Instruments and technology
10 tracks.
An electronic instrument that plays programmed drum patterns. Its machine-steady time and synthetic sounds became the foundation of hip-hop, house, techno and synth-pop.
Read more on WikipediaA late-1990s and early-2000s scene that fused 1980s electro, synth-pop and new wave with punk attitude, deadpan vocals and a taste for fashion and performance. It grew around labels such as International DeeJay Gigolo in Munich and clubs in New York, Berlin and Paris.
Music recorded with modest means, often at home, that keeps the marks of its making: room noise, simple equipment, imperfect takes. Lo-fi can be a necessity or a deliberate aesthetic, and many listeners hear it as more intimate than polished studio sound.
A steady kick drum on every beat of a 4/4 bar. It is the pulse of disco, house and most techno: the body always knows where the next beat lands, so everything else can move around it.
A drum machine released in 1980 whose booming kick, snappy snare and cowbell became some of the most used sounds in popular music, from electro and hip-hop to trap.
A device or program that records and plays back musical events in time, so a producer can program parts that repeat exactly.
An electronic instrument that generates sound from oscillators and shapes it with filters and envelopes. Synthesizers define the sound of electronic pop, house and techno.
Mount Sims
Cold machine rhythm and a detached croon from the American edition of Mount Sims' 2002 debut UltraSex, an electroclash meditation on being close to someone and still completely on your own.
Mount Sims
A night drive with the headlights off: grinding analogue bass, clipped drum machines and Mount Sims' cool, menacing croon from the darker side of electroclash.
Mount Sims
Deadpan vocals, buzzing analog synths and a drum machine with attitude: Good Service is Mount Sims serving early-2000s electroclash with a sly, suggestive grin.
Mount Sims
A smouldering piece of dark synth-pop that opens Mount Sims' 2004 album Wild Light: cold machines and a weary croon circle the remains of something that burned out long ago.
Michelle Gurevich
A slow, smoky synth ballad in which Michelle Gurevich's deadpan contralto toasts the giddy first months of a romance while already hearing the ending coming.
Jain
Jain's light, sing-song voice, her own drum programming and Yodelice's bass and trombone carry a small, sunny plea for a better world, the title track of her first EP in 2015.
Gorillaz, Neneh Cherry
A cold, clanking Gorillaz track from Demon Days where Damon Albarn's weary vocal and Neneh Cherry's spectral backing turn a nursery-rhyme melody into a quiet alarm about children and violence.
Codec & Flexor
Cold, pulsing analogue-style synths and a detached vocal make Codec & Flexor's electroclash-era club hit sound like a rave remembered through frosted glass.
Broken Back
Bright acoustic strumming over a gentle electronic beat, Broken Back's first single sounds like optimism earned the hard way.
Anthony Rother
A pulsating electro track from Anthony Rother's 2006 album Super Space Model on his own Datapunk label: machine rhythms, hard synthesizers and a chanted list of names that turns into the hook.
