Day 36: IDM

I Am Robot and Proud
The Electricity in Your House Wants to Sing

Composing one's thoughts during spring break is no easy task. With that in mind, I've decided to use today's post to revisit a review I wrote roughly one year ago, while I was experiencing the same sort of vacation-induced writer's block I'm feeling at this very moment. The review should give the reader a good sense of what IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) is, but just in case it doesn't, here's a simple memory devise: Intelligent Dance Music = I Don't Move. In short, IDM is dance music you can't dance to. (N.B.: I'm not so lazy that I haven't taken the time to pen a few new thoughts about this old review. You can find this commentary at the end of the post.)

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It's Saturday morning, the last day of my Spring break. I'm up earlier than I'd like to be, but I'll need as much time as I can find today. I've left a week's worth of work for a day, and suddenly all the time I've wasted is magnified in the Saturday sun. Nick Drake was right: it came without warning. Alas, here I sit at my laptop, cranking out words when I'd really like to walk outside and soak up the dew spots from last night's shower. Tiny raindrops on my window that have yet to evaporate tell the story.

Everything feels a bit too serene this morning; the clothing, papers, books, and magazines scattered about my floor seem arranged by design, props in some art-house coming-of-age flick. Morning has a way of sentimentalizing, and a refreshing sleep can make consciousness less jaded. On this morning, to be sure, I feel a certain lightness of being. Mostly, it's due to a record I'm supposed to be reviewing with these very words.

I'm a newcomer to I Am Robot and Proud, but from what I've read, The Electricity in Your House Wants to Sing is the third proper album released under that mechanical-sounding moniker. I've also learned, from my key-stroke research, that 26-year-old Toronto native Shaw-Han Liem is the automaton. A quick background check reveals that Liem is that distinctly turn-of-the-century being known as the IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) creator.

Yet it requires listening to Liem's music, as I am now, to know that I Am Robot and Proud is a name that is at once fitting and misleading. Electronic music often has a robotic quality. It can sound stilted, mechanical, and distinctly not human. Indeed, there is such a processed quality about The Electricity. What resonates most strongly with this listener, however, is how human the album often sounds. The Electricity is warm, bright, and often downright effervescent. Like Stereolab, Liem seems to have an unlimited supply of sonic bubbles that bounce and sprinkle about his compositions, playing joyful motifs that soothe the ears. Liem combines these sounds into sonic tapestries that ache with the subtlety of humanity.

The Electricity sounds better than just a collection of Postal Service instrumentals because it's sweet and unwaveringly lighthearted--both qualities that could never be used to describe a Death Cab spin-off. More impressively, Liem sustains a relaxed, dreamlike mood from start to finish, without sacrificing complexity. The Electricity is buoyant but not hollow; paradoxically, the music is busy but also spacious. "Good Sleep," for example, consists of layers of synthesized chimes atop a steady atmospheric pedal that carries an emotional undercurrent. "Save Your Neck, Save Your Brother" begins with woodwinds that sound culled from the soundtrack of a French new-wave film from the 60s, then it picks up a rounded bass line and a back beat, transforming the track into something closer to a Boards of Canada production.

As immediately accessible and endearing as is Liem's latest effort, praise for the record must be qualified. As is frequently the case with electronic pop, the tracks on The Electricity quickly begin to blend together. This helps contribute to the consistent mood of the record (and its trance-like quality), but it quickly makes the music function as pleasant background noise-- muzak, or indie-pop elevator music. It's the perfect soundtrack for ambling through a half-awake morning, but The Electricity won't power me through a cynical afternoon.

-Ben Ewing (Delusions of Adequacy, 04/06/06)

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Sometimes when read old reviews I've written I cringe at the thought of key ideas I missed in my preliminary analysis and arguments I would, with the benefit of hindsight, subject to wholesale revision. This is not one of those times. Reading through this review, I can't help but think I was pretty much dead-on with everything I had to say. And if given a chance to rewrite it, I'd probably just kill the vibe of earnestness I cleverly cultivated to match the music by adding some pithy wise crack about the whole notion of IDM. Because let's face it: dance music you can't dance to is a pretty hokey idea? Isn't it? Maybe so, but I imagine some say the same thing about a world without irony.

Enough robotic earnestness to make your cold, post-modern heart thaw just slightly.