Cross-posted to my LJ

I have been thinking again about the idea of "intelligent dance music". I still have problems with it - I think that IDM should stand for "internal dance music" for the majority of things which come under the tag, because they are different in that they're more literally cerebral; serotonin-pricking dynamic events happening in little flickers in your brain rather than noises making you want to flail around in a dark sweaty room and get off with everyone. However there are a whole load of things (perhaps more lately post-Warp Records?) in the latter category which are also I feel much more "intelligent" (for lack of a better word - thoughtful? Considered? Clever?) than the majority of your identikit four-to-the-floor let's-chuck-everything-at-it house records.

I have been listening to two records a lot recently which are quite good examples of this. Firstly, Simian Mobile Disco's Simple which came out on the SMD EP in 2007. It is titled as it is because it's essentially just a sequence of five notes, and the interest in the song is created by dynamic and harmonic embellishments which swell and fade as the track progresses. She said, sounding like some kind of joyless textbook. BUT! Though it has all the hallmarks of a Big Dumb Electro House Record, there is something about it which really hooks into your brain and makes it much more pleasing and exciting to listen to. I was wondering how to describe this and I came to realise that it's the restraint with which SMD create their music. Even in their big club "anthems" (ha!) like Hustler or It's The Beat, there is a huge amount of space and tension. They could just bang everything together at once and make a huge bleepy racket but they always wait until exactly the right "dancefloor moment" - or even a bit past that, the teases! - before punching everyone in the face with synths. They could have a huge number of things going on in every bar for a big rushy druggy noisefest but they understand that dynamic variation and deceptive, muscular simplicity a la Proper EBM is much more exciting and stimulating. They understand that, as all music is essentially about time, dance music especially is all about suspense.

Which brings me to the next record which is Roar by Patrice Baumel. I heard this played at Bugged Out by JoJo De Freq (NAME STEALING BITCH - not really, she's awesome), and dr_f_dellamorte told me excitedly what it was (being as we are fans of "roaring at techno", the name obviously resonated), and it was a very strange record to listen to in a club. It's unusual in that it has no kick drum, and in a similar way to how Simple ebbs and flows, it consists mainly of a metronomic ticking with a big kind of revving noise that sounds like an extremely angry engine getting started and then grinding to a halt again, along with hisses that sound like letting off steam. It was quite stunning actually in the club as it was being played when everyone was hyped up to a massive degree, and I think she followed it with the Boys Noize version of Justice's Phantom Part II which is an awesome, celebratory explosion of epic mid-range loudness. Roar is a perfect, simple distillation of what dance music, actual dance music you hear in a club rather than head-dance music, is all about. It's kind of like a Mondrian painting in musical terms. The simplest and most effective elements required, pared down to an elegantly minimal form. No embellishments but all the more striking for that.

I am such a nerd. I'm actually getting paid to sit here and write this. A winrar is me.