I used to aspire to making high tempo mind bending crazy tracks like Aphex Twin and Squarpusher. I released a handful of albums in this vein throughout my 20’s and early 30’s. I’m coming up on 40 and I just don’t feel the same sort of drive to micro edit drums for hours and strive for such complexity. It’s like I got it all out of my system I guess. So now I’m realizing how much I enjoy pads. I downloaded koala and it just feels so right at this stage of my creative life. I’m loving exploring groove and swing and micro timing and making tasteful drum fills rather than an entire track that is basically one long drum fill. I have my eye on the Roland SP 404 mk2 now and I think it may be a match made in heaven with my M:S because I can sample and resample M:S and use it as a sub mixer and route all audio through usb. I feel like I’m leaning towards making BOC type tracks now although I don’t even listen to them really, but it would be my idea of what I want them to sound like I suppose. Anyway, I’m discovering a whole new universe of expression by exploring groove on a much deeper level. I honestly never touched the swing knob or recorded unquantized for any track I’ve ever made up until recently.
Make an album containing zero percussion of any kind.
Yeah I’m late to the party on this, but I’m getting into neo soul and R&B lately, and I’m quickly kind of forgetting about the whole brain dance thing after ~20 years of thinking it was the future. Also I remember someone saying (many years ago) that IDM was a total misnomer, and the other day I was listening to the Chris McCormack remix of Ian Void’s “The Rascal” on repeat, and it really clicked how profoundly true that is.
I’ve always thought that ‘those hectic brain dance beats ‘ are so linked to a small number of artists that to do it myself it’s instany be ‘ sounds like squarepusher / aphex ‘ etc
I’d rather try to sound like my own stuff .
Same with making boards style ambient … it’ll always be thought of as ‘ sounds like boc’ instead of being original.
There are many artists who are blatantly copying these ‘headline’ acts and I guess they’ve made peace with it … and it makes doing mixes easier as many use same style breaks / pads / cassette wobble / saturation. But it can make it hard to identify most of the artists ‘ they’re all like boc ‘
Similar with breaks / amen / skull snaps / etc … those same sounds used through 1000’s of brain dance tracks … very few stand out to me ( like windowlicker or red hot car )
Basically , don’t feel bad as you might develop your own music instead of ‘ sounds like ……’ style of music. It’s certainly very difficult though.
It also explains why I barely finish anything as my stuff is generally ‘ generic electro beats with chords and acid line ‘ or ‘ ambient pads with distortion and 101/303 ‘ … there’s already lots of derivative stuff released everyday , I don’t see the point in adding to it.
don’t beat yourself up. Aphex Twin has some sublime tracks, especially on SAW Vol. 1&2. but as a DJ, he’s also got just as much stuff that’s pretty unplayable unless you want to clear the floor
Check out the new brainwaltzera album. It’s pretty great, doesn’t quite enter ‘go plastic’ realms or anything. But its still pretty idm/jungle/braindance. My aoty so far. 1st track is quite beautiful
A lot of the braindance stuff is just unlistenable nonsense. Too much emphasis on the process and not the music.
Do your own thing, enjoy your own sound, your own process. Sound like yourself. Wins everytime.
Me and my friends were all Rephlex fanboys (Ovuca, Astrobotnia, etc). I was making Bogdan ripoffs for years 
My friends on still on the Braindance road, but I started to find inspiration elsewhere - especially in the AFX & Drexciya style live tracking.
Take a listen to Tomorrows Harvest by BOC for inspiration. It’s probably their most chilled album to date.
For me, all the super hectic, hyper programmed stuff afx and Squarepusher were doing on warp is kinda separate from most of what I love about braindance.
For me, braindance is B12, the Gentle People, Global Goon, Bochum Welt, DMX Krew, Leila, Seefeel, Wisp, the list goes long and deep.
Braindance is a broad church, with lots of room for more ambient, less beat driven work. It’s just that the drill n’ bass stuff seemed to get most of the attention.
I come more from the Autechre and AFX side of things, but found some random interesting stuff on that list by a quick look on some youtube videos and bandcamp, but I don’t really know where to start for a full album… could you share some specific album recommendation, more on the dark side of things, for that style?
Yeah totally agree. Adding Plaid, Kettel, Secede and Ilkae to that list. I was actually ‘not into IDM’ for years because my first exposure was drill and bass.
@asmartkid82 I’d recommend checking out Merck records stuff. A lot of incredibly underrated IDM musicians released under there back in the early 2000s.
thanks man, I will listen to it while working today!
It’s a really varied mix (essentially a compilation of all the stuff they released in 2004) so I’d love to hear which tracks stood out to you.
I very much landed in ambient land about 5 years ago and have been floating there ever since.
Something about slowing down as I hit my 40’s perhaps, stopping to take in the view, and a change of production methods towards a sort of beginningless endlessness.
I’d quite like it if a beat renaissance popped up in the creative field, but I don’t feel like I’m ultimately in charge of that.
best braindance album, and not a mental drilling breakbeat in sight (sound).
There’s also a massive Rephlex playlist on YouTube, well worth trawling through, full of treasure.
As you get older your brain becomes a mushy mess of crossfiring neurons frayed and short circuited. Its understandable anything above a bpm of 100 is not your cup of tea.
Older dudes/ettes making ambient/drone/noise/lofi is kind of expected/cliched/the current thing.
Avoid. 
J/K do whatever the fuck man, as long as you enjoy it don’t worry about it.
Get stuffed! Quite the opposite here thanks.
I used to hang out around 100bpm around ten years ago. Now Im happy around 130-140.
Ill be back in the 150-170 realm at some point.
Synapse mush indeed. cobblers. Im making my neurons work fucking hard so I dont end up on a fucking bowling lawn.
Use it dont loose it.