Ambient | IDM

Intelligent dance music (commonly IDM, also known as Ambient Techno) is a term that describes an electronic music genre that emerged in the early 1990s at the end of the British rave era. The genre is influenced by a wide range of musical styles particularly electronic dance music (EDM) such as Detroit Techno. Stylistically, IDM tends to rely upon individualistic experimentation rather than on a particular set of musical characteristics. At the beginning of the British rave era a number of UK based electronic musicians were inspired by the underground dance music of the time and started to explore experimental forms of EDM production. By the early 1990s the music associated with this experimentation had gained prominence with releases on a variety of record labels. By 1992 labels were marketing the musical output of the artists on their roster using the description electronic listening music, but this was quickly replaced by intelligent techno. In the same period (1992–93), other names were also used, such as armchair techno, ambient techno, and electronica, but all were attempts to describe an emerging offshoot of electronic dance music that was being enjoyed by the "sedentary and stay at home".