Deconstructed club

Deconstructed club, also known as post-club or deconstructed music, is an experimental style of electronic dance music characterized by a post-modernist approach and an abrasive or dystopian tone. It

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.

Characteristics#

The genre steps away from traditional and mainstream dance music tropes, such as four on the floor beats, stable tempos, build-ups, and drops. Instead, it is identified by an aggressive, frantic, post-industrial sound design, featuring metallic or staccato sounds such as samples of glass smashing or gunshots. Deconstructed club aims for an excessive, apocalyptic-sounding soundscape, with constant rhythmic switch-ups and atonality. such as the work of Arca, a Venezuelan artist whose song “KLK” (featuring Rosalía) has notable dembow influence. The label NAAFI in Mexico has numerous artists who mix genres such as trival and reggaeton to reformulate deconstructed club music.

Visual art#

The music is often accompanied by music videos with visual art. Some of the artists studied visual arts rather than music. The visuals are often abstract and feature mutational, grotesque, and decomposing forms. This cross between the visuals and experimental electronic music has become so prominent that one of the key labels in the genre, PAN, has launched an imprint, “Entopia”, dedicated to producing soundtracks for art installations, films, theater works, dance, and fashion podiums.

Reception#

The music journalist and critic Simon Reynolds called the style conceptronica and said that “it isn’t a genre as such, but more like a mode of artistic operation”. He contrasted the genre with 1990s IDM, saying that early IDM from those like Aphex Twin or Luke Vibert tended to be more down-to-earth, relaxing, and rife with juvenile humor, rather than demanding and intellectually charged.

Genre family: 2010s in music, 21st-century music genres, Electronic dance music genres, Electronic music genres, Experimental music genres, Internet music genres