), Spharophon (1924), ondes Martenot (1928), and the Trautonium (1929), may be cited as antecedents, but were intended simply as new means of sound production, and did nothing to change the nature of musical composition or performance. Many early compositions included these electronic instruments, though the instruments were typically used as substitutes for standard classical instruments. An example includes composer Joseph Schillinger, who in 1929 composed First Airphonic Suite for Theremin and Orchestra, which premièred with the Cleveland Orchestra with Leon Theremin as soloist. Percy Grainger, used ensembles of four or six theremins (in preference to a string quartet) for his two earliest experimental Free Music compositions (1935–37) because of the instrument’s complete ‘gliding’ freedom of pitch.( The ondes Martenot was also used as a featured instrument in the 1930s, and composer Olivier Messiaen used it in the Fête des belles eaux for six ondes, written for the 1937 International World’s Fair in Paris. Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No. 1 (1939) was among the earliest compositions to include an innovative use of live electronic material; it featured two variable-speed phonograph turntables and sine-tone recordings. Cage’s interest in live electronics continued through the 1940s and 1950s, providing inspiration for the formation of a number of live-electronic groups in America who came to regard themselves as the pioneers of a new art form. The earliest use of live electronics together with acoustic instruments is in all likelihood Daphne Oram’s Still Point (1948), a work for turntable, double orchestra and five microphones. The work was unperformed until 2016.

Lo-fi music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Evolution of the term and its scope#

Lo-fi is the opposite of high fidelity, or “hi-fi”. and ran during a thirty-minute prime time evening slot every Friday. In the fall 1986 issue of the WFMU magazine LCD, the program was described as “home recordings produced on inexpensive equipment. Technical primitivism coupled with brilliance.” A third definition was added to the Oxford Dictionary in 2008: “unpolished, amateurish, or technologically unsophisticated, esp. as a deliberate aesthetic choice.” In 2017, About.coms Anthony Carew argued that the term “lo-fi” had been commonly misused as a synonym for “warm” or “punchy” when it should be reserved for music that “sounds like it’s recorded onto a broken answering-machine”.

Madchester

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pre-Madchester#

The music scene in Manchester immediately before the Madchester era was dominated by the Smiths, New Order, and the Fall, who became significant influences on the Madchester movement. The opening of The Haçienda nightclub in May 1982, an initiative by Factory Records, was also instrumental in shaping Manchester’s popular culture. During its early years, the club primarily featured club-oriented pop music and hosted gigs by artists such as New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, Culture Club, Thompson Twins, and the Smiths. DJs like Hewan Clarke and Greg Wilson contributed to the club’s prominence. By 1986, The Haçienda shifted its focus from being a live venue to a dance club. The Festival of the Tenth Summer in July 1986, organised by Factory Records, reinforced Manchester’s reputation as a hub for alternative pop culture. The festival featured film screenings, a music seminar, art exhibitions, and performances by the city’s leading bands, including an all-day concert at Manchester G-Mex with A Certain Ratio, the Smiths, New Order, and the Fall. According to Dave Haslam, the festival showcased how “the city had become synonymous with larger-than-life characters playing cutting-edge music. … Individuals were inspired and the city was energised; of its own accord, uncontrolled.” In addition to these venues and events, the warehouse parties organised by Steve Adge were crucial in the development of the scene. The Stone Roses’ warehouse parties, first held in 1985, were significant, with DJ Dave Booth supporting the Stone Roses’ live performances. These parties, including the notable “Warehouse 1, The Flower Show” event on 20 July 1985, played a vital role in establishing the band’s following and the burgeoning music scene in Manchester. Booth was an influential DJ in Manchester’s music landscape. He co-created the Playpen nights and the Blood Club and was a resident DJ at several key venues in Manchester’s alternative club network. He began his career at the Roxy Room in Pips and performed at other clubs like Devilles, Berlin, Cloud 9, and Legends, helping to create a network of venues that fostered the growth of Manchester’s alternative music scene. The city’s emerging bands, including the Stone Roses, frequented these clubs and drew inspiration from the diverse music played by DJs. The Haçienda transitioned from making a consistent loss to selling out by early 1987. During that year, it hosted performances by American house artists such as Frankie Knuckles and Adonis. Other clubs in the Manchester area began embracing house music, including Devilles, Isadora’s, Konspiracy, House, Soundgardens, and Man Alive in the city centre, as well as Bugsy’s in Ashton-under-Lyne and the Osbourne Club in Miles Platting. Another key factor in the rise of Madchester was the sudden availability of the drug MDMA in the city, starting in 1987 and increasing in the following year. According to Haslam, " MDMA use changed clubs forever; a night at the Haçienda went from being a great night out to an intense, life-changing experience". The British music scene was such that The Guardian later stated, “The ’80s looked destined to end in musical ignominy”. The Madchester movement flourished as its sound was fresh and innovative, quickly gaining popularity. Music by artists such as the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays began to chart highly in 1989, with New Order releasing the acid house-influenced Technique, which topped the UK Albums Chart.

Mákina

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early 1990s: Origins#

Dance music in Spain became prominent in 1988 with the rise of acid house. Mákina followed this trend and has its origins in the early 1990s in Valencia, Spain. Derived from another style called bakalao, the local name given to an association of electronic dance music played together with pop and rock tunes in Valencian clubs in the second half of the 1980s.

Mid-1990s: Breakthrough and success#

The genre gained prominence in 1991 when Spanish producer Chimo Bayo released his single, “Así me gusta a mí”. The song succeeded throughout Europe and the genre soon gained prominence. The genre became extremely popular throughout Spain from 1995 to 1997, as many mákina-oriented singles reached number one on the Spanish Singles Chart. Spanish mákina group EX-3 had two number-one singles, “Extres” and “Ex-P-Cial” in 1995 and 1996, respectively. Perhaps the most recognized mákina single in the United States is “Streamline” by Newton, which was popularized by a 2006 Pepsi television advertisement starring Jimmy Fallon. From the late 1990s to current times, the genre is the staple of the rave scene in North East England and Scotland. Following the closures of the most prominent venues – in particular The New Monkey nightclub – its popularity has slightly faded in those areas and has been partially replaced with scouse house. Despite this, it still retains a strong cultural legacy, regularly heard blasting from coaches when Newcastle United and Sunderland AFC play away matches.

Mallsoft

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Mallsoft originated in the early 2010s, with the release of Vacant Places by Hantasi in 2012 via self-released limited edition CD run of 100 copies. Initially, it was not characterized as a vaporwave release, but was tagged as mallsoft later in March 2013. Other artists, such as Cat System Corp, Disconscious, and 식료품groceries, would soon follow up with their releases of the mallsoft genre.

Characteristics#

Some artists simply slow down and reverberate 1980s pop songs to make them sound as if emanating from the overhead speakers in an empty or abandoned mall. YouTube videos frequently pair mallsoft tracks with images of malls, with an emphasis on those that appear to have been produced in the 1980s and 1990s. The visuals intend to invoke a sense of loneliness along with the cold nature of meandering through overly corporate mercantile environments.

Marabi

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

South African Music: Marabi

Mbaqanga

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In Zulu, the term mbaqanga means an everyday cornmeal porridge. Mbaqanga aficionados were mostly plebeian, metropolitan African jazz enthusiasts. Many of them were not permitted to establish themselves in the city, but they were unable to sustain themselves in the rural country. Mbaqanga gave them a staple form of musical and spiritual sustenance; it was their “musical daily bread.” Mbaqanga musicians received little money. For example, Simon “Mahlathini” Nkabinde, one of the most well-known mbaqanga singers (and arguably the most famous mbaqanga “groaner”, nicknamed the “lion of Soweto”), died a poor man. This was partly due to the exploitation of black South African musicians at home and abroad as Mahlathini pointed out. Mbaqanga groups of the 1960s also found it difficult to get air time on local radio stations, and had to perform outside record stores to attract audiences. Mbaqanga developed in the South African shebeens during the 1960s. Its use of western instruments allowed mbaqanga to develop into a South African version of jazz. Musically, the sound indicated a mix between western instrumentation and South African vocal style. Many mbaqanga scholars consider it to be the result of a coalition between marabi and kwela. A South African tourist website sponsored by the government describes mbaqanga as “the cyclic structure of marabi . . . with a heavy dollop of American big band swing thrown on top.” Mbaqanga also provided a very early forum for black and white interaction in a segregated country. As a result, the “white Nationalist government brought this vital era to an end” by razing the townships that supported mbaqanga such as Sophiatown. The genre gained popularity as a result of radio play by stations under the South African Broadcasting Corporation. Early artists included Miriam Makeba, Dolly Rathebe and Letta Mbulu. Mbaqanga maintained its popularity until the 1980s when it was replaced by South African pop music known as bubblegum. Bubblegum is a genre highly influenced by mbaqanga. One of the few remaining mbaqanga bands is The Cool Crooners. This band consists of a coalition between two rival bands that eventually merged: The Cool Four and The Golden Delicious Rhythm Crooners.

Microhouse

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Microhouse has its roots in the minimal techno, bitpop (both developed in the early 1990s), and house (developed in the early 1980s) genres of music. Its first echoes appeared in a glitch album by German experimental artist Oval, in 1993. Like many contemporary electronic genres, Microhouse has many influences, most notably techno and the “click and pop” garage house that has emerged from Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass (or “Bleep”), bitpop and minimal techno. Contrasting with tech house, which is often thought of as ‘house music with elements of techno in its arrangement and instrumentation’, microhouse is more aptly described as ‘housey minimal techno’ – a marriage of the funky and groovy backroom house elements with bitpop and the driving, repetitive sound of techno. Emphasis tended to fall on cushiony kick-drum thumps and the accompanying hi-hats, with faint textures provided by synthetic strings and dreamy keyboard tones. Full-fledged microhouse artists start appearing in the late-90’s to early-00’s such as German producer Jan Jelinek. His contributions are notable in the genre considering works like “textstar+” (as Farben) and “Loop-finding-jazz-records”. Both works have amassed cult status and widespread acclaim with its distinctive microhouse sound. Microhouse has continued on in the late 2010s-20’s with electronic artists like Jon Hopkins, The Field, Pantha du Prince, Rival Consoles, Matthew Herbert, Actress, Four Tet, Isolée, and many others. “Vocalcity” by Luomo is a hallmark album in microhouse and has been credited as one of the main works that helped popularize the genre. Throughout the late ‘90s and early 2000s, several small labels thriving on this approach cropped up. A fair percentage of the output from already-established labels like (Isolée, ), Kompakt (Sascha Funke, M. Mayer) and (Farben) made for some of microhouse’s most thrilling moments. Other labels — such as Force Tracks (Luomo, MRI), Perlon (Ricardo Villalobos, Pantytec) and Trapez (Akufen, M.I.A.) — were virtually all-microhouse in scope.

Minimal techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Minimal techno first emerged in the early 1990s. The development of the style is often attributed to a so-called “second wave” of American producers associated with Detroit techno. According to Derrick May, “while the first-wave artists were enjoying their early global success, techno also inspired many up-and-coming DJs and bedroom producers in Detroit”. This younger generation included producers such as Richie Hawtin, Daniel Bell, Robert Hood, Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, and Mike Banks. The work of several of these artists evolved to become focused on minimalism. Robert Hood describes the situation in the early 1990s as one where techno had become too “ravey”, with increasing tempos leading to the emergence of gabber. Such trends saw the demise of the soul-infused techno that typified the original Detroit sound. Robert Hood has noted that he and Daniel Bell both realized something was missing from techno in the post-rave era, and saw that an important feature of the original techno sound had been lost. Hood states that “it sounded great from a production standpoint, but there was a ‘jack’ element in the old structure. People would complain that there’s no funk, no feeling in techno anymore, and the easy escape is to put a vocalist and some piano on top to fill the emotional gap. I thought it was time for a return to the original underground.” Daniel Bell has commented that he had a dislike for minimalism in the artistic sense of the word, finding it too “arty”. By 1994, according to Sherburne, the term “minimal” was in use to describe “any stripped-down, Acidic derivative of classic Detroit style”. Los Angeles-based writer Daniel Chamberlin attributes the origin of minimal techno to the German producers Basic Channel. Chamberlin draws parallels between the productions by Richie Hawtin, Wolfgang Voigt, and Surgeon with phase music techniques used by American minimalist composer Steve Reich. Chamberlin also sees the use of sine tone drones by minimalist composer La Monte Young and the repetitive patterns of “In C” by minimalist composer Terry Riley as other influences. Sherburne has suggested that the noted similarities between minimal forms of dance music and American minimalism could easily be accidental. He also notes that much of the music technology used in electronic dance music was traditionally designed to suit loop-based compositional methods, which may explain why certain stylistic features of minimal techno sound similar to those in works by Reich that employ loops and pattern-phasing techniques.

Minimal wave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and etymology#

Veronica Vasicka, founder of the Minimal Wave record label, claims to have coined the genre name. She stated in a 2009 interview: For a 2009 publicity piece, Vasicka wrote that the music overlaps with several other genres, “The Minimal Wave genre actually formed only several years ago, as a result of a resurgence of interest in the roots of pre-MIDI electronic new wave (1978–1985), mainly from North America, Europe and Japan. This music is sometimes referred to as minimal electronic, minimal synth, coldwave, new wave, technopop, or synth-pop, depending on the particular style, year, and location of the band.”

Mixed music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Electroacoustic music originated in the late 1940s through early 1950s through the musique concrète movement spearheaded by Pierre Schaeffer and the Groupe de recherches musicales based in Paris, France and the development of sound synthesis at the Studio for Electronic Music of Cologne, Germany. The practice of using magnetic tape as a recording medium gave rise to the genre of tape music, wherein the musical composition is stored on and played from tape, without any live performance. Mixed music began as an integration between tape music and traditional performance, where human musicians perform simultaneously with an electronic part played on tape.

Moombahton

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Identifying characteristics of moombahton include a thick and spread-out bass line, dramatic builds, and a two-step pulse with quick drum fills. Occasionally moombahton includes rave music synthesizers and a cappella rap samples. Musically, moombahton mixes the rhythmic origins of Dutch house or house music, the slow tempo of reggaeton, usually between 100-110bpm, accompanied by bouncy percussions from reggaeton.

History#

Moombahton was created by Dave Nada in late 2009 while DJing his cousin’s high school cut party in Washington, D.C. He blended the house and club music which he had planned to play with the reggaeton and bachata the guests were previously listening to by slowing down Afrojack’s remix of Silvio Ecomo and Chuckie’s song “Moombah!” from 128 bpm to 108 bpm, to create the basis of the genre. Between late 2009 and early 2010, Nada worked on a five track extended play of moombahton that was released in March 2010, with the support of the DJ Ayres and the DJ Tittsworth at T&A Records.

Morna (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

As a music genre#

As a music genre, the morna is characterized by having a lento tempo, a 2-beat bar (sometimes 4) and in its most traditional form by having a harmonic structure based on a cycle of fifths, while the lyrics structure is organized by musical strophes that alternate with a refrain. The morna is almost always monotonic, i.e., it is composed in just one tonality. Compositions that use more than one tonality are rare and generally they are cases of passing from a minor to major tonality or vice versa.

Mozambique (music)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Cuban-style mozambique#

Mozambique (pron.: mo.sam.‘βi.ke) is a vigorous style of Cuban music and dance derived, like the conga, from music of Cuban street carnivals or comparsas. It was invented or developed by Pello el Afrokan (Pedro Izquierdo) in 1963.

Music#

Although the rhythm shares many characteristics with Sub-Saharan African music traditions, it does not have anything to do with music from the African nation of Mozambique. The Cuban mozambique features conga drums, bombos (bass drums), cowbells and trombones. See: “Mozambique Lesson in Cuba, 1985” (Pello el Afrokan), and “Mozambique Rhythm from Cuba” (Kim Atkinson). Izquierdo’s composition “María Caracoles” was later recorded by Santana on their 1977 album Festival. Izquierdo’s rhythm made its début in 1963 in Havana on the television programme Ritmos de Juventud, with the presenter surrounded by drummers so in tune with each other that they created a piano-like sound, while simultaneously performing the Mozambique dance.

Ndombolo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The dance choreography features hip gyrations that showcase the posterior as the dancer executes forward and backward movements. According to Paris-based writer Milau K. Lutumba, this stylized dance mimics the gait, dance, or movements of gorillas and chimpanzees during courtship rituals. This metaphorical construct emerged as a collective expression of the Congolese populace’s hope for an end to the regime of president Mobutu Sese Seko. By late 1996, Mobutu, gravely ill and largely absent from Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), faced a mounting rebellion led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila, which began with cross-border attacks from Rwanda on Hutu refugee camps in eastern Zaire and quickly escalated into a broader military campaign by the Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo. Despite Mobutu’s efforts to reassert control, including appointing General Likulia Bolongo as prime minister and entrusting General Donatien Mahele Lieko Bokungu with national security, the regime ultimately crumbled, and by May 1997, Mobutu had fled into exile as Kabila’s forces captured Kinshasa with minimal resistance. During this tumultuous period, musicians and street youth known as shegue played a crucial role in documenting and interpreting political events through atalaku. Among the most resonant terms to emerge from this context was ndombolo, with the atalaku serving as oral chroniclers of daily life and wartime experience, their chants, or cris, often carrying layered meanings. One notable chant from the period, Tala soldat aza kopepula la guerre (“look at this soldier, he is blowing the war”), used a metaphorical phrase to describe soldiers who fled battle, capturing the widespread disillusionment within Mobutu’s forces, many of whom deserted or sold their ammunition to Kabila’s troops. The term ndombolo became a mocking descriptor of these soldiers’ disorganized and unsteady retreat, likening their erratic gait to a clumsy dance of defeat. This derisive association contrasted with ndombolo’s later reappropriation as a symbol of cultural expression, and this image was also reinforced by performances featuring exaggerated movements mimicking limping or stumbling. Ndombolo’s etymology also draws on visual caricature and collective memory, as Kabila was satirically described as a dwarf with broken legs and a peculiar gait, echoed in the mocking lyrics “Makolo pete-pete, makolo buka-buka/Na démarche ya ndombolo” (“with weak and broken legs/with a walk like a dwarf man. Ndombolo”.) Popularized by Zaïko Langa Langa, these lyrics paired the term ndombolo with imagery of physical awkwardness and ridicule that targeted Kabila’s small stature and perceived ungainliness, which was a visual association that was not accidental but instead drew on cultural memories of pygmy performers and dancers who had historically been marginalized and exoticized in Congolese society. Pépé Kallé’s 1980s band Empire Bakuba had previously incorporated dwarf dancers such as Emoro Penga, whose emblematic, exaggerated, often misunderstood comic movements contributed to the popular conflation of pygmies with ndombolo-style dancing. As such, the term ndombolo came to embody a symbolic amalgam of comedic bodily expression, guerrilla cunning, and social commentary, whose metaphorical resonance extends to African folktales in which monkeys, known for their agility and mischievousness, are seen as symbols of wit and subversion, a symbolic framework within which Kabila, having waged a guerrilla war and emerged victorious against Mobutu, was likened to such a figure.

New beat

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

New beat originated in Belgium in 1987, and was popular in several music clubs across Western Europe. Sometimes described as “new wave disco beat” the genre has been characterized as a blend of new wave, hi-NRG, ), and acid house. In addition to A Split-Second, new beat was also heavily influenced by other EBM acts such as Front 242, Signal Aout 42 and the Neon Judgement, as well as new wave acts such as Fad Gadget, Gary Numan, New Order, Boytronic New beat artists and bands include Lords of Acid and Technotronic, while Belgian hardcore techno bands that emerged from the hard beat and skizzo subgenres include T99, Praga Khan, Cubic 22, and the Immortals.

New Jersey sound

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The New Jersey sound originated in the 1980s. Places like Club Zanzibar in Newark, New Jersey, where DJ Tony Humphries began his residency in 1982, helped “spawn the sometimes raw but always soulful, gospel-infused subgenre” of deep house music known as the Jersey sound. Besides the term “New Jersey house”, there are alternative names for the genre: “In the UK, for fairly unfathomable reasons, it became known as garage music (named after the Paradise Garage in New York), while in NJ itself they simply called it club (or perhaps more pertinently, the Jersey sound,” Mix Mag reported in July 2020. Newark female singers remixed by house music DJ Larry Levan included Gwen Guthrie (“Ain’t Nothin’ Goin On But The Rent”) and Taana Gardner (“Heartbeat”). In 1992, Union County’s Aly-Us released its deep-house hit “Follow Me.” Abigail Adams’s house-music record label and store Movin’ Records in Newark’s neighbor East Orange was another contributor to the Jersey Sound. The Jersey club scene also gave rise to the ball culture scene in Newark hotels and nightclubs. “Queen of House” Crystal Waters and other house luminaries performed on the Newark scene. DJ Kerri Chandler, another Zanzibar DJ, was another pioneer of the “Jersey sound” variety of house music. Jersey artists like Jomanda, with the crossover hit “Got a Love for You,” found success in the early 1990s house-music scene. Some have said that “when New York went to hip hop during this period , Jersey stayed with the club. Because of Zanzibar.”

New rave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term was coined by Klaxons founder Jamie Reynolds, who later declared they were not new rave, describing it as a “joke that’s got out of hand”, stating that: The genre is a play on the term “new wave” as well as being a “new” version of rave music. During the late 2000s, music blogs and press such as NME and The Guardian further popularized the term. Though several artists associated with the scene rejected the label.

New wave music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, new wave music encompassed a wide variety of pop-oriented styles that shared a quirky, lighthearted, and humorous tone. as a catch-all for the various styles of music that emerged after punk rock. The phrase also alluded to the French New Wave, a 1960s film movement known for its experimental approach and departure from traditional forms. Common characteristics of new wave music include a humorous or quirky pop approach, the use of electronic sounds, and a distinctive visual style in music videos and fashion. According to Simon Reynolds, new wave music had a twitchy, agitated feel. New wave musicians often played choppy rhythm guitars with angular riffs and fast tempos; keyboards, and stop-start song structures and melodies are common, with the use of jerky rhythms, and synthesizers. Reynolds noted new-wave vocalists sound high-pitched, geeky, and suburban. This rise in technology made the visual style of new wave musicians important for their success. In the early 1980s, virtually every new pop and rock act, particularly those that employed synthesizers, was tagged as “new wave” by the U.S. general public. New wave may be seen as an attempt to reconcile “the energy and rebellious attitude of punk” with traditional forms of pop songwriting, as seen in the rockabilly riffs and classic craftsmanship of Elvis Costello and the 1960s mod influences of the Jam. Paul Weller, who called new wave “the pop music of the Seventies”, explained to Chas de Whalley in 1977: Although new wave shares punk’s do-it-yourself artistic philosophy, the musicians were more influenced by the light strains of 1960s pop while opposed to mainstream “corporate” rock, which they considered creatively stagnant, as well as the generally abrasive and political bents of punk rock. who in particular used new wave influences to lay the groundwork for the Minneapolis sound.

Ngoma music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Before colonization, ngoma was the dominant form of culture throughout the Great Lakes. During colonization, ngoma was outlawed as colonial administrations viewed it as unchristian and holding back the civilization process. Tanzanians created a new form of ngoma called mganda in the hope that it would appeal to the colonial administrators. Mganda ngoma adopted the costumes of western military uniforms and dress. It also adopted some of the military instruments. This would eventually become a form of big band music. Eventually, the first clubs opened in Dar es Salaam and Tanga for these mganda ngoma bands to perform. Their music began to be played on the radio and recorded in studios. Mganda ngoma music exploded in popularity and has become known as dansi (dance jazz) today. After independence, the government of Tanzania (TANU) placed a very strong emphasis on returning to traditional ngoma. While this was somewhat successful, TANU was never able to fully achieve the goals set out by Nyerere’s inaugural address. Even TANU still used dansi and kwaya as primary tools for education, national and political purposes. One dance may include aspects of as great a variety of tribal and geographic ranges as possible to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, particularly elders, while also using many inspirations from other genres such as dansi or bongo flava to appeal to the youths. Additionally ngoma has modernized its use of instruments. Many traditional instruments are no longer available or possible to make. Today modern manufactured instruments and gear, such as guitars, keyboards, microphones, and amplifiers are usually used.

Nightcore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

2000s#

The term “nightcore” was first used in 2001 as the name for a school project by Norwegian DJ duo Thomas S. Nilsen and Steffen Ojala Søderholm, known by their stage names DJ TNT and DJ SOS respectively. The duo set a template of a track in the style: a 25–30% speed-up (commonly to around 160 to 180 beats per minute) of a trance or Eurodance song. Nightcore made five albums of sped-up versions of trance recordings, including its 2002 thirteen-track debut album Energized and the group’s later albums Summer Edition 2002, L’hiver, Sensación and Caliente. The group’s first album was made with eJay, while all of its later work was made with what the duo described as “top-secret” programs. Nightcore’s works started appearing on services such as LimeWire in mid-2003 and YouTube in 2006. The first nightcore track to appear on the latter site was “Dam Dadi Doo” by the duo. Only two of the project’s albums have surfaced on the Internet. One of the first people to distribute nightcore music on YouTube was a user going by the name Maikel631, beginning in 2008. The user uploaded about 30 original tracks by Nightcore on the Web site. In 2009, they found a “new” nightcore track, as well as the technique to make material in the style:

Noise in music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definition of noise#

In conventional musical practices sounds that are considered unmusical tend to be treated as noise. Oscillations and Waves defines noise as irregular vibrations of an object, in contrast to the periodical, patterned structure of music. More broadly, electrical engineering professor Bart Kosko in the introductory chapter of his book Noise defines noise as a “signal we don’t like.” Paul Hegarty, a lecturer and noise musician, likewise assigns a subjective value to noise, writing that “noise is a judgment, a social one, based on unacceptability, the breaking of norms and a fear of violence.” Composer and music educator R. Murray Schafer divided noise into four categories: Unwanted noise, unmusical sound, any loud system, and a disturbance in any signaling system. In regard to what is noise as opposed to music, Robert Fink in The Origin of Music: A Theory of the Universal Development of Music claims that while cultural theories view the difference between noise and music as purely the result of social forces, habit, and custom, “everywhere in history we see man making some selections of some sounds as noise, certain other sounds as music, and in the overall development of all cultures, this distinction is made around the same sounds.” However, musicologist Jean-Jacques Nattiez considers the difference between noise and music nebulous, explaining that “The border between music and noise is always culturally defined—which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place; in short, there is rarely a consensus … By all accounts there is no single and intercultural universal concept defining what music might be.”

Nortec

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Nortec originated in 1999 when Pepe Mogt started by experimenting with samples of old banda sinaloense and norteño albums and altering them on his computer or filtering them with analog synthesizers. He had picked up on the idea by listening to the percussive and angular grooves of the tambora and norteña music played at a family social event. Through some contacts in recording studios located in Tijuana’s notorious Zona Norte red light district, Pepe compiled tracks of isolated instruments from multitrack recording of tambora and norteño demo recordings that had been abandoned at the studios by the bands that recorded them. He began to burn these tracks onto CD-Rs, which he would later distribute to friends under the condition that they make a new track using the material. Those first raw tracks were compiled onto the “Nor-tec Sampler”, the first release from Mil Records followed by the release “The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 1” and then “The Tijuana Sessions Vol. 3”.

Nu jazz

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Nu jazz began with the use of electronic instruments in the 1970s, with contributions from artists like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, and Ornette Coleman. Herbie Hancock’s work in the early 1980s, particularly his collaboration with Bill Laswell on the album Future Shock, played a pivotal role in defining the genre by incorporating electro and hip-hop rhythms. By the late 1980s, many hip-hop musicians were exploring jazz-rap, including groups like Gang Starr, The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, and Nas. Concurrently, in the 1980s, numerous house musicians drew inspiration from jazz, especially post-bop and jazz-funk. In the mid-1990s and early 2000s, downtempo artists such as Jazztronik, St Germain, Trüby Trio, DJ Takemura, Perry Hemus, and Jazzanova delved deeper into jazz. During the same period, producers of intelligent dance music, including notable names like Squarepusher and Spring Heel Jack, and later London Elektricity and Landslide, also showed interest in nu jazz. Techno musicians like Carl Craig and his Innerzone Orchestra project demonstrated interest in the genre. Figures from hardcore and breakcore scenes, such as Alec Empire, Nic Endo, and Venetian Snares, experimented with a harsher and more noisy variant of nu jazz. A decade later, some dubstep producers, like Boxcutter, also explored electronic jazz. While maintaining traditional jazz forms, pianist Bugge Wesseltoft and trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær are known for their improvisations in the nu jazz style. The Cinematic Orchestra is recognized for incorporating traditional jazz elements into their musical productions alongside electronic elements. St Germain, a prominent figure in nu jazz, even sold 1.5 million copies of his album “Tourist.”

Nu skool breaks

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The term “nu skool breaks” is widely attributed to Rennie Pilgrem and Adam Freeland, who used it to describe the sound at their nightclub Friction, which was launched at Bar Rumba in 1996, with promoter Ian Williams. The tracks “Renegades” by Uptown Connection and “Double Impact” by Boundarie Hunters are considered to be the earliest produced to formally adopt the genre. In 1998, the term “Nu Skool Breaks” was used on two compilations, Nu Skool Breakz, Volume 1 and 2, mixed by Rennie Pilgrem and released through UK-based Kickin Records. The first volume of these was recorded live at the aforementioned London club night Friction. Labels that featured early Nu Skool Breaks releases included Botchit & Scarper, Fuel Records (UK), Hard Hands, Marine Parade Records, TCR, and Ultimatum Breaks.

Nu-disco

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Disco edits: 1970s–early 1990s#

Disco edits or re-edits emerged at the same time as disco appeared in the early 1970s, when DJs were looking for ways to make music easier to mix. A disco edit is a modified version of the original master, edited by disco and house DJs to extend and emphasize the best and most dance-friendly elements. For example, Todd Terje’s edit of the Bee Gees hit “You Should Be Dancing” does exactly that, downplaying the old-school vocal riffs in favour of driving bass, lively percussion, and an overall sense of space. In the early days, edits were done with scissors and tape. Some edits became even more popular than the original records from which they were derived. The early editors (such as Walter Gibbons) earned a reputation and developed a studio career from their editing work. Given the popularity of edits, labels predominantly releasing edits and remixes began to appear. The first one to arrive was Disconet in 1977, followed by well-known DJ edits services and labels such as Hot Tracks, Rhythm Stick and Razormaid.

Organic house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Genre naming#

The term was first officially introduced by electronic music specialist Beatport in June 2020, although music possessing organic house characteristics had already been present since around 2017, including at well-known festivals such as Burning Man, Lightning in a Bottle, and Desert Hearts. Beatport’s operators introduced the new category as a new genre to catalog house music having common elements, which previously went into segments less specific to it.

Outsider house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lo-fi house#

Around the mid-2010s, outsider house developed into a new form, known as lo-fi house. Producers like DJ Seinfeld, DJ Boring and Ross From Friends combined rough sounds of the parent genre with the aesthetic of melancholy, irony and postmodernism attributed to vaporwave, creating songs “resembling melancholic 1990s deep house recorded to cassette and packaged with a veneer of internet-age irony”. but also use jazzy piano samples and warm percussion samples.

Partyschlager

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The term party music had already been used for popular music earlier, for example by a label called Party-Musik founded by Electrola in 1966. Tony Marshall is considered one of the first representatives of party mood music in the 1970s, and the group Die 3 Besoffskis was considered a forerunner of Ballermann music. Their biggest hit, “Puff von Barcelona” (1975), was covered by Mickie Krause in 1999. The style became known with pieces such as “König von Mallorca” (1999) by Jürgen Drews and “10 Nackte Friseusen” (1999) by Mickie Krause. Since the 1990s, schlager songs have also been released as party remixes, such as “Wahnsinn” (1983) by Wolfgang Petry and Die Lollies (1998), “Marmor, Stein und Eisen bricht” by Drafi Deutscher (1965), or “Ein Stern (…der deinen Namen trägt)” by Nik P. (1998) and DJ Ötzi (2007). The song “Layla” by DJ Robin and Schürze became the official summer hit of 2022 and sparked a sexism debate. The song also brought the style of pop music to attention outside of the party scene. In 2023, several partyschlager songs made it into the charts.

Phonk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

The term “phonk” was originally coined and popularized by American rapper SpaceGhostPurrp, who released tracks such as “Pheel tha Phonk”, “Bringin’ tha Phonk”, and “Keep Bringin’ tha Phonk” and his 2012 debut album Mysterious Phonk: Chronicles of SpaceGhostPurrp. In an interview, he explained that “phonk is slang for funk”, in reference to the G-funk music genre. Phonk is directly inspired by 1990s Memphis rap and samples from that era of hip hop. These are often combined with jazz and funk samples. Notable artists associated with “new-age phonk” include DJ Smokey, DJ Yung Vamp, Soudiere, and Mythic.

Plunderphonics

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Early examples#

Although the term plunderphonics tends to be applied only to music made since Oswald coined it in the 1980s, there are several examples of earlier music made along similar lines. Notably, Dickie Goodman and Bill Buchanan’s 1956 single “The Flying Saucer”, features Goodman as a radio reporter covering an alien invasion interspersed with samples from various contemporary records. According to Chris Cutler, “It wasn’t until 1961 that an unequivocal exposition of plunderphonic techniques arrived in James Tenney’s celebrated Collage No. 1 (‘Blue Suede’), a manipulation of Elvis Presley’s hit record ‘Blue Suede Shoes’. The gauntlet was down; Tenney had picked up a ’non art’, lowbrow work and turned it into ‘art’; not as with scored music by writing variations on a popular air, but simply by subjecting a gramophone record to various physical and electrical procedures.” According to Oswald, “the difference with ‘Blue Suede’ is how it audaciously used a very recognizable existing recording of another musical work. This blatant appropriation pioneered the discovery, for myself and many others, of an ocean of sampling and plunderphonics in following decades.” The Residents’ “Beyond The Valley Of A Day In The Life” consists of excerpts from Beatles records. Various club DJs in the 1970s re-edited the recordings they played, and although this often consisted of nothing more than extending the record by adding a chorus or two, this too could be considered a form of plunderphonics. Some classical composers have performed a kind of plunderphonia on written, rather than recorded, music. The composer Lukas Foss composed his Baroque Variations in 1967, whose three movements involved the performance of a Baroque work which provided the framework (sometimes inaudibly) for a fresh composition. Perhaps the best-known example is the third movement of Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia, in which multiple quotations from the music of other composers are superimposed on a complete performance of the second movement from Mahler’s second symphony. Alfred Schnittke and Mauricio Kagel have also made extensive use of earlier composers’ works. Earlier composers who often plundered the music of others include Charles Ives (who often quoted folk songs and hymns in his works) and Ferruccio Busoni (a movement from his 1909 piano suite An die Jugend includes a prelude and a fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach played simultaneously). During the ’90s Oswald composed many such scores for classical musicians which he classified with the term Rascali Klepitoire. In France, Jean-Jacques Birgé has been working on “radiophonies” since 1974 (for his film “La Nuit du Phoque”), capturing radio and editing the samples in real-time with the pause button of a radio-cassette. His group Un Drame Musical Instantané recorded “Crimes parfaits” on LP “A travail égal salaire égal” in 1981, explaining the whole process in the piece itself and calling it “social soundscape”. He applied the same technique to TV in 1986 on the “Qui vive?” CD and published on the 1998 CD “Machiavel” with Antoine Schmitt, an interactive video scratch using 111 very small loops from his own past LPs.

Popcorn (Romanian music style)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In Romania, dance music started growing in popularity in the underground scene after the fall of the Ceaușescu communist regime in 1989. Since then, the Mamaia resort had established itself as a venue for international DJs. Romania’s entry into the European Union in 2007 facilitated contact with international music for local musicians and songwriters. It is featured on their 2010 studio album Popcorn, after which the genre is named. Production trio Play & Win were also involved in the genre’s development and worked on material for Akcent and Inna, among others. The genre eventually became mainstream internationally, with “Stereo Love” by Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina, and “Mr. Saxobeat” by Alexandra Stan notably developing into worldwide hit singles. The popularity of popcorn music declined after the early 2010s. Other notable artists include Tom Boxer, Antonia, Andreea Bănică, Deepside Deejays, Nick Kamarera, DJ Rynno, Sylvia, DJ Sava and Raluka.

Post-dubstep

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

The tempo of music typically characterised as post-dubstep is approximately 130 beats per minute. The drum patterns in post-dubstep take a more minimalistic and experimental approach, featuring eclectic, broken drum patterns derived from but not fitting dubstep, focusing on adding atmosphere and texture rather than driving energy.

History#

The production duo Mount Kimbie is often associated with the origination of the term post-dubstep, and James Blake as its “poster boy”. with the scene being largely absorbed later in the 2010s by genres such as UK bass, alternative R&B, and other developments in dubstep.

Post-noise

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

In August 2009, writer David Keenan coined the term “hypnagogic pop” in the article Childhood’s End in issue 306 of the British music magazine The Wire. Keenan also noted the commonalities between hypnagogic pop and noise music, stating that “Like Noise before it, Hypnagogic pop fetishises the outmoded media of its infancy, releasing albums on cassette, celebrating the video era and obsessing over the reality-scrambling potential of photocopied art.” In 2009, musician Daniel Lopatin described post-noise as a move away from “macho” noise music. Hypnagogic pop has been cited as growing out of post-noise music. On September 28, 2009, writer Emilie Friedlander would post an article on hypnagogic pop stating, “I commend Keenan a hundred times over for putting into words something that was on the tip of many a critical tongue over the past year but that no one had the guts articulate as something so sweeping as a cultural movement: the rise of a lo-fi post-noise psychedelia that moves past noise’s rejection of consonance and sort of unconscious adherence to the 20th century high modernist ideal of autonomous art (art that engages in discourse with contemporary culture precisely by refusing such a discourse, though noise typically refuses a discourse with academic constructs of this kind as well)”. In Boring Formless Nonsense: Experimental Music and the Aesthetics of Failure (2013), author Eldritch Priest describes “lo-fi post-noise psychedelia” as “often drone-heavy and noise-inclined, this music is characterized by a logic of deformation that aims to disfigure without obliterating samples, timbres, and impressions noticeably culled from a musical past that never was.” Priest refers to what writer David Keenan labelled “wasteland 1980s cultural signifiers” to describe how “Indulgence in these warped signifiers is what gives the music its spectral identity.” Additionally, Priest stated that the style blends “outmoded media’s high noise to signal ratio with an affected anti-virtuosity”, and elaborated “Rather than sampling 1980s pop culture with contemporary technology, one can hear composers recycling the tropes of experimental art music from the 1950s and 1970s, tropes that Michael Nyman compiled and categorized as ‘indeterminacy,’ ‘process,’ ’ephemerality,’ and the ’non-identity’ of a work. But we can also hear the debt to conceptual art and free jazz that helped evolve experimental music in the 1970s into sound art, something that Hauntology and Hypnagogic Pop don’t exhibit owing to the rock and dance background of their practitioners.” In Sounds of the Underground: A Cultural, Political and Aesthetic Mapping of Underground and Fringe Music (2016), author Stephen Graham defines post-noise as a wide subgenre of noise music which breaks apart noise music’s orthodoxies, “inserting newer influences and references from popular culture alongside dyschronic affects … and subliminal modalities.” It can even add “some commercial appeal.” alongside German progressive electronic and kosmische musik artists such as Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Vangelis and Edgar Froese. In 2010, The Guardian published an article by music critic Simon Reynolds where he stated “post-noise microscenes like glo-fi” were maintaining “the tape trade tradition, releasing music in small-run editions as low as 30 copies and wrapping them in surreal photocopy-collage artwork”.

Progressive house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

In the context of popular music the word “progressive” was first used widely in the 1970s to differentiate experimental forms of rock music from mainstream styles. Such music attempted to explore alternate approaches to rock music production. Some acts also attempted to elevate the aesthetic values of rock music by incorporating features associated with classical instrumental music. This led to a style of music called progressive rock, which has been described as “the most self-consciously arty branch of rock.” According to DJ and producer Carl Craig, the term “progressive” was used in Detroit in the early 1980s in reference to Italo disco. The music was dubbed “progressive” because it drew upon the influence of Giorgio Moroder’s Euro disco rather than the disco inspired by the symphonic sound of Philadelphia soul. In the late 1980s, UK music journalist Simon Reynolds introduced the term “progressive dance” to describe acts such as 808 State, The Orb, Bomb the Bass and The Shamen. Between 1990 and 1992, the term “progressive” referred to the short-form buzz word for the house music subgenre “progressive house”.

Psychedelic trance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The first hippies who arrived in Goa, India (a former Portuguese colony) in the mid-1960s were drawn there for many reasons, including the beaches, the low cost of living, the friendly locals, the Indian religious and spiritual practices and the readily available Indian cannabis, which, until the mid-1970s, was legal. During the 1970s, the first Goa DJs were generally playing psychedelic rock bands such as the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd and The Doors. In 1979, the beginnings of electronic dance music could occasionally be heard in Goa in the form of tracks by artists such as Kraftwerk, but it was not until 1983 that DJs Laurent and Fred Disko, closely followed by Goa Gil, began switching the Goa style over to electro-industrial/EBM which was now flooding out of Europe from artists such as Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb as well as Eurobeat. The tracks were remixed, removing the lyrics, looping the melodies and beats and generally manipulating the sounds in all manner of ways before the tracks were finally presented to the dancers as custom Goa-style mixes. By 1990–91, Goa was beginning to attract attention and had become a popular destination for partying. As the scene grew bigger, Goa-style parties spread like a diaspora all over the world from 1993. Parties like Pangaea and Megatripolis in the UK helped spawn a multitude of labels in various countries (U.K., Australia, Japan, Germany and Israel) to promote psychedelic electronic music that reflected the ethos of Goa parties, Goa music, and Goa-specific artists, producers, and DJs. Goa trance as a commercial scene began gaining global traction in 1994. The golden age of the first wave of Goa psy trance as a generally agreed upon genre was between 1994 and 1997.

Psydub

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The pioneers of the genre were mostly interested in the combination between ambient music and dub. The Orb can be seen as one of the first producers to combine the two genres. Several tracks on their first album “The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld”, released in 1991, already sound a lot like contemporary Psydub. Psydub developed further by the influence of Psytrance. Psytrance producers have always had a keen interest in all kinds of music and a few of them have produced tracks that have big Dub influences. produced in 1994 and released on triple vinyl in 1998 by Bustin’ Loose Recordings, who were two of the first acts to produce psybient music.

Punto music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Choreography#

Traditionally, one male and one female participant perform the dance. The dance begins with the male kneeling with his left knee on the floor. Once the music begins to play, he takes the hands of the female dancer, who circles around him to the beat of the music. The male and female back away from each other, often emoting longing and passion. The male then initiates the dance with the following steps, repeating in order two or three times: # El Paseo () – The male and the female walk around in a wide circle. # El Zapateo – Face to face, the dancers show off their skill and dexterity during a change of music. # El Escobillao – The couple separate widely, often with a short backward-running movement. # El Seguidilla – The couple move closer and rotate with finesse in the center of the circle until a musical change indicates a return to the paseo.

Rabòday

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

First mentioned with Pouchon Duverger, the lead singer of Djakout in late 2000s. When Djakout music is performed in live events. Djakout music always plays short Raboday rhythm, with the help T Pouch, the keyboardist and T Reggie, the guitarist together they help created the sound of the Raboday. Pouchon Duverger always say ‘Men Raboday la’ each times you hear the keyboard or the guitar sound play. Pouchon Duverger is the creator of Raboday.

Rage (music genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

The term “rage” in reference to the microgenre comes from “Miss the Rage”, a genre-pioneering track made in 2021 by Trippie Redd and Playboi Carti whose title references mosh pits during rap concerts that Trippie Redd longed for during COVID-19 lockdowns. During the 2010s, multiple artists and critics used the word “rage” in the context of hip-hop, mostly either referring to overdriven energetic sound or the moshing that would ensue at rap shows, examples being Lil Uzi Vert’s Luv Is Rage (2015) and Luv Is Rage 2 (2017) releases.

Raptor house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Documentary video of Raptor house (in Spanish)
Raptor house dancers
Raptor house dancer
Raptor house girls

Rara tech

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Riddim (genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins and evolution#

The term “riddim” is the Jamaican Patois pronunciation of the English word “rhythm”. The derived genre originally stemmed from dub, reggae, and dancehall. Although the term was widely used by MCs since the early days of dancehall and garage music, it was later adopted by American dubstep producers and fans to describe what was originally referred to as “wonky dubstep”. As a subgenre, riddim started to gain mainstream presence in the electronic music scene around 2015. As all riddim works of music are dubstep, their histories and notable artists can be considered closely intertwined. Riddim can be traced back to several dubstep artists, including Jakes and Rusko. Although not considered a riddim artist, Rusko originally produced dubstep that featured riddim-esque bassline patterns. Jakes is credited by many as being the first riddim artist, and served as direct inspiration for the following wave of producers. From that wave, artists like Subfiltronik are credited for establishing what riddim is known as today. Various other artists have been credited for having contributed to the rise of the subgenre, including Bukez Finezt, Coffi, Deemed, Blankface, Drippy, The Monsters, Coki from Digital Mystikz, and Kromestar.

Rumba

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In Cuba#

During the second half of the 19th century, several secular dance-oriented music styles were developed by Afro-Cuban workers in the poor neighbourhoods of Havana and Matanzas. These syncretic styles would later be referred to as “rumba”, a word that also meant “party”. Traditionally, the three main styles of rumba are yambú, columbia and guaguancó, each of which has a characteristic dance, rhythm and singing. Although still a purely folkloric genre, numerous innovations have been introduced in rumba since the mid 20th century, including new styles such as batá-rumba and guarapachangueo.

Russ music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Some notable artists#

;Russ music producers *Tix / The Pøssy Project *Soppgirobygget *El Papi *Dj Smellhodet *DJ Loppetiss *BEK & Wallin *Roc Boyz *BEK & Moberg *Kudos *Golfklubb *KANSELLERT *Truse Tarzan *Smörebua *Fjelltopp *Lurifaks *Spasme *Mackarinø *Hugge *Olav Haust *Solguden & Mannen *Sandmans *Ringnes-Ronny *Kuselofte *Öresus *Heux *B3nte *LIL FAT *Prells *J-Dawg *Lille Saus *Kobojsarna *FERDY / Sleiken ;Recurring producers *Skrillex *ItaloBrothers *Technikore ;Former producers *Mikkel Christiansen / Simen A *Kygo *DJ Walkzz *Ketz *K-391 *Tungevaag / Tungevaag & Raaban *Stian K *Russetunes *Lensko

Salsa music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins of the term Salsa#

The word Salsa means sauce in the Spanish language. The origin of the connection of this word to a style of music is disputed by various music writers and historians. The musicologist Max Salazar traced the origin of the connection to 1930 when Ignacio Piñeiro composed the song Échale salsita (Put some sauce in it). The phrase is seen as a cry from Piñeiro to his band, telling them to increase the tempo to “put the dancers into high gear”. In the mid-1940s, Cuban Cheo Marquetti emigrated to Mexico. He named his group Conjunto Los Salseros, with whom he recorded a couple of albums for the Panart and Egrem labels. Later on, while based in Mexico City, the musician Beny Moré would shout salsa during a performance to acknowledge a musical moment’s heat, making a connection with the hot salsa (sauce) made in the country. Puerto Rican music promoter Izzy Sanabria claims he was the first to use the word salsa to denote a music genre: In 1973, I hosted the television show Salsa which was the first reference to this particular music as salsa. I was using the term salsa, but the music wasn’t defined by that. The music was still defined as Latin music. And that was a very, very broad category, because it even includes mariachi music. It includes everything. So salsa defined this particular type of music … It’s a name that everyone could pronounce. Sanabria’s Latin New York magazine was an English language publication. Consequently, his promoted events were covered in The New York Times, as well as Time and Newsweek magazines. Sanabria confessed the term salsa was not developed by musicians: “Musicians were busy creating the music but played no role in promoting the name salsa.” For this reason the use of the term salsa has been controversial among musicians. Some have praised its unification element. Celia Cruz said, “Salsa is Cuban music with another name. It’s mambo, chachachá, rumba, son … all the Cuban rhythms under one name.” Willie Colón described salsa not as a precise musical style but a power to unite in the broadest terms: “Salsa was the force that united diverse Latino and other non-Latino racial and ethnic groups …Salsa is the harmonic sum of all Latin culture “. On the other hand, even some New York based artists were originally against the commercialization of music under that name. Machito said: “There’s nothing new about salsa, it is just the same old music that was played in Cuba for over fifty years.” Cuban musicologist Mayra Martínez wrote that “the term salsa obscured the Cuban base, the music’s history or part of its history in Cuba. And salsa was a way to do this so that Jerry Masucci, Fania and other record companies, like CBS, could have a hegemony on the music and keep the Cuban musicians from spreading their music abroad.” Johnny Pacheco, co-founder of Fania Records, gave his definition of the term “Salsa” during various interviews: “La salsa es, y siempre ha sido, la musica cubana” (“Salsa is, and always has been, Cuban music”). The marketing potential from the name was so big, that eventually both Machito, Puente, and even musicians in Cuba embraced the term as a financial necessity.

Sampledelia

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Sampledelia describes a variety of styles which involve the use of samplers to manipulate and play back appropriated sounds, often drawn from outside familiar contexts or from foreign sources. According to critic Simon Reynolds, sampledelic music expands upon the recording methods of 1960s psychedelia, which saw artists abandon “naturalistic” recording practices in favor of using studio-based techniques and effects to create sounds that could not be achieved through live performance. Reynolds identifies two contrasting tendencies amongst sampledelic artists: postmodernist versus modernist, with the former viewing sampling as a form of collage and pop art referentiality, and the latter approaching it as an update of musique concrète’s techniques of sonic manipulation and transformation. Theorist Kodwo Eshun has described sampledelia as a kind of mythology in which “sounds have detached themselves from sources and substitute themselves for the world,” inducing an experience of “synthetic defamiliarisation.”

Seapunk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Forerunners#

Precursors to the seapunk aesthetic are evident in the post-apocalyptic Kevin Costner film Waterworld, the background graphics in the Sega Genesis game Ecco the Dolphin, the 2007 video game Aquaria, the surfer gangs in Point Break with their shell jewelry, and the iridescent green and blue dresses worn by the mute mermaid Marina in Stingray.

Origins#

Originally, seapunk started as a trend and an Internet meme on Tumblr in 2011. The term “seapunk” was coined by DJ Lil Internet in 2011, in a humorous tweet: “Seapunk leather jacket with barnacles where the studs used to be.” In December 2011, Cluster Mag reported on the emergence of seapunk in electronic media and quoted Pictureplane, who described seapunk as “a mostly Internet-based phenomenon birthed out of the Tumblr and Twitter universes as a means to describe a lifestyle aesthetic that is all things oceanic and of the sea.” Musician Ultrademon is also credited with originating the short-lived movement. She released an album titled Seapunk in 2012. Images featuring neon flashing colors and rotating geometric shapes floating above oceans of brilliant blue or green water are found on the pages tagged with a #Seapunk hashtag on Tumblr. Seapunk digital imagery draws largely from 1990s 3D net art. The aforementioned imagery has given rise to other internet-based subgenres consisting of similar themes, such as slimepunk and icepunk. Elements of seapunk imagery were claimed to have influenced designers such as Versace and Givenchy.

Shamstep

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Shangaan electro

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Previous to releases by Honest Jon’s in the late 2000s, the Shangaan Electro movement has a vast catalogue of cassettes, CD-Rs and DVDs released locally in South Africa via Nozinja Productions. The style has since gained international attention through the release of the compilation Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music From South Africa via Honest Jon’s which showcased the production work of Nozinja and the vocal/dance crews he had established. The record and the attention it threw on various YouTube clips of the dancers in action led to a succession of performances at Sónar festival, Berghain and elsewhere across Europe, Australia and Africa.

Shitgaze

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Shitgaze has been referred to as a “microgenre”, a category that proliferated in underground music culture in the late 2000s. while drawing influence from bands in the genres of garage punk, noise pop, and noise rock. Additionally, artists primarily gained popularity through early music blogs and online music forums within the emerging blog rock movement. A Spin magazine feature described bands labeled as shitgaze as " Audio clipping spik ing in the red and cloaked in caustic fuzz. Vocals are intelligible every so often, and snare hits resemble chopsticks on tinfoil. You could say Psychedelic Horseshit’s bass drum sounds like a cardboard box", and that their music was “not too far removed from the output of fellow Ohioans Guided by Voices.”

Sigilkore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology and characteristics#

The term “sigilkore” is derived from sigil, which is described as being associated with magic, deities and occult rituals. The visual aesthetics of sigilkore draw influence from magic, deities, demons, Writing for British newspaper The Guardian, music critic Alexis Petridis described sigilkore as a “micro-trend”.

2019–2023: Origins#

Sigilkore originated as a mixing style pioneered by rappers Luci4 and Islurwhenitalk who formed the collective Jewelxxet. along with producers within his collective BMB Deathrow, would expand upon this style by frequently including references to occultism The genre was also popularized by American singer Siouxxie’s “Masquerade,” which would go viral in mid-2021, and by artists Lumi Athena,

Singeli

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Skweee

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The name “skweee” was coined by Daniel Savio, one of the originators of the emerging sound. The name refers to the use of analog synthesizers in the production process, where the aim is to “squeeze out” the most interesting sounds possible. Producers can vary from high-profile to new talent from the Scandinavian electronica environment.

Recognition#

The major outlets of skweee music are the Swedish record label Flogsta Danshall and Finnish record label Harmönia. Norwegian Dødpop, Canadian Ancient Robot, US Losonofono, US Titched, US Poisonous Gases, Spanish Lo Fi Funk, Finnish Mässy, and French Mazout have since been added to this family. The preferred media format of skweee enthusiasts is the 7" vinyl record. Early releases were exclusively released in this format. More recently, however, a series of 12" vinyl records, digital releases and CD compilations have been released through these outlets as well. The increasing notability of the skweee genre has resulted in releases such as the Eero Johannes album on Planet Mu. Producers such as Rusko, Gemmy, Joker, Zomby, and Rustie have given their take on the sound, resulting in several releases on the boundary between skweee and dubstep.

Sound collage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The origin of sound collage can be traced back to the works of Biber’s programmatic sonata Battalia (1673) and Mozart’s Don Giovanni (1789), and certain passages in Mahler symphonies as collage, but the first fully developed collages occur in a few works by Charles Ives, whose piece Central Park in the Dark (1906) creates the feeling of a walk in the city by layering several distinct melodies and quotations on top of each other. Earlier traditional forms and procedures such as the quodlibet, medley, potpourri, and centonization differ from collage in that the various elements in them are made to fit smoothly together, whereas in a collage clashes of key, timbre, texture, meter, tempo, or other discrepancies are important in helping to preserve the individuality of the constituent elements and to convey the impression of a heterogeneous assemblage. What made their technique true collage, however, was the juxtaposition of quotations and unrelated melodies, either by layering them or by moving between them in quick succession. A first documented instance of sound collage created as electronic music is Wochenende (in English, Weekend), a collage of words, music and sounds created by film-maker and media artist Walter Ruttmann in 1928. Later, in 1948, Pierre Schaeffer used the techniques of sound collage to create the first piece of musique concrète, Étude aux chemins de fer, which was assembled from recordings of trains. Schaeffer created this piece by recording sounds of trains onto several vinyl records, some of which had lock grooves allowing them to play in a continuous loop. He then set up multiple turntables in his studio, allowing him to trigger and mix together the various train sounds as needed. According to music theorist Cristina Losada, the third movement of Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia is often considered “the prototype of a musical collage.” In an essay written in 1937, John Cage expressed an interest in using extra-musical sound materials and came to distinguish between found sounds, which he called noise, and musical sounds, examples of which included: rain, static between radio channels, and “a truck at fifty miles per hour”. Cage began in 1939 to create a series of found sounds works that explored his stated aims, the first being Imaginary Landscape #1 for instruments including two variable speed turntables with frequency recordings. Important modern sound collage pieces were created by Pierre Schaeffer and the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. In 1950s and early-1960s Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Jean Barraqué, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis, Michel Philippot, and Arthur Honegger all worked with sound collage. Examples are Étude I (1951) and Étude II (1951) by Boulez, Timbres-durées (1952) by Messiaen, Étude aux mille collants (1952) by Stockhausen, Le microphone bien tempéré (1952) and La voile d’Orphée (1953) by Henry, Étude I (1953) by Philippot, Étude (1953) by Barraqué, the mixed pieces Toute la lyre (1951) and Orphée 53 (1953) by Schaeffer/Henry, and the film score Masquerage (1952) by Schaeffer and Astrologie (1953) by Henry. In 1954 Varèse and Honegger created Déserts and La rivière endormie". John Cage created his influential collage piece Williams Mix in 1952. More recently, George Rochberg used collage in Contra Mortem et Tempus and Symphony No. 3. In the 1980s Minóy made many palimpsest-like multi-tracked soundscape compositions that used sound collage.

SoundCloud indie

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

In August 2025, music critic Kieran Press-Reynolds, writing for Pitchfork, coined the term “BandLab rock”, referring to the free online digital audio workstation, to describe “a new wave of SoundCloud indie rock” made by artists emerging from the underground SoundCloud rap scene who began to take an interest in alternative rock music while using beatmaker techniques. Press-Reynolds referred to the movement as an “online ‘indie music’ boom”.

Characteristics#

According to music critic Kieran Press-Reynolds, SoundCloud indie artists tend to be members of SoundCloud collectives and use beatmaker techniques like opening and ending songs with slowed versions of the instrumental, or “spamming sound effects like ad-libs.” Press-Reynolds noted that bedroom producers in the scene posted video tutorials on YouTube for “indie rock beats (without a real guitar)”. The scene is primarily inspired by artists Jaydes and Wifiskeleton. Artist Ayowitty stated that in 2025 a new wave of musicians began producing “Wifiskeleton type songs” and replicating his sound to the point of cliche, with fellow artist Bunii adding that artists imitating Wifiskeleton’s sound were popular across TikTok.

Sovietwave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

At the height of the trance music boom in the 2000s, Russian trance duo PPK used the melodies of Soviet electronic music as the basis of their compositions, pioneering the fusion of contemporary electronic music with Soviet-era nostalgia. Until 2014, the groups of the “Soviet wave” — N.E.M.O., , PPVK — were often classified as indie, lo-fi or other type of electronics. One of the first performers who took a course to isolate themselves from the rest of electronic music was the Kharkiv project “Mayak”. The main inspirations for Sovietwave artists are typically the collective cultural memories associated with the Soviet era. Lyudmila Shevchenko of Jan Kochanowski University considers the genre a manifestation of romanticized “nostalgic myth”. Sovietwave became popular in post-Soviet countries in the latter half of the 2010s, drawing on synthwave and nostalgia for mid-century Soviet culture in the region. In September 2017, on Moscow City Day sovietwave compositions were used in the musical design of the Crafts Park pavilion. In August 2018, the first music festival “Volna-1” (“Wave-1”) dedicated to the genre was held in St. Petersburg; “Volna-2” was held on August 10, 2019, in Moscow. On July 22, 2019, an Olympic Night concert party was held in the abandoned SKA pool in Novosibirsk, decorated in the style of Soviet nostalgia; most of the collectives belonged to local sovietwave groups. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sovietwave experienced a growth in popularity, along with related forms of vaporwave and synthwave. This upsurge was driven in large part by the success of the Belarusian post-punk band Molchat Doma, whose song from the album Etazhi became a popular meme on TikTok. According to Cat Zhang of Pitchfork, the song connected with Generation Z’s “deep pessimism towards the future”. Molchat Doma’s entry into the mainstream spawned multiple compilations of the genre on streaming platforms such as Spotify and YouTube, which feature more overt nostalgia for Soviet and Space Age aesthetics despite the band’s criticism of the genre for “fail ing to recognize the harsh realities of life in the region”. Sovietwave gained popularity primarily with younger Millennials and Generation Z in post-Soviet states. Hungarian lifestyle writer Zsófia Tóth noted that Sovietwave “playlists are usually listened to by young people who were born just before the fall of the Soviet Union or have only experienced its aftermath.” Gamble notes that Sovietwave was brought to an international audience by “the wide accessibility of YouTube music mixes.”

Space music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Definitions#

AllMusic defines space music as a subgenre of New Age music. Similarly, mainstream retailer Barnes & Noble, independent online music retailer CD Baby, and RealNetwork’s music download service Rhapsody all classify space music as a subgenre of new-age music. Rhapsody’s editorial staff writes in their music genre description for space music (listed as a subgenre of new-age music) that “New Age composers have looked upward for inspiration, creating an abstract notion of the sounds of interstellar music.” Stephen Hill, co-founder of the radio show Music from the Hearts of Space (syndicated nationally in the United States on National Public Radio) uses the phrase “contemplative music, broadly defined” as an overview to describe the music played on his station, along with the term “spacemusic”. He states that the “genre spans historical, ethnic, and contemporary styles”, Gerardo “Pkx” Martinez-Casas, original host, producer and creator of KUSF’s 90.3 FM, University of San Francisco in California, “Moondance (The Beyond Within)” 1981– 198?, described space music as electronic, environmental and spiritual fine art fashion cosmic sounds as an aid and tool for cultural, contemplative, meditative, social and spiritual awareness. In her book The New Age Music Guide, author, editor and music critic P. J. Birosik classifies space music as a subgenre of new-age music, as does Dallas Smith, writer, teacher and recording artist in his essay New Age Jazz/Fusion. Steven Halpern, noted recording artist and workshop leader writes that space music has been considered a synonym for new-age music: " ‘Space’ is a vital dimension of new-age music; so much so that one of the early appellations for the genre was simply ‘space music’, referring both to its texture and to the state that it tended to evoke in the listener." John Diliberto, the host of the radio show, Echoes, and creator of WXPN’s Star’s End, has stated that space music is related to electronic music, Forest, host of Musical Starstreams refers to space music as a separate genre along with Ambient music, and others including dub, downtempo, trip hop, and acid jazz in the list of genres he calls “exotic electronica”. Similarly, WXPN Radio’s Star’s End, programming ambient music since 1976, on its website lists space music as a separate genre, along with Ambient, new-age, and others. Steve Sande, freelance writer for the San Francisco Chronicle considers space music to be “Anything but New Age,” and writes that “spacemusic is also known as ambient, chill-out, mellow dub, down-tempo.” In the same article, he describes Stephen Hill’s “Hearts of Space” spacemusic program as streaming ambient, electronic, world, new-age and classical music. In contrast to this, according to author and National Endowment for the Arts researcher Judith H. Balfe, Billboard editor Jerry Wood describes space music as one of several “genres within the genre” of new-age music.

Spatial music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Context#

The term “spatial music” indicates music in which the location and movement of sound sources is a primary compositional parameter and a central feature for the listener. It may involve a single, mobile sound source, or multiple, simultaneous, stationary or mobile sound events in different locations. There are at least three distinct categories when plural events are treated spatially: #essentially independent events separated in space, like simultaneous concerts, each with a strong signaling character #one or several such signaling events, separated from more “passive” reverberating background complexes #separated but coordinated performing groups.

Speed garage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Speed garage features sped-up NY garage 4-to-the-floor rhythms that are combined with breakbeats. Snares are placed as over the 2nd and the 4th kickdrums, so in other places of the drum pattern. Speed garage tunes have warped, heavy basslines, influenced by jungle and reggae. Sweeping bass is typical for speed garage. It is also typical for speed garage tunes to have a breakdown. Speed garage tunes sometimes featured time-stretched vocals. As it is heavily influenced by jungle, speed garage makes heavy use of jungle and dub sound effects, such as gunshots and sirens.

Stadium house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Styles of house music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A#

: Emphasizes a repetitive, hypnotic and trance-like style, often with samples or spoken lines instead of lyrics. It has core electronic “squelch” sounds that were developed around the mid-1980s, particularly by DJs from Chicago who experimented with the Roland TB-303 electronic synthesizer-sequencer. : Afro house is the South African subgenre of house music that started as a niche underground genre involving elements of kwaito, tribal house, deep house, and soulful house music. : Afro tech is a subgenre of house music which originates and is predominantly made in South Africa. It is a combination of classic techno sounds, led by African percussion and various indigenous African instruments. : Amapiano is a popular style of house originating in Gauteng, South Africa in mid to late 2010s. Amapiano is a sophisticated hybrid of deep house, jazz and lounge music characterized by synths, airy pads, wide (log drum) basslines, and deep low pitched kicks. : Ambient house is a subgenre of house music that first emerged in the late 1980s, combining elements of acid house and ambient music.

Suomisaundi

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the early 90s, a party collective Ruskababa introduced Goa trance to a handful of enthusiasts through their covert summertime party activities. The party music was typically played from DAT tapes or even from cassette tapes and included mostly Goan hits from the previous season’s parties. Pepe Kosminen was one of the DJs playing these new psychedelic tunes to the Finnish audience in Ruskababa parties. New party collectives emerged as DJs drew more inspiration from Goa. The first new collective was Smooth Underground which organised the last of its parties in a warehouse in Herttoniemi, with Ville Tikkanen playing Goa trance for the first time in Finland in a more conventional trance setting. After the dismantling of Smooth Underground, another group, Löyhä was formed. Löyhä was the first party collective to put a special focus on promoting locally made music. Inspired by the covert party tradition of Ruskababa and Smooth Underground, the group was determined to push the boundaries of organising unlicensed parties in an urban environment. It was not uncommon for the early organisers to experience issues with the authorities related to the parties. The first time Suomisaundi reached global circulation was during the 95-96 season in Goa, when DAT tape recordings of early songs produced by Tim Thick became an overnight sensation within the gatekeepers of the underground Goa trance DJ scene. The sounds and themes found in these short FastTracker 2 songs, and the inspiring response they had received globally, became the basic building blocks of the Suomisaundi phenomena. Arguably the genre-defining Suomisaundi album is the self-published compilation, ‘Flippin Bixies’, in 1996. It was the first album to directly answer to the rapidly growing need for a new localised sound, that had been created over the previous years by the party collectives and the general popularization of electronic music. The album was named after a private recording studio that was located near Kurvi in Helsinki around mid 90s. In 1997 Exogenic Records became the first record label to focus on Suomisaundi and approximately during the same time Midiliitto was founded as an association focusing on the advancement of production and commercialisation of Suomisaundi. Pepe Kosminen was the founding Chairman of Midiliitto. Together with Flippin Bixies, Midiliitto counted within its members many of the future international stars of Suomisaundi, including the members of groups like Texas Faggott and Squaremeat.

Synth-pop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Synth-pop is defined by its primary use of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers, sometimes using them to replace all other instruments. Borthwick and Moy have described the genre as diverse but “characterised by a broad set of values that eschewed rock playing styles, rhythms and structures”, which were replaced by “synthetic textures” and “robotic rigidity”, often defined by the limitations of the new technology, Many synth-pop musicians had limited musical skills, relying on the technology to produce or reproduce the music. The result was often minimalist, with grooves that were “typically woven together from simple repeated riffs often with no harmonic ‘progression’ to speak of”. Early synth-pop has been described as “eerie, sterile, and vaguely menacing”, using droning electronics with little change in inflection. Because synthesizers removed the need for large groups of musicians, these singers were often part of a duo where their partner played all the instrumentation. Although synth-pop in part arose from punk rock, it abandoned punk’s emphasis on authenticity and often pursued a deliberate artificiality, drawing on the critically derided forms such as disco and glam rock. It owed relatively little to the foundations of early popular music in jazz, folk music or the blues, Later synth-pop saw a shift to a style more influenced by other genres, such as soul music.

Synthwave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Synthwave is a microgenre of electronic music that draws predominantly from 1980s films, video games, and cartoons, as well as composers such as John Carpenter, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Tangerine Dream. Other reference points include electronic dance music genres including house, synth, and nu-disco. Some artists, like Dance With The Dead and Zombie Hyperdrive also include elements of 1980s rock and metal music. It is primarily an instrumental genre, although there are occasional exceptions to the rule. Common tempos are between 80 and 118 BPM, while more upbeat tracks may be between 128 and 140 BPM. “Outrun” is a subgenre of synthwave that was later used to refer more generally to retro 1980s aesthetics such as VHS tracking artefacts, magenta neon, and gridlines. The term comes from the 1986 arcade racing game Out Run, which is known for its soundtrack that could be selected in-game and its 1980s aesthetic. According to musician Perturbator (James Kent), outrun is also its own subgenre, mainly instrumental, and often contains 1980s clichéd elements in the sound such as electronic drums, gated reverb, and analogue synthesizer bass lines and leads—all to resemble tracks from that time period. There is also a visual component on synthwave album covers and music videos. According to PC Gamer, the essence of outrun visuals is “taking elements of a period of ’80s excess millennials find irresistibly evocative, and modernizing them so they’re just barely recognizable.” Other subgenres include dreamwave, darksynth, and scifiwave. Invisible Oranges wrote that darksynth is exemplified mainly by a shift away from the bright “Miami Vice vibes” and “French electro house influences” and “toward the darker electronic terrains of horror movie maestro composers John Carpenter and Goblin” also infused with sounds from post-punk, industrial and EBM.

Tango music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Even though present forms of tango developed in Argentina and Uruguay from the mid-19th century, there are records of 19th and early 20th-century tango styles in Cuba and Spain, while there is a flamenco tango dance that may share a common ancestor in a minuet-style European dance. All sources stress the influence of African communities and their rhythms, while the instruments and techniques brought in by European immigrants in the 20th century played a major role in the style’s final definition, relating it to the salon music styles to which tango would contribute back at a later stage. Ángel Villoldo’s 1903 tango “El Choclo” was first recorded no later than 1906 in Philadelphia. Villoldo himself recorded it in Paris (possibly in April 1908, with the Orchestre Tzigane du Restaurant du Rat Mort), as there were no recording studios in Argentina at the time. Early tango was played by European immigrants in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The first generation of tango players from Buenos Aires was called “Guardia Vieja” (the Old Guard). It took time to move into wider circles; in the early 20th century, it was the favorite music of thugs and gangsters who visited brothels, in a city with 100,000 more men than women (in 1914). The complex dances that arose from such rich music reflect how the men would practice the dance in groups, demonstrating male sexuality and causing a blending of emotion and aggressiveness. The music was played on portable instruments: flute, guitar, and violin trios, with bandoneón arriving at the end of the 19th century. The organito, a portable player-organ, broadened the popularity of certain songs. Eduardo Arolas was the major driver of the bandoneón’s popularization, with Vicente Greco soon standardizing the tango sextet as consisting of piano, double bass, two violins, and two bandoneóns. Like many forms of popular music, tango was associated with the underclass, and attempts were made to restrict its influence. In spite of the scorn, some, like writer Ricardo Güiraldes, were fans. Güiraldes played a part in the international popularization of tango, which had conquered the world by the end of World War I; he wrote the poem “Tango”, which describes the music as the “all-absorbing love of a tyrant, jealously guarding his dominion, over women who have surrendered submissively, like obedient beasts”. also dates from this time. The first two sections of “La Cumparsita” were composed as an instrumental march in 1916 by teenaged Gerardo Matos Rodríguez of Uruguay.

Tech house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

As a mixing style, tech-house often brings together deep or minimal techno music, the soulful and jazzy end of house, some minimal and very often some dub elements. There is some overlap with progressive house, which too can contain deep, soulful, dub and techno elements; this is especially true since the turn of the millennium, as progressive-house mixes have themselves often become deeper and sometimes more minimal. However, the typical progressive-house mix has more energy than tech-house, which tends to have a more “laid-back” feel. Tech house fans tend to appreciate subtlety, as well as the “middle ground” that adds a “splash of color to steel techno beats” and eschews the “banging” of house music for intricate rhythms.

Techno

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Detroit techno#

In exploring Detroit techno’s origins, writer Kodwo Eshun maintains that “Kraftwerk are to techno what Muddy Waters is to the Rolling Stones: the authentic, the origin, the real.” Juan Atkins has acknowledged that he had an early enthusiasm for Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder, particularly Moroder’s work with Donna Summer and the producer’s own album E=MC 2 . Atkins also mentions that “around 1980, I had a tape of nothing but Kraftwerk, Telex, Devo, Giorgio Moroder and Gary Numan, and I’d ride around in my car playing it.” Derrick May identified the influence of Kraftwerk and other European synthesizer music in commenting that “it was just classy and clean, and to us it was beautiful, like outer space. Living around Detroit, there was so little beauty… everything is an ugly mess in Detroit, and so we were attracted to this music. It, like, ignited our imagination!”. May has commented that he considered his music a direct continuation of the European synthesizer tradition. He also identified Japanese synth-pop act Yellow Magic Orchestra, particularly member Ryuichi Sakamoto, and British band Ultravox, as influences, along with Kraftwerk. YMO’s song “Technopolis” (1979), a tribute to Tokyo as an electronic mecca, is considered an “interesting contribution” to the development of Detroit techno, foreshadowing concepts that Atkins and Davis would later explore with Cybotron. Kevin Saunderson has also acknowledged the influence of Europe but he claims to have been more inspired by the idea of making music with electronic equipment: “I was more infatuated with the idea that I can do this all myself.”

Techstep

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Style#

It is characterized by a dark, sci-fi mood, near-exclusive use of synthesised or sampled sound sources, hardstep kicks and snares and influences from industrial and techno music, what some writers have described as a “clinical” sound. Although described as having a “techy” feel, techstep’s relationship with techno should not be overstated. It shares the technique of creating a high-energy collage from abstract, synthetic noises, including samples, bleeps and squelches: it rarely uses instruments that have not been processed by effects. Similarly, quantized drum-machine kit and percussion sounds are favored over naturalistic human breakbeats. However, it usually adheres to drum and bass norms in other regards, especially in terms of musical structure, with the emphasis on the “drop”. Techstep saw jungle music’s obsession with bass change, from aiming for low and deep to exploring timbre, artists aiming to outdo each other with ever more distorted and “twisted” bass sounds.

Tecno brega

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Production and distribution#

The music is created by producers in makeshift studios, whether in bedrooms or other unused spaces. Rather than being sold in a traditional CD format, techno brega is characterized by new distribution methods. Rather than selling a CD in a store, tecno brega CDs are sold for a minimal price (averaging US$1.50) by street vendors, who often make the actual CDs themselves. Often producing their music with little concern for copyright, the music is “born free”. The street vendor is then in charge of making more copies and using the CDs as advertisements. These advertisements are for large reggae sound systems style parties, very similar to a rave. It is at these concerts that producers will make money, whether by entrance fees or by selling CDs produced that night from live music.

Trance music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Production#

Trance employs a time signature, A kick drum is usually placed on every downbeat and a regular open hi-hat is often placed on the upbeat.

Subgenres#

Trance music is broken into a number of subgenres including acid trance, classic trance, hard trance, progressive trance,

Tribal guarachero

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The style originated from the lower and middle-class neighborhoods of Mexico City in 2000 and 2001. It then moved to Monterrey, Nuevo León, in 2007, before expanding to the United States in 2008. The genre’s popularity peaked in Mexico and in parts of the United States with large Mexican and Mexican-American populations in the early 2010s. One of the precursors and most popular of tribal guarachero producers is 3Ball MTY from Monterrey.

Tribal house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

By the late 1980s, house was experiencing a number of fusions from other styles. When the four on the floor pattern was blended with polyrhythms, tribal house began. Tribal house rose to prominence off the releases of Cafe latte labels Tribal Amy, to a lesser extent, Strictly Rhythm Records. The music was a staple in New York’s most prominent clubs, such as the Sound Factory and Roxy NYC. Tribal America Records’ infamy within this subgenre stemmed from their globally popular releases by Danny Tenaglia, Junior Vasquez, Deep Dish, Eric Kupper (aka K-Scope) and Murk amongst others. This popularity led to the formation of a UK sub-label, Tribal United Kingdom. The label also helped launch European artists Farley & Heller, Salt City Orchestra, The Underground Sound Of Lisbon and others who produced in this style.

Trip hop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Common musical aesthetics include a bass-heavy drumbeat, often providing the slowed down breakbeat samples similar to standard 1990s hip-hop beats, giving the genre a more psychedelic and mainstream feel. and Groove Armada collaborated with male and female vocalists, Tricky often features vocally in his own productions along with Martina Topley-Bird, and Chris Corner provided vocals for later albums with Sneaker Pimps. Trip hop is also known for its melancholic sound, due to the fact that several acts of the Bristol scene were inspired by post-punk. Tricky opened his second album Nearly God (1996) with a cover version of “Tattoo”, a 1983’s “proto-trip-hop” song by Siouxsie and the Banshees released as a b-side of a single. Tricky then covered a pop single of the Cure. Massive Attack also covered and sampled songs of Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Cure in 1997 and 1998 respectively. Trip hop tracks often incorporate Rhodes pianos, saxophones, trumpets, flutes, and may employ unconventional instruments such as the theremin and Mellotron. Trip hop differs from hip-hop in theme and overall tone. Contrasting with gangsta rap and its hard-hitting lyrics, trip hop offers more aural atmospherics influenced by experimental folk and rock acts of the seventies, such as John Martyn, combined with instrumental hip-hop, turntable scratching, and breakbeat rhythms. Regarded in some ways as a 1990s update of fusion, trip hop may be said to “transcend” the hardcore rap styles and lyrics with atmospheric overtones to create a more mellow tempo.

Tromsø techno scene

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The city of Tromsø has since the early 1990s been mentioned as “the techno capital” of Norway. The first generation of the Tromsø techno scene consisted of, among others, Geir Jenssen (Bel Canto / Biosphere), Anneli Drecker (Bel Canto), Per Martinsen (Mental Overdrive), Rune Lindbæk and Bjørn Torske. A local student radio by the name Brygga Radio, including Bjørn Torske, had success with radio show Beatservice at this time. Here was Vidar Hanssen, who later founded the record label Beatservice Records, a keen contributor. The success of especially Bel Canto, Biosphere and Mental Overdrive, both at home and abroad, inspired an increasing number of Tromsø residents to invest their time in the genre. This resulted in several new projects in the 1990s, with groups such as Aedena Cycle, Alanïa, Drum Island, and Frost. Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland, who later formed the world-renowned group Röyksopp, were very active in the scene at the time, and members of several of the above mentioned groups. Other new and important names at the time were Gaute Barlindhaug (Kolar Goi), Kolbjørn Lyslo and Ole Johan Mjøs. In 2002, the Insomnia Festival was founded. It is today Norway’s leading festival for electronic music, alongside Numusic in Stavanger. In the later years, artists like Doctor Katasztrofa, F.A.C.E., The Clean Shaven Grins, Kohib and the award-winning Alog have emerged from the scene.

Tropical house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Tropical house is a derivation of deep house music characterized by its relaxed and island-inspired melodies, which give off a “Caribbean, beach-party vibe.” The subgenre distinguishes itself through its use of airy synths, melodic rhythms, and tropical instruments, such as steel percussions, trumpets, saxophones, flutes, marimbas, or bongos. Tropical house does not rely heavily on the build-ups and drops seen in EDM, instead featuring calming melodies and soft vocals that are easy to listen to in any setting. It aims to create a laid-back atmosphere evoking the paradisical imagery of an island holiday, typically associated with the tropics. Producers frequently follow up the vocal delivery of the hook with an instrumental break highlighting the melody. Lyrically, songs often talk about happiness, love, relationships, break-ups, and sadness. While EDM mainly happens in clubs, tropical house is more associated with online platforms and outdoor festivals, beach parties, and boat raves. Successful producers typically break through on SoundCloud or YouTube, where their remixes of mainstream tracks in the tropical style can gather tens of millions of views before they are signed to a commercial label and start producing original singles in the genre.

UK bass

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

The breadth of styles that have come to be associated with the term preclude it from being a specific musical genre. Pitchfork writer Martin Clark has suggested that “well-meaning attempts to loosely define the ground we’re covering here are somewhat futile and almost certainly flawed. This is not one genre. However, given the links, interaction, and free-flowing ideas… you can’t dismiss all these acts as unrelated.” In the United Kingdom, bass music has had major mainstream success since the late 2000s and early 2010s, with artists such as James Blake, and Skream. The term “post-dubstep” has been used synonymously to refer to artists, such as Blake and Mount Kimbie whose work draws on UK garage, 2-step, and other forms of underground dance music, as well as ambient music and early R&B. Outside of nightclubs, UK bass has mainly been promoted and played on Internet radio stations such as Sub.FM and Rinse FM.

UK funky

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

UK funky uses tempos of around 130bpm. Drum patterns vary between tracks, using either “4 to the floor” or a syncopated style. The drum patterns commonly also include percussion playing African inspired rhythms. Instrumentation varies widely, but drum machines and synthesizers are common. There are similarities to garage in rhythmic, musical and vocal styles. UK funky is highly influenced by the tribal, soulful and bassline house subgenres. Similar genres include afro house, broken beat, electro and garage.

UK garage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

UK garage emerged in London in the early 1990s from a blend of New York garage house, jungle, Jamaican ragga and dancehall music, and R&B. It was influenced by the pirate radio scene, rave culture, gospel, Baptist churches, and the Black diaspora. MJ Cole once stated, “London is a multicultural city… it’s like a melting pot of young people, and that’s reflected in the music of UK garage.” In the United Kingdom, where jungle was very popular at the time, garage was played in a second room at jungle events. After jungle’s peak in cultural significance, it turned towards a harsher, more techstep influenced sound, driving away dancers, predominantly women. Escaping the 170bpm jungle basslines, the garage rooms provided a more sensual and soulful sound at 130bpm. Garage increasingly got aired at events on a Sunday, such an event at the nearby Frog & Nightgown. This gave rise to what became known as the Sunday Scene, as initially speed and UK garage promoters could only hire venues on Sunday evenings (Friday and Saturday nights were still the preserve of faster and then more popular jungle and drum and bass events). Larger nightclubs, such as Heaven in Charing Cross, then began to dedicate space to garage DJs. Early promoters of a UK garage sound included DJ EZ, Dreem Teem and Tuff Jam, and pirate radio stations such as London Underground, Magic FM, Upfront FM, and Freek FM. An early UK garage track, “Feel My Love” by Justin Cantor and Matt Jam Lamont, was recorded in 1991. It wouldn’t be officially released until 1993.

UK hard house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

Hard house has its immediate roots primarily in Belgian and German techno, American disco-sample based house music, handbag house and early trance. UK producer and label owner John Truelove was quoted as saying of hard house’s origins: “I would say that tunes such as XVX’s “Tremorra Del Terra” and Interactive’s “Amok” (essentially the same tune) were absolutely defining moments. Early German trance led directly to what Daz Saund and Trevor Rockcliffe were playing at Trade.” Tony De Vit was one of the key DJs to codify and popularise the hard house sound (earlier often referred to as ‘hardbag’), taking inspiration from his early visits to Trade in the early ’90s — where he soon became a resident DJ. De Vit is often cited as the “godfather of UK hard house”.

Uplifting trance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

In general, uplifting trance is a style much happier in tone than other trance genres (such as Goa). Instead of the darker tone of Goa, uplifting trance uses similar chord progressions as progressive trance, but tracks’ chord progressions usually rest on a major chord, and the balance between major and minor chords in a progression will determine how “happy” or “sad” the progression sounds. The genre features longer major chord progressions in all elements (lead synth, bass, and treble). It also contains extended breakdowns and relegation of arpeggiation (the melodic part of the song, usually consisting of “Saw Synths/Square Lead” type sounds) to the background while bringing wash effects to the fore (the harmonic element of the music, or “background fill”, usually consisting of synth choir/voice/string chord progressions). As a rule of thumb, trance beats are in the range of 135–140 BPM. Uplifting trance very commonly employs side-chain compression, a modern production technique. It is commonly referred to as “ducking the kick”, where the background strings/synths have their volume automated, creating a pulsing effect on the off-beat.

Vaporwave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Vaporwave is a hyper-specific subgenre, or “microgenre”, that is both a form of electronic music and an art style; however, it is sometimes suggested to be primarily a visual medium. The genre is defined largely by its surrounding subculture, with its music inextricable from its visual accoutrements. Academic Laura Glitsos writes, “In this way, vaporwave defies traditional music conventions that typically privilege the music over the visual form.” Musically, vaporwave reconfigures dance music from the 1980s and early 1990s The name derives from “vaporware”, a term for commercial software that is announced but never released. It builds upon the satirical tendencies of chillwave and hypnagogic pop, while also being associated with an ambiguous or ironic take on consumer capitalism and technoculture. incorporates 1990s Web design and imagery, glitch art, and cyberpunk tropes, and 3D-rendered objects. VHS degradation is another common effect seen in vaporwave art. Generally, artists limit the chronology of their source material between Japan’s economic flourishing in the 1980s and the September 11 attacks or dot-com bubble burst of 2001 (some albums, including Floral Shoppe, depict the intact Twin Towers on their covers).

Vinahouse

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wave music

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Musical qualities and influences#

Wave conveys feelings and qualities of melancholy similarly to witch house and emo rap, dreaminess, sci-fi akin to grime, drill, vaporwave, cloud rap, video game music and sound design, ambient, house, techno, and jungle.

Production style#

A genre of bass music, while using a filtered Reese style bass timbre. The percussion features trap-style drums with fast hi-hats, with other elements like snare and pan-hits further processed using reverb. The percussive styles used can vary owing to the music’s broad range of influences and producers’ willingness to experiment. The beats per minute typically varies between 120 and 140, but wave DJ sets may range from 100 to 200. Vocals used are generally chopped samples, with the pitch decreased and increased in conjunction with reverb and delay.

Weird SoundCloud

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins#

In a January 2014 interview, DJ Kevin Wang suggested that the Weird SoundCloud has “been around in the last one to two years”, but started to gain much more popularity the previous year through electronic dance music internet blogs. Weird SoundCloud producer Ideaot suggested that some in the phenomenon came from the YouTube poop scene. Another producer in the community, DJ @@ (AT-AT), reasoned that producers joining the scene “want to express their musicality, see it as a more mature form of YouTube Poop,” or are “just looking for recognition on social media sites.” AT-AT said that it was “a fun thing to do, and after I stopped making proper music I felt I needed a bit of an outlet for my creativity. The fact that people enjoyed it and/or treated it as a travesty (Direct quote from one of my tracks) spurs me on.”

Witch house

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Characteristics#

Witch house is characterized by the use of hip-hop drum machines, noise atmospherics, creepy samples, dark synthpop-influenced lead melodies, dense reverb, and heavily altered, distorted, and sometimes pitched down & reverse vocals, which are either rapped or sung. Influences range from electronic-based genres like ambient house and synth-pop, to alternative music genres such as shoegaze, industrial, ethereal wave, and gothic rock. Alongside, the Houston hip hop scene, particularly rapper and producer DJ Screw, whose pioneering sampling technique known as “chopped and screwed” is regarded as a foundational influence. Witch house’s sonic and aesthetic features are often grisly, nihilistic, and dystopic in nature.

Wonky (genre)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Wonky initially emerged in 2006 as a colorful, exuberant style drawing on hip hop, synth-funk, glitchy electronica, and more eclectic influences, in contrast with the austere sound of the UK’s ongoing dubstep and grime scenes. Other influences included American hip hop producers J Dilla and Madlib, with some artists drawing more explicitly on an instrumental hip-hop sound rather than dubstep. The term “wonky” has been rejected by various artists associated with the style.

Zoomergaze

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Etymology#

“Zoomergaze” is a portmanteau of “shoegaze” and “zoomer” (meaning Generation Z). In a 2024 article for WhyNow, writer Harvey Solomon-Brady used the term to refer to the fusion of hyperpop and shoegaze. In a 2024 article for Nina Protocol, music blogger Eli Enis called the style “VSTi-gaze” and “compu-gaze”. Writing for Pitchfork, Kieran Press-Reynolds attributed the term “cloud-rock”, popularized by Nina Protocol as a “progeny of shoegaze”. He later defined a “Post-Pandemic Alt-Rock” scene which overlapped with cloud rock, citing groups who arose alongside Bar Italia, blending influences from the Cure, Dean Blunt, Blur, Pavement, trip hop and shoegaze.

Electronic on Music Theory Print

2-step garage

Characteristics#

Acid house

Characteristics#

Acid jazz

Etymology#

Acid techno

Characteristics#

Acid trance

Notable labels#

External links#

Acousmatic music

Origins#

Afro house

Characteristics and etymology#

Notable women in Afro house#

Afro tech

Name and characteristics#

Afro/cosmic music

Descriptions#

Algorave

Description#

Alternative dance

Characteristics#

Amapiano

Origins#

Ambient house

Genre#

Ambient music

History#

Ambient techno

Characteristics and influences#

Asian Underground

History#

Azonto

History#

Balearic beat

History#

Baltimore club

Origins#

2000s#

Bass music

See also#

Bassline (music genre)

Characteristics#

Early bassline house#

Belgian hardcore techno

History#

Bhangra (music)

Origins#

Big beat

Style#

Big room house

History#

Bikutsi

Etymology#

Description#

History#

Birmingham sound

Black MIDI

Origins and early history#

Bleep techno

Style#

History#

Blog rock

Etymology and characteristics#

Bloghouse

Etymology#

Bouncy techno

Antecedents: early 1990s#

Breakbeat

Etymology#

1970s–1980s: Classic breaks and hip-hop production#

Breakbeat hardcore

Early 1990s: origins#

Broken beat

History#

Budots

Etymology#