Electronic

Prior to the release of his third album, Float, on October 6, avant-electronic mystery man Slow Magic gets us into the autumnal spirit with this mix he created for The Dowsers. "These are songs Ive been listening to lately that capture the feeling of the season changing from summer to fall," he says. "Im always intrigued how the same song can sound and feel completely different as the weather starts to adjust and catch you off guard."

When we think of the truly transformative albums in pop history—those rare records that clearly mark a line between “before” and “after”—they tend to herald a seismic moment in musical innovation (Sgt. Pepper’s), generational upheaval (Nevermind), or social unrest (To Pimp a Butterfly). But in its own subtle, sophisticated way, Air’s 1998 Moon Safari belongs to this class of game-changing albums. Appearing at the tail end of the ‘90s alterna-boom, it signalled a 180-degree shift away from indie-rock’s lo-fi, thrift-store aesthetic into the sort of plush, expansive sound that demanded attentive listening in leather easy chairs and through expensive stereos. It was an album that made once-verboten guilty pleasures——’70s prog-rock, lush vocoderized disco, easy-listening exotica——innocent again, while firmly entrenching the seductive symphonic funk of Serge Gainbourg in the indie lexicon alongside rickety Velvet Underground rhythms and Sonic Youthian discord. And for better or worse, Moon Safari codified the concept of the bistro album, supplying the finest audio wallpaper to exposed-brick, Edison-bulbed eateries around the world. When you consider indie-rock’s transformation from scrappy, DIY artform to commerical sync-license gold in the 21st century, you can’t discount Moon Safari’s aspirational influence and affluence.This playlist hones in on its immediate moment of impact. In the wake of Moon Safari, guitar-oriented acts like Radiohead and The Flaming Lips refashioned themselves as studio scientists to pursue sounds both more elegant and experimental. Daft Punk’s heavy-duty house began exhibiting a more pronounced ‘70s soft-rock flavor. And you couldnt swing a rolled-up shag carpet without hitting an upstart downtempo duo like Röyksopp, Arling & Cameron, Lemon Jelly and Thievery Corporation. And in Zero 7, you had the more pop-oriented successor that took Air’s retro-futurist soundscapes into the mainstream. With Moon Safari turning 20 this month, let’s bask in its lunar eclipse.

As LCD Soundsystem release their fourth studio album American Dream, fans owe more than a little gratitude to David Bowie. Indeed, James Murphy has been quick to give the late rock icon credit for encouraging him to reactivate the band six years after their 2010 Madison Square Garden swansong, an action-packed evening that was documented both in the Shut Up and Play the Hits documentary and the live album The Long Goodbye. Murphy had gotten close to Bowie during the singer’s last years and even collaborated with him musically, doing a sterling remix of “Love Is Lost” from The Next Day and performing percussion on two songs on Blackstar. Unsurprisingly, LCD Soundsystem’s performance of “Heroes”—one of Murphy’s favorite songs from long before he had his own coffee brand—was the most poignant moment at their Coachella reboot in 2016.That deep connection between sadly missed master and studious acolyte may explain why American Dream—an alternately moody, anthemic, inspirational, cranky, and expansive masterwork if there ever was one—sounds like it could’ve fit into Bowie’s own back catalog. If you’re looking for a precise location, it’d be between Low and Lodger, the point in Bowie’s Berlin tenure when he shifted from Krautrock- and Kraftwerk-influenced experimentalism into a harder rock and dance sensibility. Yet the most Bowie-esque element of the new album is its adventurous spirit, something that’s continually been part of the LCD Soundsystem aesthetic as Murphy refined and extended the hallmarks first heard in the dance-punk moment of early-‘00s New York.Of course, a whole lot has changed since then, and American Dream reflects the shifts that have gone on not just in Murphy’s life and career, but those of his bandmates, too. Many of the album’s most exciting moments point to the influence of the other musical activities of the LCD membership, whether it’s the brooding electro-pop of drummer Pat Mahoney’s band Museum of Love, the continuing dancefloor adventures of Nancy Whang and John MacLean in The Juan MacLean, the edgy post-DFA tech-funk of artists on Tyler Pope’s Interference Pattern label, or the sprightly synth-pop Al Doyle makes with Hot Chip. Likewise, there are traces of the music that fills Murphy’s DJ sets on his own or with Soulwax as Despacio (e.g., Telex, Suicide, The Cars) or his scores for the films of his pal Noah Baumbach, along with hints of his other recent musical obsessions like The Roches, the art-pop sister act revered for their intricate and intertwined vocal harmonies.So all of this belongs alongside Murphy’s cherished Bowie/Eno-isms in our exploded view of American Dream, a work whose creative vision and generosity are as wide as such a title demands.

It’s a sign of the accelerated times we’re living in that a subculture as specific to Chicago as footwork has already mutated into an unfurling landscape of electronic producers all over the world. The genre has come a long way from its dance-off roots and, with each passing year its hyperactive DIY ethos seems to evolve further and further, splintering into separate factions that each take a different approach to footwork’s simple and freeing framework.The footwork sound is one of those magical things that’s hard to put precisely into words, but whether it’s in the scattered bass pulses of RP Boo (pictured), the schizophrenic loop madness of Foodman, or the cascading drum samples of Jlin, you just know it when you hear it. So take a stroll through our collection of the various faces representing footwork today, and see just how many different ways there are to move.

They said it would never last—back in the early ’80s, when synth-pop came in vogue, short-sighted detractors deemed it a fad and predicted it would have a short shelf life. Nearly four decades later, history has told a very different story: Not only were the original wave of synth-poppers succeeded by new generations of electronic artists, there are still plenty of old-schoolers still hanging on and plugging in, proving that you’re never too old for synth-pop.Gary Numan was one of the first performers to bring synths to the fore in the post-punk era, and even as he edges toward sexagenarian status, he hasn’t compromised his musical vision one iota. When Depeche Mode started turning heads, they were callow youths with some upstart ideas. But as the elder statesmen of electronic pop today, they’ve become one of the most influential bands of their generation.As the ‘80s marched on, the likes of Erasure (including former Depeche Mode man Vince Clarke) and Pet Shop Boys popped up, adding a more danceable feel to the synth-pop canon. Back then, nobody guessed that these groups would take their sound into the 2010s, but here we are.However, you don’t have to be a superstar to stick around in the synth-pop realm. British duo Blancmange never really made it past cult-hero status back in the day, but that didn’t stop them from releasing a string of new albums starting in 2011. After he split from Ultravox at the end of the ‘70s, John Foxx took an innovative, and ultimately underground, path into electronic sounds, but his absence from the spotlight hasn’t hurt his artistic longevity one bit.These are the synth-pop survivors—the artists who firmly planted their feet into new musical ground long ago and never let their electronic dreams die out.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

The party line is that electronics first entered the rock realm via prog rock in the early to mid ‘70s, but in fact, synthesizers were already on the scene when a psychedelic haze was still hanging in the air. Though The Monkees were often derided as prefab pop stars, they were actually the first to employ synths in a mainstream rock context, using one of the earliest Moogs on two of their trippier tracks, “Daily Nightly” and “Star Collector.” The Beatles got their licks in as well, from the big fat synth tones on “Because” to the screeching, Moog-generated white noise that builds up in the coda of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” Even the blues-rooted Stones took an electronically assisted sojourn into outer space with “2000 Light Years From Home.” Of course, there were plenty of underground acts incorporating synths into their sound, from the Velvet Underground-goes-electronic vibe of the United States of America to the visionary Silver Apples and their homemade gear. It was an era when anything seemed possible; actor/singer Anthony Newley even teamed up with Dr. Who composer Delia Derbyshire for what was probably the first (and freakiest for its time) electronic pop song, “Moogies Bloogies.” Ultimately, all the aforementioned artists were innovators in electronic rock. With the counterculture in ascendance, the sky wasn’t the limit — the stars were. -- Jim Allen

Miami has a long history of hip-hop dating back to the days of 2 Live Crew, and for the past decade, the scene’s two most famous exports have been Rick Ross and Pitbull. They worked together early in their careers on DJ Khaled posse cuts and have since diverged down parallel paths. With Ross’s ninth album Rather You Than Me and Pitbull’s 10th album Climate Change, both out in March 2017, the two rappers continue to represent Miami on a major level in very different ways.Rick Ross is a self-styled kingpin in the tradition of rappers like The Notorious B.I.G. and JAY Z, rapping from the perspective of a crime boss—wealthy but embattled. Slow, cruising beats —like the one provided by Miami duo The Runners on “Hustlin’”—brought him fame, and he helped bring the abrasive trap sounds of Lex Luger to the mainstream with 2010’s “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast).” He’s never had a top 10 solo hit, but five of his albums have topped the Billboard 200, and he’s revered for his ear for production and his consistently enjoyable albums.Pitbull is “Mr. Worldwide,” a Cuban American rapper who can start a party with any kind of beat. He rode the way of mentor Lil Jon’s crunk movement with his early hits, but he quickly expanded his sound by rapping over dancehall, reggaeton, pop, and EDM tracks. Only two of his albums have charted in the top 10 of the Billboard 200, but his singles are a perennial fixture on the Hot 100, including No. 1s “Give Me Everything” and “Timber.”But for all their differences, Rick Ross and Pitbull have traveled similar career arcs. After warming the bench for long-running Southern rap labels Suave House and Slip-n-Slide in the early 2000s, Rick Ross took charge of his career by signing with Def Jam. He eventually launched his own successful label, Maybach Music Group, and has branched off into owning restaurants. Pitbull survived the collapse of his first label, TVT, before thriving on Sony with his own Mr. 305 imprint. But as you’ll hear in this playlist of contrasting cuts, both are openly influenced by their city’s homegrown Miami bass sound, and both have had hits with some of the same collaborators, including T-Pain and Ne-Yo.

Philip is consistently one of my favorite music writers and he proves why with this excellent look at the artists and tracks that influenced a key track from Jamie XXs new collection, In Colour. Four Tet, Burial and Lone are all clear influences, but (relatively) obscure artists such as IVVVO and WK7 make this playlist enjoyable. Be sure to also read Philips excellent profile of Jamie XX in Pitchfork

By the early 90s, Brian Eno’s cachet was at its apex. I caught up to him the year he did more than produce U2’s best album, Zooropa: I discovered Low, “Heroes,” and Lodger, found a Nice Price cassette version of Another Green World, and bought James’ Laid. Then Roxy Music beckoned. Eno was right, as usual: Roxy recorded its best music upon his departure. Through four wonderful vocal albums—unmatched in their admixture of formal invention and gonzo humor—and a beguiling series of collaborations with Robert Fripp, Cluster, Harold Budd, John Cale, and others, Eno has approached rock with a dilettante’s amateurish glee and a sophisticate’s subtlety, bound only by the limits of his curiosity.So vast as to seem forbidding, his catalog is full of unexpected diversions, uneven by definition. I rank his 1990 Cale collaborationWrong Way Up with Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) and Before and After Science but find the Jon Hassell co-recording Fourth World, Volume 1: Possible Musics a vaporous bore, while Discreet Music and Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks are never far away from my stereo, notably around bedtime.I’m happy with my list: a compulsive miscellany. The songs include the collaborations mentioned above, plus a couple excellent ones from David Bowie’s Outside and a standout from his second Karl Hyde project. The differences between “songs” and “collaborations” is elastic though.Visit our affiliate/partner site Humanizing the Vacuum for great lists, commentary, and more.

Though electronic music nostalgia continues unabated, its a little difficult to swallow that Exit Planet Dust is 21. Upon its release in 1995, it sounded like the future. Listening to it in 2015, it shows its age. The breaks, in particular, sound dated, a relic of an era that were a little more forgiving to snares, while the sound affects, with their channel-panning flares, sound quant and a little contrived. With that said, the Chemical Brothers remain the innovators of modern popular electronic music. They were the among the first ones to successfully shoehorn the freeform, experimental trax-sound of early electronic into the pop format. And whats surprising listening to Nate Patrins playlist is just how good some of their later work is ("Escape Velocity" in particular).