IDM
The 8 Best IDM
Tracks of All Time
Techno rebuilt for headphones. British producers in the early nineties kept the machines and abandoned the dancefloor's obligations, treating rhythm as a place to put ideas rather than as a service to a room.
- Origin
- Sheffield and Cornwall, England, 1992
- Tempo
- 90–170 BPM
- Also known as
- intelligent dance music, braindance, electronic listening music, warp
- Tracks
- 8
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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Number 1: Aphex Twin / Didgeridoo
1992 · R&S
Made, by his account, to clear a rave floor of people who would not go home. It is far too fast and far too hostile, and it announced that this music was going to be about one person's judgement.
Number 3: Boards of Canada / Roygbiv
1998 · Warp
Two minutes of detuned warmth that has been imitated for twenty-five years without once being equalled. The whole nostalgic strand of electronic music descends from this specific tape hiss.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred, Warp
Number 4: Aphex Twin / Windowlicker
1999 · Warp
An R&B pastiche with the vocal processed into something inhuman, sold as a pop single. James proves he can do the thing he is refusing to do, which is the only way that refusal is worth anything.
Also on The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred, Warp
Number 5: Squarepusher / Come On My Selector
1997 · Warp
Tom Jenkinson plays a jazz bass over drum programming that has visibly lost its mind. Ridiculous, virtuosic, and the funniest record in a genre not otherwise known for jokes.
Also on Warp
Number 6: Autechre / Gantz Graf
2002 · Warp
Rhythm dissolved into texture and then reassembled, at a level of detail that only makes sense on headphones. The furthest this music travelled from the drum machine it started on.
Also on Warp
Number 8: µ-Ziq / Hasty Boom Alert
1997 · Planet Mu
Mike Paradinas puts a genuinely beautiful melody over drum programming designed to trip over itself. The tension between the two is the whole appeal, and few people have managed it since.