As a young boy growing up in Cornwall, England, Richard James made his first music by banging found objects together. Whether he's working under the moniker Aphex Twin, Polygon Window, or AFX, James has continued to experiment with sound in increasin…

British electronica duo Autechre (Sean Booth and Rob Brown) grew up with the sounds of hip-hop and electro in the 1980s. Further inspired by the sounds coming out of Detroit in the early '90s, they turned out a unique UK variant on techno, more abstr…

French postmodernists Air raid every aspect of retro pop music, from the sublime to the ridiculous, in fashioning their sonic bricolage. Everything from Krautrock-inspired electronics to 1960s lounge music is incorporated into the work of Nicolas God…

Formed in Glasgow, Scotland in 1996, Mogwai are proponents of mostly instrumental, guitar-based indie rock that relies more on atmospherics than traditional pop song structures. Like their American counterparts Low, the band creates soundscapes that …

One of the key artists of the folktronica movement, Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, mixes samples of jazz, acoustic, and psychedelic music with mid-tempo techno and hip-hop beats to create a uniquely warm and organic form of electronica. 2003's ROUNDS i…

The Bristol collective known as Massive Attack arose out of the acid house scene of late-1980s England to become one of the 1990s' greatest innovators. The group has literally changed the face of music every time out. They invented "trip-hop" on thei…

Active from the early 1990s into the 21st century, DJ Shadow (Californian Josh Davis) has been called the Jimi Hendrix of sampling. His songs shift tempos in a blink, incorporating multiple time signatures, and it's to Shadow's credit that he's as co…

In the mid-90s, UK DJ Tom Jenkinson was one of a number of artists who attempted to create more integrated dance music in the midst of a splintering scene. He began playing the bass guitar and drums as a teenager, inspired by his father's collection …

b. Scott Herren, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Producer Herren creates the most incredible of musics under the Prefuse 73 moniker, drawing on hip-hop's restless range and electronica's pioneering legacy. Although he says his impetus to record music was Mich…

b. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Tobin visited Europe as a child and returned to the UK in his teens when he developed a passion for hip-hop, blues and jazz, including the music of Grandmaster Flash, Lightnin' Hopkins, Eddie Palmieri and Thelonius Monk. Wh…

This highly acclaimed Norwegian down-tempo electronic act comprises Svein Berge (b. Bergen, Norway) and Torbjörn Brundtland (b. Bergen, Norway). The childhood friends grew up in Tromso, a small city located 800 kilometres within the Arctic Circle and…

Pick almost any forward-looking trend in rock and you're likely to find that Eno blazed the trail. Beginning in the 1970s, Eno pioneered everything from art-rock to ambient music to sample-based electronica. His career began with Roxy Music, where he…

A fearless sonic adventurer, Icelandic songstress Bjork first appeared prominently on the musical map in 1988 with LIFE'S TOO GOOD, the debut album of her band, the Sugarcubes. Four years later, the group split, and Bjork wasted no time in working on…

Although they describe their modus operandi as prosaically as "We do one layer of keyboards, then another, then another', French artists Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau create a music that is momentous and epic enough to suggest otherworldly, …

This British-French outfit started out in the early 1990s, with a sound that incorporated French-chanteuse vocals, primitive electronics, and Velvet Underground-meets-Neu chugging rhythm. Over the years, they refined their approach immensely, with ec…

This experimental UK-based techno outfit comprises Andy Turner and Ed Handley, who are signed to influential label Warp Records. Turner and Handley discovered electronic music while at school, where they had access to a Moog synthesizer in their musi…

In the first half of the 2000s, Canadian bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor, Arcade Fire, and the Stills began taking the indie-rock world by storm. While they didn't break through to the mainstream, Broken Social Scene nevertheless joined those r…

As Thievery Corporation, Eric Hilton and Rob Garza started working together in the mid-1990s, crafting a sound initially rooted in electronica, but deeply influenced by dub, Latin jazz, and bossa nova. Their atmospheric, low-key style has made the Wa…

Emerging from the chilly climes of Iceland, the Sigur Ros sound is characterized by slow, swooping waves of atmospheric guitar and keyboards that move over their epic tone-poems like windstorms over a wintry plain. Hushed vocals are delivered in a p…

It's hard to mention Birmingham, England's Broadcast without referencing two other acts: the Anglo/Franco art-pop band Stereolab and the 1960s art-rockers the Unites States of America. Stereolab released Broadcast's early singles in the late 1990s an…