Electronic Music Discussion (EDM, Trance, Synth, Dub, Techno, House, etc)

Let’s get a discussion going on all things Electronic Music. There are hundreds of subgenres classified by timbre, beat, cadence, etc., but I think we should be good with one thread.

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Let’s see. There was my first electronic music album, Switched on Bach, when Wendy Carlos was still Walter.

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Just a couple of my favorites I’ll post more later

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Asura: 360 or Radio Universe.

H.U.V.A. Network: Ephemeris

Super chill synth. Pretty much the song I listen to at the start of every work day while having my morning coffee.

A fun upbeat synth track with nostalgic tones.

A classic from ATB. Bit more of a dance track.

Song by Moby used in “The Beach”. The movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. It starts playing when they first go on the beach and this song plus that scene is the reason I travelled to Thailand for 6 months by myself when I was 18.

Its got a pretty neat intro. Around the 1:45 mark it kind of devolves into a bassy mess and then picks up again.

I’m a big fan of DJ Okawari. Makes some real nice chill piano songs with a mix of electronic music thrown in there.

Blazo is another artist that is out there making some neat chill tracks mixed with electronic music. His stuff is chill but upbeat at the same time.

Carpenter Brut makes some pretty interesting stuff. I haven’t heard a whole lot of electronic music like it. If you ever watched the indie film Turbo Kid they did some of the songs for that movie.

This and Strobe are easily my two favourite Deadmau5 songs.

This song and OK from Robin Schulz are great.

I’ve got a lot more songs to post but I figure I’ll let it take a breather and let some others get their songs in before I throw in more!

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And there was the electrotheremin on Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys

https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2013/02/07/171385175/no-it-wasn-t-a-theremin-on-good-vibrations-remembering-paul-tanner

It wasn’t the TV antenna thing (theremin) that made sounds and was played by body inductance/capacitance.

My half-informed awareness from the fringe:

Chapter 1: Beach Boys - Moog Synthesizer (naive experimentation)
Chapter 2: Moog - Kraftwerk (electro-pop style defined)
Chapter 3: Kraftwerk - New Order (Bizarre Love Triangle = start of modern electronic era)
Chapter 4: 80s Hair & Synth Bands (mostly derivatives of #2 and #3)
Chapter 5: 90s-00s: Dance/remix/mash-up era (Fatboy Slim, Moby, Gorillaz; later Steve Aoki)
Chapter 6: Boring, soul-less mainstream electro-pop (Deadmau5 – I’m looking at you)
Chapter 7: Children born into 100% electronic sensibilities start to create (Grimes, Skrillex)

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You’re welcome…

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I’ll put a Spotify play list together here in a bit…trouble shooting at the moment (take home beta for Xbox is being a pain)

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Your early thoughts are a bit off. There was the “theremin” in the 50’s well before Moog. See the NPR article I referenced earlier. The Beach Boys were not much on synth.

The first real statement of electronic music that hit the masses was the album “Switched on Bach” by Walter Carlos - now known as Wendy Carlos.

There was a lot of experimentation in artistic circles prior to full-blown electronic music. Paul Hindemith was an “orchestral” composer that used found sounds and music, recording industrial sounds and using them in concerts. Not, in some ways that far removed from dub, but using mechanical and not vocal/musical sound.

Kraftwerk/Mannheim Steam Roller were later to the scene, and were themselves quite derivative.

If you want to look at some earlier pop artists, look no further than Pink Floyd. Their skillful blending of natural to synthetic sound was astonishing. The bird sounds in Cirrus Minor, the animals in Ummaguma’s “grooving with a Pict” track, and the bacon frying to total synthetic sound in Atom Heart Mother come to mind. Probably something to do with Syd Barrett’s sensibilities.

In the mid 70’s Tangerine Dream had several synthetic albums half a decade before Kraftwerk.

For a look back to the 50’s, when electronic music was for computer nerds, take a look at this You Tube:

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60 years later and they are doing it with Floppy drives…

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I love a lot of Eighties music and amongst my favourites are:
Erasure
New Order
Eurythmics

There’s a lot of Synth pop I like to listen to. A lot of it isn’t t very well mastered but still they’re a great listen.

-Paul-

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Where the heck do people come up with these ideas. That’s great. There are definitely some creative people around.

-Paul-

My introduction to electronic music came from the Cosmos TV series, with Vangelis and Synergy (Larry Fast). From Vangelis, my favorites are “Heaven and Hell”, “Spiral” and “Albedo 0.39”. From Synergy, it’s the first three: “Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra”, “Sequencer” and “Cords”.

Speaking of Vangelis, the whole Bladerunner soundtrack is really good on a pair of headphones.

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Nice clip. I can’t find any clip, but music and/or rhythm was done this way on drum storage back in the day, friends told me.

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Here is my playlist full of my favorite EDM, electronica, dub, and mumbaton tracks. Been building it for four years.

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My favorite electronic music was early to mid 70’s was Tangerine Dream.

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Pretty cool videos showcasing some of the most popular EDM since the 70s to present

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This guy does some really good work also. I really like his remixes of Disney movies, and Pixar.