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…

Taking their name from the organization that produced lo-fi, arty films that influenced their early sensibilities, this Scottish electronic duo made big waves with their 1998 album MUSIC HAS THE RIGHT TO CHILDREN. They combined '80s-influenced synth-…

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…

Based in south London, England, ‘-Ziq is effectively studio musician Mike Paradinas, although he has also worked in tandem with Francis Naughton. Both were students when they first met the Aphex Twin, Richard James, who invited them to join his new R…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

More apt to cite stately rock paragons Burt Bacharach and Brian Wilson as their inspirations than Derrick May or Aphex Twin the French duo Air gained inclusion into the late-90s electronica surge due chiefly to the labels their recordings appeared on…

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…

Radiohead burst onto the Britpop scene in the early 1990s with a clamorous, post-U2 take on guitar rock, buoyed by the hit "Creep." They subsequently developed their songwriting and production skills on THE BENDS and achieved iconic status with their…

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 My Bloody Valentine formed in 1984, their renowned sound didn't coalesce until four years later, with the album ISN'T ANYTHING. Initially a revved-up rock band that featured core members Kevin Shields and Colm O'Ciosoig, MBV truly came into…

As far as German bands that were actually influenced by the Krautrock sound of the late 1960s and '70s, Mouse on Mars are one of the most successful and influential children of that scene. Formed in the early '90s, the Dusseldorf-based twosome use du…

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 …

Drawing equally from punk rock and new-music pioneers such as John Cage and Glenn Branca (whom guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo both played with), Sonic Youth employed a palette of white noise that deconstructed punk-rock orthodoxy into radi…

Mancunian Dylan Nathan is one of a new generation of artists to begin producing electronic music inspired by UK artists such as Orbital and Aphex Twin but without having much interest in or contact with the UK acid house explosion from which those ar…

Offered to dance music punters as the "intelligent way out of blind-alley hardcore', Future Sound Of London emerged in the 90s, the brainchild of Garry Cobain (b. Bedford, England) and Brian Dougans (b. Glasgow, Scotland). They met at college in Manc…

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…