Abstract
This dissertation explores the idea of electronica as a descendent of electronic dance music, which, although embodying many related aesthetic qualities, operates within a different set of musical values. This needs to be understood in the context of how dance music's character, form and modes of performance relate to its specific cultural function. Repetitive beats (as espoused by house and techno in particular) comprise part of the cultural experience of rave. In combination with drug technologies and an ethos of collectivity, rave encapsulates a set of political phenomena that are entrenched within the formal and textural priorities of dance music. I discuss how modes of reception are affected by changes in these priorities, and to what extent post-dance music neglects the physicality that defines the political dimension of dance music's relationship to the body. In the context of these ideological tensions, I explore rave as a site of resistance in addition to manifestations of power and control as they operate within rave practice itself. Techno's endemic futurism manifests itself in conspicuously synthetic musical qualities; this legacy has been crucial in forming electronica's aesthetic. An enquiry into how technology's relationship with the body changes with post-dance music is essential to gaining insight into electronic music's changing status. These issues inform the debate concerning the validity and function of electronica: deconstructive perpetuation of dance music's refusal of patriarchal discourse, or disconnected from the intuitive physicality that brings meaning to repetitive beats?