Pater Noster Ltd.

Electronic is a broad umbrella genre defined by the primary use of electronically generated or electronically processed sound. It encompasses music made with synthesizers, drum machines, samplers, computers, and studio/tape techniques, as well as electroacoustic manipulation of recorded or synthetic sources. The genre ranges from academic and experimental traditions to popular and dance-oriented forms. While its sonic palette is rooted in electricity and circuitry, its aesthetics span minimal and textural explorations, structured song forms, and beat-driven club permutations. Electronic emphasizes sound design, timbre, and studio-as-instrument practices as much as melody and harmony.

Experimental electronic is an umbrella term for electronic music that foregrounds exploration and innovation over convention. It treats the studio, computer, and synthesizer as laboratories, using techniques such as tape manipulation, modular and software synthesis, feedback systems, granular and spectral processing, algorithmic/generative composition, circuit-bending, and field recording. Rather than regular song forms or dancefloor functionality, it prioritizes timbre, texture, space, and process. Structures may be nonlinear or open-form; harmony is often non-functional or drone-based; rhythm can be free, irregular, or machine-deconstructed. The style overlaps with electroacoustic music, sound art, industrial, ambient, and noise while continually interfacing with club culture and contemporary art contexts.

Industrial is an experimental electronic music tradition that uses abrasive timbres, mechanical rhythms, and transgressive aesthetics. Its sound palette often includes distorted drum machines, tape loops, metallic percussion, feedback, and found-object recordings alongside synthesizers and samplers. Emerging from late-1970s UK underground art and performance scenes, industrial foregrounds themes of dehumanization, technology, surveillance, and power. Releases frequently embrace anti-commercial presentation, stark graphic design, and confrontational performance art, treating the studio as a laboratory for sonic manipulation rather than a vehicle for conventional songcraft. While early industrial emphasized noise, tape processing, and avant-garde collage, later waves fused the style with dancefloor precision (EBM), rock and metal heft, and club-oriented production, giving rise to a broad post-industrial family that remains influential in experimental, electronic, and popular music.

Minimal synth is a sparse, DIY strand of early electronic music built around a small palette of analog synthesizers, drum machines, and austere melodies. It favors economy: short, hook-like motifs; rigid, metronomic rhythms; and cool, detached vocals that sit in stark relief against the electronics. The sound is defined by dry drum machine patterns (often 2–4 bar loops), monophonic basslines, simple minor-key harmonies, and limited effects—typically delay and reverb used tastefully rather than lavishly. Emerging from post-punk and new wave’s experimental fringes, it captured a mood that was simultaneously intimate and mechanical, melancholic yet danceable. Originally circulated on cassettes and 7" singles via small independent labels, minimal synth has since become a collectors’ and archivists’ favorite, with a 2000s revival highlighting how its disciplined restraint and analog textures anticipated later retro-synth and underground electronic movements.

Post-industrial is an umbrella term for the diverse musical currents that evolved out of first‑wave industrial music in the early 1980s. Rather than a single sound, it describes a methodology: the recontextualization of noise, tape collage, found sound, non‑traditional percussion, and transgressive or esoteric themes into new hybrids. It commonly emphasizes textural experimentation over conventional song form, drawing on ambient drones, harsh electronics, ritualistic rhythms, and performance-art strategies. The scene grew through DIY cassette culture, mail‑art networks, and small independent labels, fostering substyles like power electronics, dark ambient, neofolk, martial industrial, and illbient. Aesthetically, post‑industrial retains industrial’s confrontational stance but disperses it into atmospheric, political, mystical, and avant‑garde directions, making it as much a way of working with sound and media as a genre label.

Post-punk is a broadly experimental strain of rock that emerged in the late 1970s as artists sought to push beyond the speed, simplicity, and orthodoxy of first-wave punk. It typically features angular, bass-forward grooves; jagged or minimal guitar lines; stark, spacious production; and an openness to dub, funk, electronic, and avant-garde ideas. Lyrics often examine alienation, urban decay, politics, and the inner life with artful or abstract delivery. A studio-as-instrument approach, emphasis on rhythm section interplay, and an appetite for non-rock textures (tape effects, drum machines, found sound, synths) distinguish the style. The result can be danceable yet tense, cerebral yet visceral, and emotionally restrained yet intensely expressive.

Techno is a four-on-the-floor, machine-driven form of electronic dance music that emerged in mid-to-late 1980s Detroit. It is characterized by steady 4/4 kick drums, repetitive and hypnotic rhythmic patterns, synthetic timbres, and an emphasis on texture, groove, and forward momentum over elaborate harmony. Producers typically use drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers to build layered percussion, pulsing basslines, and evolving motifs. While often dark and minimalistic, techno spans a wide spectrum—from soulful, futuristic Detroit aesthetics to hard, industrially tinged European strains—yet it consistently prioritizes kinetic energy for dancefloors and a sense of machine futurism.

Raw techno is a hard‑edged, stripped, and saturated branch of techno that emphasizes physical impact over polish. It foregrounds pounding 4/4 kicks, rumbling sub‑bass, aggressively overdriven percussion, and gritty, analog‑leaning textures, often recorded or processed to feel loud, grainy, and immediate. Compared to more melodic or glossy strands, it minimizes harmonic content and arrangement frills in favor of relentless momentum, dark industrial atmospheres, and warehouse‑ready energy. The result is an austere but highly functional dancefloor music that channels the spirit of early warehouse raves through contemporary production tools and loudness aesthetics.