Crate Diggin': DJ Tennis Shares His Ten Essential IDM Tracks

DJ Tennis (birth name Manfredi Romano) has long spoken of the influence that 90's era electronica, braindance or as it is more controversially known, intelligent dance music (IDM) has played in forming his musical direction. Despite the wobbly relationship with the moniker IDM for this particular niche of electronics it still feels like that right handle to denote that particular umbrella of artists and labels who pushed the envelope of structure and form when the sound emerged in the early 90's with the likes of Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Warp, Skam and Planet Mu spearheading the curve. While the record label Romano runs alongside Thugfucker's Grek Olreck Life & Death's output and Tennis's own production is decidedly more techno formed it is by no means linear, regularly drawing from the other worldly sentiments of the electronica sphere of music. So with his next appearance in EC1 slated for the coming weekend, we asked DJ tennis to tap this particular realm of knowledge and revisit the oft challenging sounds of this important genre to the eclectic DJ and producer.

Aphex Twin - We Are The Music Makers

DJ Tennis: "Talking about IDM essentials the album that contains this track (Selected Ambient Works 85-92) is on top of the list, a true seminal masterpiece that changed the game and influenced electronic and non electronic music production since it's release."

Boards Of Canada - High Scores

"Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin (also known as Boards of Canada in 1996 released on a small Manchester label called Skam a wonderful EP called High Scores redefining the sound of ambient and downtempo. This is the title track, a Must have in your collection. I saw them performing one of their very rare live sets in London at the Warp lighthouse party in October 2000."

Phoenecia - Odd Job

"Schematic records was the Miami “cousin” of Warp records and the duo Phoenecia was the main artist of the Label. This is one of the key tracks of their EP released in 1999."

Mouse on Mars - Sui Shop

"The Electronic pop and Leftfield band from Cologne was one of the first German IDM acts. Debuted in 1994 on the British avant Pop label Too Pure recently released on Modeselektor imprint Monkeytown."

Plaid - Oh

"Despite the irregular nature Aphex Twin and Boards of Canada's releases, Plaid kept making music and producing electronic music albums with surprising consistency and the high quality of their productions and their signature sound never got affected by this. Oh is the mesmerizing opening track of their 2014 album Reachy Prints."

D'arcangelo - Diagram VII (80's Mix)

"D’arcangelo two brothers from Rome, together with Lory D, Marco Passarani, Leo Anibaldi and more designed the Techno sound of Rome. Influenced by Drexciya, Aphex Twin and Italo disco debuted on Richard D. James Rephlex record label on 1996 with this mini rave masterpiece."

Autechre - Gantz Graf

"Autechre is considered one of the most important acts of IDM together with Plaid, Aphex twin and Boards of Canada. This track is a real sonic storm and the video made by Alex Rutterford is a milestone in 3D visual programming."

Delarosa & Asora - Wiffle

"Guillermo Scott Herren, moved his first steps in Electronic Music with the project Delarosa & Asora releasing his music on Schematic records. Better known as Prefuse 73 he combined the complexity of IDM with the textures of Hip Hop."

Pole - Modul

"Stefan Betke aka Pole is a producer and mastering engineer based in Berlin, he's also the founder of one of the most important Dubtronic/glitch labels of the last 20 years ~scape."

Alva Noto - Prototype 10

"Carsten Nicolai debuted on the seminal electronic German label Mille Plateaux in 2000 and then he created one of today’s most important conceptual minimalistic electronic labels Raster Noton. He recently worked together with his friend Ryuichi Sakamoto on the Soundtrack of the movie The Revenant. Raster Noton also releases the music of other important IDM artists like Byetone and Grischa Lichtenberger "