Electronic music producers come from all walks of life, bringing together a wide array of sounds to advance EDM as a concept.
Electronic music has come a long way from its beep-boop origins. Today, the genre is rich with versatility, an endless room for artists and EDM DJs to play.
It’s also advancing so quickly, it would be just as difficult to predict how the beats will sound in 2029 as how they will in 2050.
All we can really do is have an ear out for the unfamiliar. Experimentation by itself isn’t enough to turn the page of an artform. You can record yourself throwing horseshoes at potatoes all day and maybe add a little reverb, That’s definitely an experiment but no one will listen to it for you.
The best producers today combine a sense of play with a knack for knowing what makes the ear happy. Here’s a few of them.
Four Tet
The ‘Four’ in Four Tet indicates how many years into the future his music is, some say.
Four Tet combines organic instrumentation with warped synthesis, throwing raw atmospheric sounds into the mix at whim.
It’s hard to understand how such extra-dimensional content can be found in songs with pots and pans forming the percussive line, but Four Tet somehow pulls it off.
Caribou
Caribou found his way onto the fringe early in his career, occupying a solid spot in the emerging IDM scene of the late 90s/early 00s as Manitoba with his debut album “Start Breaking My Heart”.
Always pushing the envelope of what music can convey, Caribou has strung together a discography of work tied to no existing context except for the man himself.
His last LP, “Our Love”, saw him move further from syncopated rhythm into a clubby aesthetic, while still maintaining his signature air of wonder and unfiltered emotion.
Bonobo
If you haven’t heard Bonobo’s 2013 album “The North Borders” then… we’re very jealous that you’ll be experiencing it for the first time.
Seriously, go listen to that right now and get back here. Feel that soft warmth right around your frontal lobe? That’s now called the Bonobo lobe.
“The North Borders” is 58 minutes and 43 seconds of the sound two galaxies make when they sing to each other.
Bonobo is an alien monkey from the future here to give us all Bonobo lobes.
Actress
While Bonobo went to the colourful parts of space to get his sounds, Actress ventured way off-map, going into the outer reaches of the universe to find the dark matter essential to his brew.
His 2014 album “Ghettoville” is a painting of a place no one wants to live in, but is sure fun to look at from a distance.
There is really no album like it, and there’s no producer like Actress.
Jamie xx
No one knows what a Jamie xx song will sound like until they hear it. Even then, they’re not quite clear on what they’re hearing.
The man has no boundaries when it comes to the sounds he uses and how he layers them into a boom track.
Through his solo career, or his work in the band The xx, Jamie always has something new to say about electronic music.
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