Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music(music.ishkur.com)
music.ishkur.com
Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music
http://music.ishkur.com/
104 comments
It's also by now subjectively very "historical." It's possible that if you continued the chart until 2025, the task of documenting all of the sub-genres would be infeasible. Electronic music has exploded in variety since 2010.
A random walk through something like this can be more helpful these days: https://www.music-map.com/ (found on HN last year)
A random walk through something like this can be more helpful these days: https://www.music-map.com/ (found on HN last year)
Has it really though? Genuinely asking.. I’ve checked out a lot since 2010 or so but not sure I hear anything wildly different, vaporwave and sorta meme music was quite fresh but other than that im not sure.. maybe its just part of getting old and having less time to hunt around.
Yes, it has. In both breadth and depth. People paying attention know this.
Even within techno (my favorite genre), which is already a quite narrow genre in terms of sounds, the variety of novel sounds birthing new techno sub-genres over the last 10-15 years has been wild.
Even within techno (my favorite genre), which is already a quite narrow genre in terms of sounds, the variety of novel sounds birthing new techno sub-genres over the last 10-15 years has been wild.
What's the endgame? Micro-genres of techno only five people listen to. I can't wait!
I dislike calling them genres, they're more like trends or styles. One producer makes something new and unusual that breaks the established patterns, people like it a lot, other producers copy it, and that cycle continues until fans get bored and move on. That lifecycle usually lasts about 2-5 years, sometimes not even long enough to get a proper name, but if you're into the scene you know that "genre" when you hear it.
To give a recent "mainstream" example, Odd Mob has created a certain sound that blew up in popularity despite not fitting neatly in any of the existing boxes we had (tracks like Get Busy, Losing Control, Palm Of My Hands), other producers copied it and by now you have anonymous shitposters on social media complaining that most new songs sound like they were made by him.
To give a recent "mainstream" example, Odd Mob has created a certain sound that blew up in popularity despite not fitting neatly in any of the existing boxes we had (tracks like Get Busy, Losing Control, Palm Of My Hands), other producers copied it and by now you have anonymous shitposters on social media complaining that most new songs sound like they were made by him.
As a DJ, the endgame is building a set from a variety of different kinds of music which still sounds great together but doesn’t all follow the same boring formula. And it’s pretty great.
More like wine - more profitable in the attention/branding market to make your own label than take someone else's.
Interesting that "Aphex Twin" is about 2x closer to "Boards of Canada" than "Richard D. James". Nevertheless, great resource! I expect to kill more than a few hours here lol.
That is a great map, that would be even greater if one could listen to each entry immediately, hard for legal reasons obviously, but maybe I can hack something quick together tomorrow, so spotify plays me whatever I click on the map..
Post if you do—would be game-changing
Also it could mean already legal trouble for me. And spotifies auth mechanism anf recent changes there put me off so far
I'm surprised that https://everynoise.com still works, but it does. At one point, I had heard that it was shut down.
I wonder if it could be done with torrents ... or user-supplied API key. Still some legal attack surface area, but perhaps no worse than yt-dlp.
If users type in their (premium) credentials it is legal.
But I still cannot just take someone else project and put my things on top if it ain't open source and it isn't and there seems no indication of wanting collaboration. So I could contact him if I ever made anything, but I cannot just make and release it.
But I still cannot just take someone else project and put my things on top if it ain't open source and it isn't and there seems no indication of wanting collaboration. So I could contact him if I ever made anything, but I cannot just make and release it.
Ah, I was imagining a Chrome extension would be the easy way
Rateyourmusic has a very good genre section.
https://rateyourmusic.com/genres/
https://rateyourmusic.com/genres/
Not sure how helpful malicious popups are to this conversation.
What a blast from the past! And, yeah, it looked much different 20 years ago. It was all Flash.
If you want more than samples, he's compiled a lot of 1-2 hour genre specific mixes here: https://www.mixcloud.com/Ishkur/
Plus the one 15 hour mix across genres: https://www.mixcloud.com/Ishkur/the-longplay-15/
Plus the one 15 hour mix across genres: https://www.mixcloud.com/Ishkur/the-longplay-15/
The file linked on https://www.mixcloud.com/Ishkur/the-longplay-15/ is giving a 404, but can be found here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240226032906/http://ishkur.com...
https://web.archive.org/web/20240226032906/http://ishkur.com...
I still play sections of that 15 hour mix a few times a week. The 50-70 minute mark has the chillest electronica groove. Feels like just driving around a cyberscape.
He talked so much shit in his guide that I was really looking forward to listening to the 15 hour mix to make fun of his taste but... it's hard! Dude's got decent taste!
He talked so much shit in his guide that I was really looking forward to listening to the 15 hour mix to make fun of his taste but... it's hard! Dude's got decent taste!
I'm glad that the "new" (post-Flash) version keeps some of the sarcasm from before, even if he toned down the level of spite that he had against some subgenres.
There's too many websites trying to be neutral and respectful, which is great, but humanity also needs subjective, opinionated rants about music. After all, music wouldn't even exist without the emotions that it inspires, an that includes negative emotions from boredom to mockery. Also, that's what makes this website fun to read in the first place.
There's too many websites trying to be neutral and respectful, which is great, but humanity also needs subjective, opinionated rants about music. After all, music wouldn't even exist without the emotions that it inspires, an that includes negative emotions from boredom to mockery. Also, that's what makes this website fun to read in the first place.
I love this page to bits and I wish Ishkur would update it with more recent genres. Like where’s the amapiano, afro house, brazilian phunk, even future bass (which is half ancient at this point) isnt featured. His commentary is usually hilarious and spot-on so I’d love to read his takes on those.
This feels like a labor-of-love to me. I doubt very much that the original author is still participating in music to the same degree as he was when he made this. I don't think that current musical trends would inspire the same fastidious urge to document and archive as it once did.
"Psydub is what the crusty hippies listen to when they get tired of dancing. Or when the drugs wear off. Or when they choose horse tranquilizers instead of LSD."
Hey... H E Y!
Hey... H E Y!
Man I went straight for psydub info. Back about 5 years ago I stumbled onto so some really interesting “psydub” playlists on Spotify with very strange song names and I thought I’d really found something good. Then poof! they disappeared one day and nothing labeled “psydub” seems to hit the mark and I don’t know what the hell that stuff was that disappeared.
probably an artist that cancelled their spotify contract and is still on soundclud / bandcamp
Look up a disbanded group called Shulman. Also...stop using spotify :)
Reading this at 10 was like when Neo gets the kungfu program loaded into his brain. Completely mind blowing. The wildest music I had heard was Mandy Moore on the radio. And now there is a whole new horizon, with acid and 808s and sampling and breakbeats. It’s hard to imagine what I’d be listening to now without Iskur.
It still exists! I remember the Flash version back in the day.
It still worked a few years ago but no longer :( (http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/)
The Wayback Machine still displays a 2007 version (1900 captures!) ... complete with a sample for each genre ... even musique concrete .
https://web.archive.org/web/20071118083704/http://techno.org...
https://web.archive.org/web/20071118083704/http://techno.org...
It still exists at https://archive.org/details/music_202007 .
The archive.org variation appears to be missing both samples and descriptions.
A ported version got made over at: https://ishkur.kenxaj.cyou/
Appears to have all the music files and descriptions from a cursory inspection, although missing Tools, Samples, and Sounds.
Gives credit to Ishkur, recommends checking v3, and was made using: https://github.com/igorbrigadir/ishkurs-guide-dataset/
A ported version got made over at: https://ishkur.kenxaj.cyou/
Appears to have all the music files and descriptions from a cursory inspection, although missing Tools, Samples, and Sounds.
Gives credit to Ishkur, recommends checking v3, and was made using: https://github.com/igorbrigadir/ishkurs-guide-dataset/
That's what I get for stopping at the front page after it looked just like I remember. :/
Thanks for the other link.
Thanks for the other link.
This looks like it must have taken FOREVER to compile - deep appreciations for Ishkur for putting this together. I'm a huge chiptune fan so was happy to hear Rob Hubbard [1] come up on there as well.
[1] https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/H/Hubbard_Rob
[1] https://deepsid.chordian.net/?file=/MUSICIANS/H/Hubbard_Rob
We were actually having a discussion about this earlier. Perhaps you could chime in as you've got, "a handle on the thing."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45395396 (ctrl + f, "Velvet Underground" to find relevant posts)
Yeah this is a seriously a great resource especially in how it goes back to the early days. I didn't immediately find an, "entry" for Delia Derbyshire but Daphne Oram is there. I remember spending hours on Wikipedia as a kid doing research trying to develop an involved understanding of what drove innovation in electronic music. This will put a future, "me" that much further along. Great work.
"Pump your loins children."
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45395396 (ctrl + f, "Velvet Underground" to find relevant posts)
Yeah this is a seriously a great resource especially in how it goes back to the early days. I didn't immediately find an, "entry" for Delia Derbyshire but Daphne Oram is there. I remember spending hours on Wikipedia as a kid doing research trying to develop an involved understanding of what drove innovation in electronic music. This will put a future, "me" that much further along. Great work.
"Pump your loins children."
I read your original post and I don’t enjoy the bitterness. Nor am I a fan of phrases like “pump your loins children” as they just don’t belong.
The Velvets were an excellent band and there have been many amazing bands since. While new bands aren’t charting on Billboard, nobody cares about Billboard anyways. This quality hits many different genres and subgenres and makes me happy to be a music fan.
Sometimes, we’ve got to get on with it and support the kids.
The Velvets were an excellent band and there have been many amazing bands since. While new bands aren’t charting on Billboard, nobody cares about Billboard anyways. This quality hits many different genres and subgenres and makes me happy to be a music fan.
Sometimes, we’ve got to get on with it and support the kids.
AfterHIA(1)
“It sounds like a bunch of DJ’s dared each other to set their drum machines to BPM=1000”
That has been my favorite line from this for decades (at least that’s how I remember it going).
That has been my favorite line from this for decades (at least that’s how I remember it going).
Was that his gabber jab? His happy hardcore description was quite funny too but I can’t remember.
I was initially a little miffed to not see Garage House and then I noticed that they have it as a separate branch from "traditional" house and you know what, I'm okay with that. It's more correct as Garage House really derives from the music played at places like Paradise Garage and The Loft, which pre-dates traditional Chicago house.
And then there's Ron Hardy at Chicago's Warehouse who played both.
And then there's Ron Hardy at Chicago's Warehouse who played both.
Whats a good place these days to download/find niche music like this days? I loved what.cd before it shut down
Electronic music is anything but niche
anyways, rutracker or many of the other private trackers
If you want to discover electronic subgenres then I'd recommend to listen the weekly Essential Mix https://www.mixesdb.com/w/Category:Essential_Mix
If you want some personal recommendation my current top 5 (changes all the time)
Daft Punk (1997) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/1997-03-02_-_Daft_Punk_-_Essential...
Justice (2007) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2007-06-10_-_Justice_-_Essential_M...
Sharam (2009) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2009-08-29_-_Sharam_-_Essential_Mi...
Skrillex (2013) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2013-06-15_-_Skrillex_-_Essential_...
Ben Böhmer (2021) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2021-10-09_-_Ben_B%C3%B6hmer_-_Ess...
anyways, rutracker or many of the other private trackers
If you want to discover electronic subgenres then I'd recommend to listen the weekly Essential Mix https://www.mixesdb.com/w/Category:Essential_Mix
If you want some personal recommendation my current top 5 (changes all the time)
Daft Punk (1997) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/1997-03-02_-_Daft_Punk_-_Essential...
Justice (2007) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2007-06-10_-_Justice_-_Essential_M...
Sharam (2009) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2009-08-29_-_Sharam_-_Essential_Mi...
Skrillex (2013) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2013-06-15_-_Skrillex_-_Essential_...
Ben Böhmer (2021) https://www.mixesdb.com/w/2021-10-09_-_Ben_B%C3%B6hmer_-_Ess...
Essential Mix opened my early 2000s teenage world to so much more electronic music. Good memories of downloading sets via Napster and manually recording on to cassettes to listen to in my '95 Saturn. What a weird statement.
Thanks, mixesdb looks neat.
>Electronic music is anything but niche
Electronic music is a huge genre. There's a ton of popular artists but there's also so much great stuff you'll never hear at concerts/festivals.
>Electronic music is anything but niche
Electronic music is a huge genre. There's a ton of popular artists but there's also so much great stuff you'll never hear at concerts/festivals.
I would say it heavily depends on what converts and festivals you’re going to. I just went to Making Time in Philadelphia where Fourtet was the headliner and by far the biggest name. Everyone else would be what you would consider “underground” or niche. My favorite DJ, Donato Dozzy, played an incredible set.
for old electronic music - Youtube, honestly. the algorithm is pretty good for finding old electronic music. like if youtube recommends me some random old 7 minute song with nothing but a picture of a record, there's a good chance I'm gonna like it at this point.
I'm on some of the oink/what successors and honestly, it's so hard to build ratio that it makes me not really like them at all.
I'm on some of the oink/what successors and honestly, it's so hard to build ratio that it makes me not really like them at all.
> I'm on some of the oink/what successors and honestly, it's so hard to build ratio that it makes me not really like them at all.
You might have some success remaking rips others have made using the same settings for the rips and encodes, and then letting your torrent client recheck the existing torrent against your version of the files. I’ve also had success contacting filesharing-friendly artists and getting new and unreleased albums and tracks and building ratio more directly that way.
You might have some success remaking rips others have made using the same settings for the rips and encodes, and then letting your torrent client recheck the existing torrent against your version of the files. I’ve also had success contacting filesharing-friendly artists and getting new and unreleased albums and tracks and building ratio more directly that way.
Another option is to source the same files from a private torrent from a public one by the same uploaded/release group, and then recheck and upload the same blocks to the private tracker as a completed or nearly completed download, without it affecting your quota much if at all, with all uploads benefitting your own ratio.
Many private trackers also have a higher ratio multiplier for dead or nearly dead torrents to promote seeding of those torrents specifically. I’ve also seen quota-free days and torrents that can be downloaded without a quota impact, uploads of which will help your quota get back in the black.
Many private trackers also have a higher ratio multiplier for dead or nearly dead torrents to promote seeding of those torrents specifically. I’ve also seen quota-free days and torrents that can be downloaded without a quota impact, uploads of which will help your quota get back in the black.
From what I see from redacted, there's a 0% ratio requirement up to 20GB every week.
Bandcamp is your friend here. It’s got an almost infinite selection of the tiniest of micro-genres. Vaportrap? Yes. Blackgaze? Absolutely. Barber beats? Why not.
My process is to find or invent a ludicrous sounding genre name, search for it, click on any promising-looking covers and then if I like the music I’ll look through their label, any hashtags and the profiles of people who purchased it to see what else I can find. Discovered a vast amount of excellent or at least interesting music this way.
My process is to find or invent a ludicrous sounding genre name, search for it, click on any promising-looking covers and then if I like the music I’ll look through their label, any hashtags and the profiles of people who purchased it to see what else I can find. Discovered a vast amount of excellent or at least interesting music this way.
Soulseek is still around (somehow) and thriving. Of course on there, discovery is more or less "check out the library of this person who had something you were looking for".
Came here to mention this. I'm shocked when people use YouTube to rip stuff. Soulseek is a remnant of the web 1.0 era and Napster times. It feels my heart with joy that it still exists. Also people that use it are mostly djs and have great collections that is a joy to explore, it's like being invited into someone's house, not being fed by a heartless algorithm. Plus the 1on1 model works great these days for music since internet is so fast, and it's a security against the lawyer mafia letters that you can get in Germany for using torrents.
I also spend like 300 to 500 EUR a year on Bandcamp so I don't feel bad about this. Plus a lot of stuff there is just hard to find elsewhere. In times where we keep losing agency through cloud-enshitification, AI-inscrutability and technofeudalism, Soulseek and its community brings me hope.
I also spend like 300 to 500 EUR a year on Bandcamp so I don't feel bad about this. Plus a lot of stuff there is just hard to find elsewhere. In times where we keep losing agency through cloud-enshitification, AI-inscrutability and technofeudalism, Soulseek and its community brings me hope.
Rutracker has been mostly good for my tastes.
While it is an amazing chart, the problem is that when you click on a point named "Rap" located in year 1972, a song from 1984 plays so I cannot hear what Rap sounded like in 1972 and how it evolved. I understand that there can be copyright issues, but one could put a link to Youtube or at least a track name. So it would be cool if the track played matched the year you click.
Edit: it seems you need to click on the rectangles rather than circles to choose the year.
Edit: it seems you need to click on the rectangles rather than circles to choose the year.
This is awesome, thanks Ishkur.
It's a list/timeline of electronic genres and subgenres with samples and descriptions (informative + humor). The UI is also great.
It's a list/timeline of electronic genres and subgenres with samples and descriptions (informative + humor). The UI is also great.
This is very cool, the only thing I don't think is correct is Soul music branching off from R&B in the 80's. That's definitely not right, if then it's the other way around. Although the guide is electronic music, so who knows?
I've come accross this website a few times but only now clicked on the hamburger menu and then on "how to use" to learn that learned that you had to zoom in and click on a "button" (some kind of polygon approximating a circle?) to listen to the music. I think I tried clicking on the titles before and concluded that it didn't work.
If you zoom in far enough, you can also click on the line segments representing year/subgenre combos
Interesting website. I thought for sure I'd find mention of Silver Apples of the Moon. May have missed it though...
This was one of the first sites I ever used online. Shame we can't see the Flash version.
Weirdly, this website is one of the example references in the Typst documentation.
mark the timeline by instrument release date, these evolution lines are nonsense. The TR808, TR909, SP1200, and MPC2000 release dates had more to do with the changes in sound of these genres.
edit: it's a nice website though.
edit: it's a nice website though.
That argument is tantamount to saying that the EDM genre has stagnated since the 90s after your above listed musical instruments were released.
Hi, I'm not literally suggesting those are the only important instruments. People sometimes truncate examples in suggestions. The assumption is that if someone likes the idea, they could extend the pattern.
Yeah I would find this more interesting than the current tags e.g. IDM which is such a nonsense/confusing term anyway.
Apparently,
> music == inane "genre" classifications
Sorry, this can't be fixed. You'll just have to deal with the enshittification of the world.
> music == inane "genre" classifications
Sorry, this can't be fixed. You'll just have to deal with the enshittification of the world.
This is wild. Just a couple weeks ago I was describing this site to someone and assumed it was lost to time. Amazing it is still around. Thanks for sharing!
For me the chart ends in 2010, and I would expect there to be a cambrian explosion of genres in the last 15 years?
Really cool. I had kinda assumed that trance and techno would have more overlap
this is one of my all time fave internet properties. it never gets old... and somehow it's still being updated?? new version looks nice, but i do miss that late 90s aesthetic from before...
Amazing timeline visualization of the evolution of genres
> The late 70s binged on Disco like Charlie Sheen with an 8-ball of coke. Just about every legendary rock band released a Disco record or at least toyed with its aesthetics at one time or another: Kiss, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Queen, Neil Young, Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney. It was everywhere, it was popular, and you couldn't find a single radio station that wasn't playing it.
> All this animosity culminated in the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Chicago's Comisky Park in July, 1979 -- a radio promotion held between the games of a baseball double header that caused so much damage the second game was forfeit.
LMAO and TIL
> All this animosity culminated in the infamous Disco Demolition Night at Chicago's Comisky Park in July, 1979 -- a radio promotion held between the games of a baseball double header that caused so much damage the second game was forfeit.
LMAO and TIL
It's a nice website, but when I click on any music genre label, my Firefox asks: "Allow music.ishkur.com to use your HTML5 image data? This may be used to uniquely identify your computer."
...but why?
...but why?
It probably uses canvas to draw, but canvas also can be used to fingerprint you
AFAIK that warning is "scripts on this page will capture image data from the window viewport, which in turn can be used to fingerprint you because of how rendering works"
Some people will care about this.
Some people will care about this.
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I dont get it. Apart from the website is amazing, i dont see any kraftwerk reference, Tangerine Dream of any of electronic music. I see Moog, but that was an Synthesizer maker not a music style. Also it seems that rap appear in 72? Along wit Pink Floyd, Yes and Genesis? I think this is more what we call Techno Dance Music.
Yes, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream are mentioned under "Krautrock", as it's usually the case with music databases that lump every 1970's German "progressive" music under the same genre.
https://music.ishkur.com/?query=Krautrock
https://music.ishkur.com/?query=Krautrock
Lumping together is poor taxonomy, the challenge is how to represent all the branching, eg: the early Krautrock influenced and later "Krautrock produced" Hunters & Collecters work.
* Album 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunters_%26_Collectors_(album)
* Album 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fireman%27s_Curse
* Album 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jaws_of_Life_(Hunters_%26_...
Albums 2 & 3 were co-produced by Konrad Plank in Neunkirchen and Weilerswist, Germany following his liking of the first album and tracks such as Talking to a Stranger, Run Run Run, leading to his work on tracks such as Judas Sheep, Tow Truck, and Betty's Worry or The Slab.
Not the Krautrock known to many via Kraftwerk but certainly tangentially adjacent in some odd way.
* Album 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunters_%26_Collectors_(album)
* Album 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fireman%27s_Curse
* Album 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jaws_of_Life_(Hunters_%26_...
Albums 2 & 3 were co-produced by Konrad Plank in Neunkirchen and Weilerswist, Germany following his liking of the first album and tracks such as Talking to a Stranger, Run Run Run, leading to his work on tracks such as Judas Sheep, Tow Truck, and Betty's Worry or The Slab.
Not the Krautrock known to many via Kraftwerk but certainly tangentially adjacent in some odd way.
Thanks for taking the time to enlight me :)
Truly one of the best artifacts of "the old internet". This gives me nostalgia. So many late nights as a teenager learning about the music I loved that seemed so inaccessible where I grew up. Thank you, Ishkur.