Aphex Twin's Kinnect based NYE show visuals
posted by Artw on Jan 7, 2011 - 9 comments

"Trance music" is not a new phenomenon.  The ability for music to drive dancers into ecstatic frenzies has been known at least since Euripides.  The Shakers got their name from the ecstatic behavior they exhibited when dancing to their simple, repetitive hymns.  Voodoo rituals are built around complex, trance-inducing rhythms.  It was well known that trance-dancing can produce ecstastic states, but until the later part of the 20th century, and the invention of the 'extended dance remix', it was rare for commercial music to reach for it. [more inside]
posted by empath on Feb 1, 2010 - 86 comments

Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk gives a rare interview to the Guardian, who also have a rather nice interactive feature on the bands influence.
posted by Artw on Jun 19, 2009 - 15 comments

Muslimgauze was the sound of an angry Middle East, a prolific source of music dark, spacious and smothering. Tension was a constant theme not only in the music but in the packaging. (For example, Betrayal shows the hands of Yassir Arafat and Yitzak Rabin, and guns, knives, and news photos of an Arab world at war were a common motif in titles and sleeve art.) However, the music wasn't the usual agitprop fare: Music meant to rile a public to a cause isn't normally pigeonholed as ambient, electronica or musique concrete. But the band, hidden from public view, was rumored to donate proceeds to Palestinian terrorists, and that they were eventually silenced by Mossad. Despite the prodigious output -- issuing almost a hundred EPs and albums between 1983 and 1998, over a hundred more since -- limited distribution and perpetual obscurity ensured the rumors were easier to find than the music. While the facts about Muslimgauze have little in common with the fictions, they are, if anything, stranger... [more inside]
posted by ardgedee on Dec 22, 2008 - 48 comments

Can Islam and Electronica co-exist? Listen to a wonderful track named "Semitones In Darkness" by Subtonal and Fresh Moods from BBC Radio 1's Blue Room this week (Min. 5). You'll hear what Muslims normally say when they are praying: "al-Fatiha" (The Opening), the first chapter of Quran.
posted by hoder on Oct 23, 2003 - 12 comments

'WHOEVER I LENT MY NORD MODULAR TO /MSG ME ASAP' is an extremely funny fake chat log between the bright stars of the IDM/techno music world. If you're familiar with the music of Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada, Plaid, and the like, and if you've ever used IRC, then you'll probably get a kick out of this.
posted by 40 Watt on Nov 2, 2001 - 28 comments