Chosen Words: Z is for Zang Tumb Tuum*

Despite my previous grumblings over the commercialisation of techno, there was a period when techno was quite publicly acceptable - and it can be summed up in three words: Zang Tuum Tumb*.

ZTT was a label that brought 808 State to massive acclaim, bringing us tracks like In Yer Face and Pacific State. By the time 808 State had released Don Solaris, we'd had brilliant techno crossovers from the Prodigy (XL Recordings) and Moby (Instinct Records).

And yes, this final post in the Chosen Words series is going to be serious, without any surreal aphorisms or digs at easy Bluntesque targets. That's because I'm worryingly evangelical about techno, IDM and electronica, but we now live in a mainstream music culture where the genre (and this blog) seem to waddle around the edges without getting its porky toes wet.

At the time of writing, there is a saviour in the form of dubstep's Magnetic Man. I Need Air gathered some serious radio play, while Mad would be the best single of 2010 if it hadn't been given away for free all over the internet.

But without the mad creativity of labels like ZTT (now reduced to re-releases of older stuff like Art Of Noise, it seems), there won't be swathes of the public that realise, yes, this music is actually quite good.

I once DJed at a wedding reception at a blizzard-buffeted Belfast castle, during which I played a whole set of Aphex Twin and Venetian Snares and the like. I was the main wedding reception DJ! About a tenth of the besuited attendees went running for the hills, but the number of positive comments I got afterwards from non-techno people (rockers, folkies and golden oldies) was quite incredible.

Embrace the electronicness, my friends. You can either start by browsing the 700+ labels further down the right-side of this blog (although there's plenty of, erm, non-electronica in there!), or you can keep your internet tuned to fatroland.com as I continue to puke my techno brain all over your metaphorical wedding shoes. And f'goodness sake, keep buying the music, won't you?

Top five Chosen Words posts:

- choose (geddit?!?!) for yourself: see the series in its entirety here.

* The two versions of the abbreviation are interchangeable.

Chosen Words: Y is Yokota

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of a 'Yokota' but may not know exactly what one is.

Possible definitions of the word, seen in this website's strapline "From AFX To Yokota" for quite some time, include any or all of the following:

A 'Yokota' is an organised crime syndicate operating out of Tokyo and sworn to defend, to the death, the reputation of Japanese car brand Toyota.

A 'Yakota' is a robot disguised as a hairy bovine populating the icy Himalayas, chewing the cud quietly until they rise up with the cows and enslave the world into a caste system based on the four stomachs of the holy god Ermintrude Out Of Magic Roundabout.

Or - and this could well be true - a 'Yokota' is Susumu Yokota. He is a much-overworked musician signed to the Leaf label and known for blending techno, eastern elements and samples. The Leaf label is, quite simply, one of the greatest record labels in the world, showcasing emotive instrumental music with a bent towards real instruments.

The two artists featured in this blog's strapline represent two elements of electronica: the digital (AFX, a.k.a. Aphex Twin) and the organic (Yokota and his Leaf contemporaries). Now you know.

Top five bestest Leaf artists:

- Murcof
- Susumu Yokota
- Four Tet
- Caribou
- Boom Bip

Chosen Words: X is for Xylem Tube

Xylem Tube was an EP by Aphex Twin and was the first single on which he used his distinctive logo.

The Cornish ambient electronic musican is arguably the most influential of his kind. Other Cornwall musicians include Tori Amos, Mick Fleetwood, Luke Vibert and Norwegian rock band Lordi (assuming Norway is in Cornwall; I'm pretty sure it is).

His music has been described as 'Cornish Acid', and several track titles on his Drukqs album are in the native language. Jynweythek Ylow means Electronic Machine Music, while Hy A Scullyas Lyf A Dhagrow is a reference to spilling a pint. I once spilled MC Tunes' pint, and I wish I'd known Cornish at the time.

The success of Aphex Twin begat a generation of bleep-heads. Boards of Canada reflect Aphex's ambience, Plaid have the melody, while the spikey beats have been developed by Venetian Snares, μ-Ziq and jazzy drum-mangler Squarepusher.

There has been much speculation as to the release of a new Aphex Twin album. Many suspect he has been busy secretly posing as James Blunt in a musical experiment on the shocking scale of Milli Vanilli.

Top five recommended Aphex Twin aliases:

- Polygon Window
- AFX
- The Tuss
- Caustic Window
- Bradley Strider

Chosen Words: W is for Warp (Obviously)

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Warp Records is a record label more renowned than any other in the field of electronic music.

Its cold techno quickly found an audience when Tricky Disco and LFO scored chart hits. At the same time, dance music was going through a renaissance with Snap, Adamski and Timmy Mallett shifting major units.

Artificial Intelligence, Surfing On Sine Waves and Bytes were key albums in those days. Many people expected more computer-related album titles, like PC World Are Shite, What's The Point Of NumLock and My Screen Has Turned Sideways Can You Help Me Wikianswers.

Warp used to be based in Sheffield back in the Victorian days, but moved to London when the bleeps from the music kept getting tangled in the chimney smoke. What they should have realised was chimneys are an ideal shape for the extensive storage of vinyl records.

Warp is an 'backronym', which means 'Warp' later became an acronym for any one of the following phrases: We Are Reasonable People, We Are Rubbish Philatelists and Westlife Abducted Ronan's Pet.

While the electronic sound was taken up by labels such as Rephlex and Planet Mu, Warp itself recently discovered the guitar. Recalling the colour of its early record sleeves, the label is now going through a pretty impressive purple patch: check its latest releases here.

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: V is for Väth

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Without Sven Väth, we may not have an amazingly rich history of European trance and techno.

Väth arrived on the scene with the seminal Accident In Paradise in the early 1990s, an album which combined ambience, hard trance and the harpsichord. No, really.

He also brought us techno label Harthouse and trance specialist Eye Q. These imprints included artists Freddy Fresh, Hardfloor and Energy 52. Eye Q has a television spin-off, a quiz show about hardcore trance called Q Eye.

It is important be able to to pronounce and type Sven Väth's surname. Väth rhymes with 'fate'. If you press Alt then 1 3 2 on your keypad, you not only produce an 'ä', Sven also appears like a magical genie and will perform an a capella of any techno track for you.

Sven Väth has been imortalised in pop hits such as Sven Will I Be Famous, That Was Sven But This Is Now and the memorable I Knew You Were Väthing For Me.

Top five puns that didn't make this post:

- Goodness gracious, Väth balls of fire
- My Harthouse will go on
- Eye Q you were waiting for me
- Trance For The Memory (Wham Bam Thank You Mam)
- no, no, no, no, don't phunk with my harpsichord

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: U is for Underworld

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

POST MODERN POST MODERN UNDERWORLD SPACEBOY DUB NO BASS WITH MY HEAD MAN SHOUTY SHOUTY MUSIC MANS.

FREUR SO EIGHTIES SO HYDE AND SMITH GO NINETIES UNDER WORLD GO BUST BUT LONG HAIR HIPPY MAN EMERSON REINVENTS THE SOUND RAZOR SHARP INTERRUPTED LEMON COLOUR INSIDE THE LINES FOR TOMATO TOMATO DIRTY TOMATO.

DUB NO BASS WITH MY HEAD MAN LOVES A SKYSCRAPER I WANNA GIVE YOU EVERYTHING EVERYTHING EVERYTHING SPOONMAN GETS HIS KICKS ON SPOONMAN CHANNEL SIX AND THE REZ GOES LOUDER AND LOUDER GOODBYE MOTHER EARTTTTTHTHHHHHH.

CHOOSE LAGER CHOOSE TRAINSPOTTING A BEAUTIFUL FRIDGE AND THE SECOND TOUGHEST HIT IN THE CHARTS WITH THE YELLOW MAN FURRY HAT TOO MUCH LAGER MAN HYDE. MEGA MEGA WHITE FISH PUSHED SNAKE DOWNSTAIRS ON A HUNDRED DAYS OFF FOR EMERSON THEN OBLIVION CALLS OBLIVION WITH BELLS ON.

TWENTY TEN NO BASS WITH MY ALBUM MAN MUST BE BARKING HIGH CONTRAST SCRIBBLES THE FUTURE AND IF ALL OF THIS MAKES NO BLOODY SENSE, YOU'D BETTER START LISTENING TO UNDERWORLD BECAUSE THEY'RE ONE OF THE BEST BANDS EVER.

Top five Underworld hit singles:

- Born Slippy (Nuxx), #2 in 1996 (that one with the "lager, lager")
- Push Upstairs, #12 in 1999 (great glass-smashy bit in the video)
- Two Months Off, #12 in 2002 (possibly their housiest single)
- King Of Snake, #17 in 1999 (what I call their Donna Summer rhythm)
- Pearl's Girl, #22 in 1999 (a.k.a. the "water on concrete" track... when I scratched my Second Toughest In The Infants CD, this was the one track that skipped all the time)

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: T is for 242

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Front 242 were my first introduction to a more industrial side of electronic music.

They were an example of EBM (Electronic Body Music), and indeed their releases No Comment and Tyranny For You could be seen as bookending the popularity of the genre.

EBM rose from the industrial movement, which is still propogated by the likes of Einstürzende Neubauten, Nine Inch Nails and Nurse With Wound. That scene took much of its feel from the darker side of human nature. It's for this reason I'm surprised Simon Cowell isn't the world's leading industrial musician.

EBM was known for its primitive beats, barked vocals and electronic repetition. Basically, imagine Mark E Smith if he'd become part-android, doubled the amout of fags he was smoking, then began recording inside a metal pipe.

I came late to EBM. In fact, too late: my first introduction was Front 242's twin albums 06:21:03:11 UP EVIL and 05:22:09:12 OFF. You can only understand those titles if you use the A=1, B=2 code.

I was too busy listening to 18:09:03:08:01:18:04 03:12:01:25:04:18:13:01:14 at the time. Tragic, really.

Top five sexiest industrial or post-industrial band names:

- Android Lust
- SPK (Surgical Penis Klinik)
- Thobbing Gristle
- Armageddon Dildos
- Revolting Cocks

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: S is for Smokers

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

'Smoker's beats' is a loose term referring to the blunted hip hop movement of the 1990s.

The likes of DJ Food, Dr Octogan, Nightmares On Wax and UNKLE brought a rough-edged urban instrumentalism to the masses, where hip hop seemed to swap its guns for a big fat doobie.

The most important record label at this time was Mo'Wax, founded by UNKLE mainman James Lavelle. The label was named after his extensive scented candle collection. Maybe.

Entroducing... by DJ Shadow is an album made entirely of samples. The cover design depicts people browsing in a record shop, and if you look closely, you can see one of those records in the photo is Entroducing... which in turn depicts people browsing in a record shop, one record being Entroducing..., which in turn depicts - and so on.

This kind of existentialism is not healthy when smoking a big fat doobie.

The smoker's beats legacy lives on, although now its producers have to make the music outside the door of a pub in the rain.

Top five nicknames for cannabis / spliffs:

- Mary Jane
- Fatty boombatty
- Bing bang bong
- Slappy ting tong
- Ooo diddly doobie dong fiddly diddly doop
- I'm making these up, clearly

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: R is for Rhythm

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Natter in the comments section on my previous post leads me nicely to a slightly important element of electronic music: rhythm.

Rhythm in music is probably the one thing that separates modern generations from those that lived through the age of the whinging crooner and all that screechy violin stuff they call "classical".

You can tell rhythm has become more popular from a simple statistic: there were more hit singles with 'rhythm' in the title in the 1990s than there had been in the entire history of chart music. The same is true for the words 'sexy', 'fat' and 'roland' (probably).

Drum machines helped bring repetitive beats to the forefront of modern music. A notable drum machine is the Rhythm Ace, which was distributed by Bentley pianos. The combination of Bentley and Rhythm Ace gave rise to an influential big beat collective called Midfield General. No. Fatboy Slim. Wait. Um... Chemical Brothers? I forget.

The Roland TR-808 was a crappy sounding drum machine that rose, Cinderella style, to claim an affectionate place in pumpkin-- er-- music history. Its fake, electronic sounds were as similar to real drums as Scouting For Girls are to real music.

The rise of the drum machine and the endless thirst for rhythm has lead to a two-word phrase that strikes fear in the heart of any responsible music fan: "more cowbell". You see? The 1994 Criminal Justice Bill was right after all.

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: Q is for Queen

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Yes, that Queen. The prancing dead bloke with the moustache and the chest. The asteroid-explosion-haired guitarist. Yeah, Queen.

Because Queen started something. Or rather, Vanilla Ice started it when he stole *that* bassline from Queen and Bowie's Under Pressure for his 1990 hit Ice Ice Baby.

The age of the sampler truly arrived with that record. It used to be the preserve of novelty acts or one-hit wonders (MARRS, Jive Bunny, Black Box). Subsequent massive hits by Enigma and the KLF dragged the technology kicking and st-st-stuttering into the trendy mainstream.

The subsequent controversy over Vanilla Ice blatantly stealing his sample was a spooky omen of many troubled arguments about what can be nicked and what counts as digital theft and "what, is that Loleatta Holloway, AGAIN?!"

When a doctor asks you for a urine sample, use the container provided: weeing into your Akai will not impress the NHS. Take heed 'cause I'm a lyrical poet.

Top five examples of sampling going too far:

- Jive Bunny
- funky drummer / amen break
- Scooter (pot) sampling the KLF (kettle)
- advertisers using cut-up techniques because it's "urban" or "street"
- every Puff Daddy and Kanye West chorus ever

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: P is for Personality (Lack Thereof)

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Personalities are an anathema to quality electronic music.

Faceless nobodies are what keeps techno and electronica going. Many artists use multiple recording names and minimal artwork to ensure anonymity.

Throughout musical history, artists have hidden behind many things: face masks (Altern8), cars (KLF), lack of lighting (Autechre), guest MCs (LTJ Bukem), industrial dystopia (Front 242), headlamps (Orbital) and virgin sacrifice (Royksopp (probably)).

Electronic music producers know personality can get in the way. Just look at Moby. No, seriously, look at him. He's there in the corner eating the boiled potatoes he's had in his pockets for the last six weeks. Tragedy, really.

You wouldn't recognise Luke Slater from Luke Vibert even if you bumped into them in a sauna and they showed you their tattoos with their names on. This is good. Anonymity lends techno, IDM and electronic experimentalism an aura of mystery and exclusivity.

When in fact, there's no enigma at all. It's just a musical land populated by nobodies who don't have the social dexterity to become "personalities" because they've spent far too much of their life sweating over a bassline for fourteen hours at a time in cluttered, dust-filled bedroom studios.

And thank goodness for that because from lonely obsession, great bleeps are made.

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: O is for Orbs

Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Orbs and things which are circular are surprisingly common in electronic music.

The Orb started the globular thing when they formed in the 1980s. Their name suggested something new-agey and modern.

Orbital ran with the circular theme, with their talk of loops (or "loopz") and their sampling of Opus III's It's A Fine Day (her with the impressive orb control from Top Of The Pops).

Impressive pendulums have also included William Orbit, Cosmic Baby's Loops Of Infinity, the logo for Warp Records, 'Loops Of Fury', the name Biosphere - the circular theme goes round and round throughout history.

In electronic music, you'd do well to harness the wonders of the ball shape: of planets, of atoms, of pills, of records, of mother earth, of huge ever-growing pulsating brains.

Which doesn't for one moment explain Squarepusher, the contrary git.

Top five musicians with the roundest heads:

- Phil from Orbital
- Brian Eno
- Cee-Lo
- basically, anyone bald
- not Squarepusher

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: N is for Nintendo

formerly known as the World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Where was I?

Video games and electronic music are as inextricably linked as Justin Biebpipe and scurvy.

The link is most prevalent in the phenomenon of 8 bit, or chiptune, which is music designed to sound like it has been produced by computers or game consoles from the 1980s.

This musical movement draws on nostalgia for old Nintendo theme music, including the themes from Super Mario Bros (for the NES) and Tetris (for the Nintendo Gameboy). There are other old games systems by different companies, but no-one is arsed about them any more.

Modern computer game music might be forgettable tosh, but it will return with a futurist 8-bit style revival in the year 2027 in a movement to be known as '60 gigabyte'.

The most successful proponent of 8 bit in the charts is, well, no-one. Crystal Castles come close, but they've as much chance of having a crossover hit as Justin Biebpipe has of getting to his 18th birthday without the inevitable stomach pump / rehab sesh / involuntary euthanasia by public vote.

Top five non-computer based games:

- backgammon
- reverse backgammon
- strip backgammon
- backgammon roulette, with real guns
- a massive argument over backgammon in which the board is shredded and we fire up the PS3 instead

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Hiatus

And Chosen Words was going so well.

Due to a brief errand at Manchester Royal Infirmary turning into a six-day hospital stay and an operation to amputate a bit of my insides, this blog has stopped.

It will start again as soon as I've attached the jump-leads of recovery to my poorly self. For a few more days, dear blog reader, I need to rest and get better again.

Chosen Words: M is for Moog

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Bob Moog is the most famous synthesizer manufacturer ever.

The likes of Korg and Roland made hugely popular keyboards, especially Roland's accidental foray into the acid sound. But it is Moog's analogue machines that are respected above all.

If you want to lie to impress techie music geeks, just tell them you've got a Moog. The most famous of the Moog synths was the influential Minimoog, which was like Mini-Me but less bald and more, um, synthesizery.

Many people argue about the benefits of analogue versus digital. Do you want old, fuzzy warmth or clean, crisp shallowness? Ale or Alcopops? Morecambe and Wise or Ant and Dec? David Bellamy or Chris Packham?

It's a facile debate: this "digital" thing is just a fad and we'll all have forgotten that word by 2015.

When raving about Bob Moog and his synths, it is important you pronounce his name correctly. It is right, and only right, to use the Anglo-German pronunciation: "Bobe".

"Moog" should be articulated as if it has fifteen letter Os.

Moog constructed his own theremin as early as 1949. His wife Shirleigh bet him he wouldn't finish it by 8pm. She was clearly wrong.

Top five Moog-users:

- The Beatles
- Clockwork Orange soundtrack
- Gary Numan
- Kraftwerk
- Bob Moog. Obviously. DUH.

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: L is for LuckyMe

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

LuckyMe is a Scottish collective producing an increasingly popular style of hip hop / electronic beats.

It includes laser-rockers American Men, and Mike Slott and Rustie. Although Rustie looks 12, his musical brain is more ancient and advanced than sound itself.

Hudson Mohawke, a former champion DJ, is the most well-known artist in LuckyMe. He signed to Warp Records where he released his debut album Butter. If his next couple of albums are called Bread and Wafer Thin Ham, he could one day have a sandwich.

This is the first Glaswegian music scene since the heady days of the Del Amitri Collective, whereupon men with sideburns whined about nothing much happening whilst simultaneously bleeding the joy out of all known music.

The LuckyMe sound fills the gap left by a distinctly unprolific Aphex Twin, although when the 'phex does produce another album, there would be ructions. It'd be the Cornish rebellion of 1497 all over again.

If Aphex Twin and the whole LuckyMe collective had a fight, Aphex Twin would win because he'd do what that creature did to the old lady in the Come To Daddy video.

Top five dullest artists or bands from Glasgow:

- Travis
- Mark Knopfler
- Paolo Nutini
- Darius
- That woman from Fairground Attraction
- Gun
- Snow Patrol
- Wet Wet Wet
- Texas
- This was meant to be a top five, right...?

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: K is for Kling Klang

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Kling Klang ("ringing sound") was the name of the recording studio set up by Kraftwerk in Düsseldorf in 1970.

The band retained creative independence by converting a workshop over several years into a fully-functioning studio, complete with home-made instruments. Famously, they would not accept visitors and wouldn't even answer the phone.

It took a lot of effort in those days to experiment: the tape manipulation methods of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, for example. These days, studioheads double-click a big purple button marked 'experimental'.

Kraftwerk's influence extends beyond the likes of New Order, Afrika Bambaataa and OMD: the Peatbog Faeries released an album called Croftwork, Senor Coconut is an (excellent) Latin American Kraftwerk tribute guy, while Simple Minds love playing Neon Lights live. I wish that last fact was a joke, but it's not.

Kraftwerk's producer Conny Plank went on to be in Cluster and Moebius And Plank, both significant pre-runners to modern electronica. And he's called Plank. Seriously. Coolest producer ever. He was Marlene Dietrich's soundman for crap's sake.

Plank rocks. He engineered Brian Eno. That's like God begatting God. Yeah, screw Kraftwerk. Plank is where it's at. I can't even believe I started writing about Kraftwerk. Jeez.

Top five bands that you wouldn't expect to record Kraftwerk covers but they did, honestly they did:

- Simple Minds
- Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
- Terrorvision
- Ride
- The Cardigans

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: J is for Juan Atkins

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

Juan Atkins and his chums in the Detroit techno scene are true pioneers of electronic music.

Atkins, Kevin Saunderson and Derrick 'Strings Of Life' May experimented with early synthesisers and, inspired by the likes of Parliament and Kraftwerk, came up with soulful electro that took the world by storm.

The closest the UK has had to a Detroit scene is in Sheffield, the birthplace of Warp Records and home of a number of scowling eighties synth pop bands. The violence of the mid-80s Detroit club scene, however, was imported to the UK by Manchester.

It is not known if Juan Atkins has ever been to Sheffield, although he had success under the recording name of Model 500, while Sheffield still has lots of Fiat 500s, so YOU do the math.

Atkins' first synthesiser was a Korg MS10, a chunky two-and-a-half octave knob-tweaky machine that, by night, morphed into a nine-legged cybertronic monster that raped wall sockets and stroked kittens to death.*

*[citation needed]

Top five calamities for which Juan Atkins and his mates are responsible:

- Endless crappy house versions of Strings Of Life
- the acceptance of jazz into the electronic underground
- Balearic
- 2 Unlimited
- the Atkins diet (probably)

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: I is for Intelligent

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

IDM stands for 'Intelligent Dance Music', a phrase adopted to describe music produced by Aphex Twin and his contemporaries.

The 'intelligent' reference meant this was dance music that didn't just appeal to the feet: it affected the brain, the heart and lesser organs such as the spleen.

Some tracks released under the wide umbrella of Intelligent Dance Music include Venetian Snares' Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole, Chris Clark's Nostalgic Oblong and Kid606's thirty-second composition Dramatic Pause Of Silence To Signify The End Of The Album And Beginning Of Additional Songs Included On The CD To Make People Feel Better About Buying The CD Instead Of The Vinyl Version.

It could be said that not all IDM is intelligent.

IDM is not the only description for this particular form of electronic music. It is also known as the anatomically-startling 'braindance' and as 'techno' and as 'that bloody noise again, will someone shoot the drummer for crap's sake'.

Top five IDM pioneers:

- Richard D James
- Kirk Degiorgio
- The Black Dog
- Richard H Kirk
- Bay City Rollers (their blue period)

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.

Chosen Words: H is for House

a.k.a. World Cup Distraction Exercise: Fat Roland's A-Z guide to the most important words or phrases in electronica and their associated "facts"

House music exists because it is easy for DJs to mix.

House has often dominated dance music because it is a massive genre encompassing Josh Wink, Donna Summer, Deadmau5, Urban Cookie Collective, Tiësto and M People.

Some people say it was invented by Hugh Laurie when he realised his medical career was going nowhere. Some people say it died when Doop got to number one, although they did everyone a favour when they knocked Mariah Carey off the top spot.

Trance and acid house are good versions of house music, although the likes of Daft Punk, Justice and, more recently, Dam-Funk have reclaimed the mainstream genre for greater good.

According to Official Chart Company regulations section 47 paragraph 973, it is compulsory to have a house remix on your single.

Top five house music rhymes:

- Dmitri From Paris / Calvin Harris
- 808 State / Sven Väth
- K-Klass / Timo Mass
- Black Box / Carl Cox
- Anything ending in "Project" tends to rhyme with other things ending in "Project" and believe me there are a lot of them

For more Chosen Words, click the tag at the bottom of this post.