In 1948, Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995) broadcast on Radio France a collection of five pieces entitled (in English) Concert Of Noises. He composed these works by manipulating everyday sounds recorded on magnetic tape. He utilized the tape techniques of reversing, speeding up, slowing down, and overdubbing in order to create experimental sound collages. He termed this type of music musique concrète (Ernst 3).

By the late 1950s, musique concrète techniques began to seep into rock music, gradually becoming a major influence in nearly every style of music up to today. In 1957 David Seville (1919-1972, born Ross Bagdasarian) and the Chipmunks used tape transpositions to create high-pitched, cartoon-like vocals (Ernst 132). The 1968 album White Album [Amazon.com, AllMusic.com] by the Beatles [Amazon.com, AllMusic.com] contains a concrète piece entitled "Revolution Number 9" (Shapiro 20). This technique, in fact, has come to nearly define two modern styles of popular music in particular: hip-hop and electronic dance music. Intelligent dance music may very well be the epitome of complex sound manipulation techniques.

Naturally, musique concrète has evolved to utilize new technology. For example, far more complex manipulative techniques are available to any artist today with a computer. For example, a contemporary classical concrète piece entitled Agoraphobia composed by the author of this paper using a computer is available for download here: Downloads. This work utilizes a number of pre-recorded sounds and concrète techniques. The feeling of agoraphobia (an abnormal fear of open or public places) is depicted aurally by complex textures of mostly recognizable pre-recorded sounds. Some of the source sounds that can be heard within the piece include applauding, crowd noises, coughing, a band warming up, clanging silverware, a radio tuning, and the composer's family singing "Happy Birthday" to him completely out of tune on his 21st birthday.

Karlheinz Stockhausen (b. 1928), was the first composer to realize a significant body of pure electronic music. He was thrust to the forefront with his experimentations of the 1950s, making him the primary figure of the post-war avant-garde (Prendergast 51-2). Branching into nearly every realm of the avant-garde through the use of electronics, Stockhausen's work has been a considerable influence to artists working in any style of electronic music. IDM composers strive to create sonic landscapes as striking and refreshing as this German composer's.

In the early 1970s, Krautrock was unleashed to the world. Groups like Can, Neu!, and Faust, released albums that were similar to the late-sixties acid rock scene but far more focused and minimalist (Shapiro 27). However, it was the group Kraftwerk who would turn out to be the ones to bridge the gap between rock and electronic dance music. Kraftwerk conjoined ideas of the minimalist and aleatoric classical composers (such as La Monte Young, John Cage and Steve Reich) with the work of avant-garde electronic classical composers (particularly Karlheinz Stockhausen). Their most well-known song, "Autobahn" (from the album Autobahn) is a twenty-four minute minimalist work filled with synthesizers, drum machine sounds, Beach Boys-influenced harmonies, and musique concrète sound effects derived from recordings of automobiles. Becoming a global hit in 1974, this work is clearly a precursor to techno (Shapiro 33-4). Through a number of other albums, Kraftwerk also influenced the beginnings of hip hop (Afrika Bambaataa used samples of Kraftwerk in his song "Planet Rock" from the album Planet Rock) (Shapiro 98-9), as well as the whole spectrum of electronic dance music. IDM artists today are notorious for being influenced by music that helped create modern electronic dance music, rather than modern electronic dance music itself. Kraftwerk is therefore a common influence.

By the late 1970's, electronic music contained hundreds of sub-genres and styles. Usually correlated to location, the different styles would often take some time before spreading abroad. This is primarily due to the fact that many artists experimenting with new styles would release their albums independently in their own city. For example, Juan Atkins and Rick Davis sold ten to fifteen thousand copies of their release "Cosmic Cars" in Detroit alone in 1982, one of the earliest independent releases of what would develop into the sub-genre techno (Shapiro 115). Many artists would DJ at parties, clubs, or raves, promoting their creations by playing/performing their own tracks. Gradually, larger labels began to see the growing interest and signed these different artists, releasing and promoting on a much larger scale. Artists from different parts of the world would hear these different styles and become influenced, drawing on different combinations of styles and mixing them with their own, ultimately creating new styles. Once the Internet became established and the world suddenly shrunk to the size of a pea, all possible stylistic influences were suddenly at the fingertips of artists across the world. Intelligent Dance Music may very well be the product of today's extremely small world because IDM artists draw on any and every musical style they happen to hear.

In the late 1980's primarily in Great Britain, the rave phenomenon was in full throttle. People would gather together in abandoned warehouses or on beaches. These gatherings may be best characterized as "drugs, dance music, the libertarian spirit of the eighties, collective nostalgia for the counter-cultural engagement of the sixties, and the casual hedonism of British kids looking for a buzz" (Shapiro 132). Artists writing electronic music for this scene would instinctively create sounds and samples designed to generate Pandemonium on the dancefloor when heard by ravers under the influence of various drugs (Shapiro 133). However, as far as the connections between drugs and electronic music, audiences were more often pulled toward particular styles depending on their drug of choice. For example, cocaine and marijuana users were naturally more attracted to the electronic sub-genre known as Jungle, which is a mix of Reggae, Hardcore Techno, Hip-Hop, soul and jazz that contains fragmented drum loops (Prendergast 371). Because of its nature, IDM was initially listened to by ravers who still craved aural stimulation but do not have the strength to physically dance to it anymore (Shapiro 172). The lack of physical release was compensated by the extremely cerebral and spiritual release generated by the music.

Drum and Bass is perhaps the final sub-genre the revolutionary line of IDM runs through before finally being called Intelligent Dance Music and existing as its own sub-genre. Jungle artists gradually began to experiment more and more with morphed drum sounds and disjunct rhythms. As the original sound of Jungle became more and more clouded over by strange sounds and complex rhythms, the term Drum and Bass replaced Jungle (Prendergast 371). As the experimentation and programming flashiness continued, the term Intelligent Drum and Bass was then used to describe this music (Shapiro 144). The song "Eviscerate" off of Squarepusher's Burning'n' Tree album is an example of Drum and Bass electronic music. The computer-morphed drum sounds function as the melodic material while the other sounds are more decorative. From Intelligent Drum and Bass, it was only a small step further out to enter a world just too different from the original Drum and Bass sound that it had to be called something else. The hazy beginnings of IDM are the result of that small step.

IDM artists, as stated before, draw from any and all influences, including non-musical ones. For example, Squarepusher created a micro-genre within Intelligent Drum and Bass called Drill and Bass because of his use of electric drill sounds in place of snare drum or other percussive instrument sounds. IDM artists are also notorious for using recordings of natural conversations. Scanner is one such artist. As he stated in an interview, "...when I came across the scanner device about five or six years ago, it was a means of entering a very vulnerable intimate space without somebody knowing, achieving the ability to actually find a very clear sound, a very clear signal, and hear people that were not aware they were being listened to so they would talk in a very comfortable and very easy way" (Shapiro 184). Electronic music has always attracted musicians because of how it lends itself to experimentation. Utilizing non-musical sounds and making them musical is a compositional technique only fully at the disposal of a composer working in the realm of electronic music. IDM artists take full advantage of those kinds of experimental capabilities.

Ironically, a lot of IDM music is created in the same place it is intended to be listened to: the bedroom. Many IDM artists have their own studio in their home. Squarepusher once said, "I just like the idea of getting out of bed and getting your breakfast, coming back and you're in the studio. You don't have to go down the road, you don't have to get on a bus to get to the studio. You are just there, it's hands-on straight away, you wake up in the middle of the night and do a track--that's what's revolutionized it for me" (Shapiro, 70). Again, this relates also to the extreme experimental flexibilities of electronic music. With studios in their own homes, IDM artists have the freedom to experiment whenever an idea hits them. With the advent of computers, a home studio is not very expensive to build up. In fact, the author of this paper has a considerable home studio capable of creating extremely complex music, all bought with money saved up from bartending. This allows intuition and experimentation to fully become a part of the compositional process, which clearly helps with the creation of Intelligent Dance Music tracks.

A plethora of extremely complex rhythms, sounds, and programming, Intelligent Dance Music continues to evolve. Because the concept behind it is to be as extremely complex and mind-blowing as possible while maintaining emotional and spiritual energy at the same time, it is possible that IDM may continue to exist as a sub-genre of electronic music for quite awhile. IDM is therefore a unique style of electronic music (actually, of all music) because of the fact that it is not necessarily defined by the way it sounds but how it functions.

Clearly, IDM has a varied and complex chronology. Today, many tracks which may be considered to be IDM tracks exist, yet there are very few timbral qualities that help define it--the music's function defines it, and IDM's function is to stimulate the brain cerebrally and spiritually (whether it is in addition to other mind stimulators or not). Now that IDM's chronology and influences are somewhat clearer, it is time to take a closer look at its musical characteristics