Bishal Mukherjee

Electronic music – details for the geeks. Hey fellow party heads! What is up? Did you know that electronic music is a whole new entity in the already lit music scene? DJ’s showing off new sounds and new sub genres being introduced rather frequently, the club culture at this point of time is spreading like wild fire. No matter what age group you belong to and irrespective of gender, you would certainly shake that booty to the grooves of ‘70s disco/funk fused with today’s gadgets of electronic music. Wait; let’s talk about club culture and DJ’s! Clubbing or frequenting clubs and festivals which primarily include socializing, great in-house music, booty shaking (psst..That’s dancing), alcohol and recreational drugs. Club culture has always been referred as anti-establishment and it typically features in-house DJ’s performing/producing lit dance music including but not limited to techno, house, trance, drum and bass. Like seriously, nerd! You want me to explain what a DJ is? Never mind! A disc jockey (DJ) is a person who usually plays live for an audience in a dance club, night club or may at a music festival or for a broadcast. They are awesome when it comes to mixing music and raising the ambience. What the heck is electronic music? Umm, as the name specifies, it’s the genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments over the contemporary ones. It was born in the 1980’s, primarily in Detroit and Chicago/New York when these cities were seeing the post-disco environment. Party hoppers loved the new sound and by t he end of the decade, clubbers in Britain hooked on to this fusion of sensual and mechanical and they return-gifted Americans new styles like jungle/drum’n’bass, trip-hop etc. But, this wasn’t the limit! At a certain point of time in the music industry (early 90’s), music personalities were making music intended for headphones and chill-out areas as well – mostly nightclubs, pubs, bars etc. This resulted in dozens of new age stylistic fusions such as techno, tech-house, electro-techno, house, and many more sub-genres. Techno scene Somewhere around 1988 emerged in Detroit, Michigan a new sub-genre of music called Techno. The mix of African American music with electronic music gave birth to it. If we consider the stylistic approach, Techno is generally repetitive instrumental music, primarily produced for use in continuous DJ sets. By the way, DJ sets are a sequence of musical tracks mixed to appear as one continuous track. A merger of techno with aesthetic music brought in the afrofuturism – another spectrum of this awesome musical rainbow. Bass drums play a pivotal role in this kind of music. House Music This is a genre of electronic music born in Chicago’s clubs in the ‘80s. Technically speaking, repetitive 4/4 beats where rhythms are primarily from drum machines, synthesized cymbals and bass lines. House music is actually more electronic and minimalistic. DJ’s and music gurus started experimenting and trying to create new sub genres since the time of this genre’s initiation. Their hard work resulted bringing many sub genres such as deep house, euro house, tech house, electro house, jump house, acid house. The second wave (late ‘90s to early ‘00s) brought with it new sub genres of House Music like progressive house, ghetto house etc. This music scene is ever evolving and is a big time hit with club goers and party hoppers. So, you have learnt enough now! Take a break, play some music and groove!