As I mentioned elsewhere I do believe that listening to IDM gives your brain a really good workout. They really focus your mind

Dance tracks have the 'loop', which your brain works out and recalls from its memory as you continue to listen to the tune.

IDM however constantly changes and usually there is no obvious loop. So here, your brain has to keep working to process what you're listening to. Would this explain why it's difficult to actually remeber any IDM tunes in the same way you would dance???

It's as if dance is for the brain to chill out to after a hard day of processing IDM

Devines "Come to Daddy" remix is my favourite for this.

just a a thought

nah it makes you a misfit with plenty of online pals and plenty of money invested on computers.

I don't think it's harder to remember IDM tunes than dance music, but I think both of those are ten times as hard to remember as music with vocals.

i like Phonem.

Online is where I talk about IDM. The main reason for this is that only a couple of people I know are actually even remotely into this music. Besides, it gets rid of the working day..

As to the original point...

As humans we are pattern recognition machines and we will naturally get frustrated if there is literally no pattern, which is generally why most people when they first hear venetian snares balk at it. This is why pop music is popular. It has a number of distinct patterns.

4/4 time
4 bars for each sequence
4,8,12,16 patterns of each sequence and then..

Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Verse, Chorus (possibly twice)

these are easily recognisable patterns which everyone knows from birth. Spotting patterns in IDM (which we will naturally try to do) is more difficult. Generally with IDM there is one melody which follows throughout and that's what you hang onto, but this isn't always the case. For example, and IDM tune may be..

7/8 time
5 bars for each sequence
3,7,11, patterns for each sequence and then...

whatever the composer chooses.

I feel creating patternless music is pretty much impossible as we are all human and to create something that we ourselves like (and if YOU don't like it, what are you doing forcing it on other people??) it will have to contain a pattern whether it be conscious or unconscious.

So yeah, IDM gives your brain a bit more of a workout.

so true it hurts hehe

this guy i work with claimed to be a drummer at one point in his youth (in a band that normally pulled in 2-3 thousand dollars a weekend). i sent him a video of my friends and i at a variety show and he comes back to me with 'well everyone seemed pretty good but your drummer sucked ass, he has no idea how to count he was all 8 then 10 then 8 then 10. there's no 10 in drumming! it's 4, 8, or 16'

at which point i realized that he was completely full of shit

as for idm brain workouts i think it depends on what side of the coin you're listening to wether it's the spazztic stuff or the more ambient style.

Ilhan Mimaroglu on IDM

Mehmet Dede (interviewer): Are you catching up with the latest developments in music, more specifically a variety of derivatives of modern electronic music such as IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) and Ambient whose creators cite Stockhausen, Cage and Glass as their influence?

IM: Leaving aside very many ballet scores of the past and the present (inclusive of electronic music for dance), which are indeed intelligent in various degrees, what I have been hearing all along in the field of dance music can be termed as MDM, moronic dance music, that is. As such, "intelligent dance music" is a typical contradiction in terms and its relevance to electronic music is beyond my comprehension.

Regarding the matter of pronouncing the names of those three composers in one breath, if I had tried to do that I would suffocate and spit out Philip Glass.

I'm not as scornful as this old master of electronic composition, but I do think a lot of IDM is oversold.

what do you mean by oversold?

I agree with what cage fanatic is saying.

A lot of IDM isn't actually intelligent at all and is just chillout music. Stuff like Arovane, while good is just good chillout music, it's not pushing any boundaries or trying anything new.

depends on what Arovane stuff you're talking about. i see now what he meant. i agree as well.