Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (Warp, 1992) compiled Aphex Twin (as The Dice Man), Autechre, Black Dog, B12, and the Future Sound of London under the label “electronic listening music” — and in doing so named a genre that the music industry called IDM: intelligent dance music.

Warp’s co-founder Steve Beckett explained the reasoning plainly: “We’d seen from running the shop how dance labels had about a year of being on top. We were determined that wasn’t gonna happen to us. The only way to avoid it was to get more artist-oriented and album-oriented.” The “intelligent” branding was partly a business model — a pivot from singles culture to album culture so Warp could survive past the typical 12-month lifespan of a dance label. Whether it was also a genuine aesthetic statement or a claim that some electronic music was more serious than other electronic music is a question the genre spent the following decade debating without resolution.

Artificial Intelligence alongside the Joker, the Jeff Mills, the Sandwell District — the art-techno and the hardcore, the argument open.