For most of us, the term “electronica” evokes a golden age: a time when mostly independent labels shifted the focus of club music towards home listening. This “reasonable”, “intelligent” or “cerebral” form of dance music, with its interest in science and contemporary art, was built around iconic albums and opened up a new way of experiencing music in everyday life.
Over time, this broad, mostly instrumental genre learned to embrace vocals. Synthesizers and drum machines began interacting with acoustic instruments, paving the way for more organic sounds. From London to Berlin, Vienna and Paris, electronic music gradually found its way into our homes and daily journeys, bringing new colours and offering contemplative escapes.
InFiné Electronica reflects these influences, as well as the diversity and openness of the label. The playlist spans nearly two decades of InFiné’s catalogue, exploring the edges of new classical, cerebral club music, experimental music, synth-pop and post-dubstep.
It brings together the fragile productions of Clara Moto and Composer, the nocturnal excursions of Downliners Sekt and Frieder Nagel, the dystopian landscapes of Murcof and Deena Abdelwahed, the airy flights of Nathan Fake and Kaito, and the industrial, forest-like mechanics of Toh Imago.
This tension between body and mind lies at the heart of Rone’s approach, whose music is an invitation to escape. Arandel, long anonymous and initially established as an anti-DJ, reshaped organic and avant-garde IDM through his signature work In D. Cubenx reconciled guitars and synthesizers, abstract textures and reptilian melodies on Elegiac, while Labelle brought Creole culture into Western electronic music through the instruments of the Indian Ocean and maloya vocals.
More recently, Basile3 has developed a playful, hybrid and neurotic vision of contemporary electronic music, while Aarp, with Propaganda, delivers a darker cocktail of sharp-edged bleeps and vintage synth layers.
Through InFiné Electronica, nearly twenty years of releases come together around a shared idea: music made for both the legs and the mind, where the boundaries between experimentation, club culture and listening remain deliberately porous.