IDM
IDM, short for intelligent dance music, is a style of experimental electronic music made more for close listening than for dancing.
It emerged in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s, closely tied to Warp Records and its Artificial Intelligence compilations, and the name itself comes from an internet mailing list. The music takes the tools of techno, ambient and breakbeat and bends them into complex, shifting rhythms, unusual melodies and detailed sound design. Many of the artists dislike the term because of what it implies about other dance music.
Artists it is known for: Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Squarepusher.
- Family
- Electronic & Dance
- On Spotify
- A current genre
- What it is
- A genre
- From
- United Kingdom, early 1990s
- Also called
- intelligent dance music, braindance
- Trackify listeners who play it
- 2%
About 1,500 of 83,000 Trackify listeners with public profiles have idm among their top artists of the last four weeks. Rounded; updated 13 November 2026.
IDM artists
Aphex Twin
Boards of Canada
Sweet Trip
Vegyn
Burial
TOMORA
Floating PointsThe idm artists most Trackify listeners have in their top fifty. Each opens on Spotify.
Sources
The definition is written for this site from open sources, and was checked against them on 13 November 2026.