In the summer of 2005, I went into a record store that was playing a chilled out piece of music I really liked. I had anxiety at the time, but I liked the track so much that I forcibly grew the cojones to ask someone who it was. The song was Heartbeats by José González and I soon found out that it was a cover of a song by Swedish EDM (electronic dance music) band, The Knife.

A Narrow Mind Doesn't Benefit the Music World

Before listening to The Knife's original Heartbeats, I would never have considered myself to be an EDM fan. What I considered myself to be then and sort of still do to this day, is a music snob. I like what I like, and anything I don't does not get a second play. Before The Knife, I wouldn't have gone on to read about other EDM artists and incidentally discover that I'd been listening to electronic music without being aware of it.

I love Goldfrapp, Esthero, and Lykke Li. I also found out that the bands that spearheaded the movement were Synthpop bands like New Order, Gary Newman, The Eurythmics, and OMD were all considered to be part of that realm of music.

Now that was wild to me. EDM, I thought, was the techno and house music that was big in the 90's thanks to the Ministry of Sound. I knew my cousin loved that stuff and he ended up being one of the most sought-after trip-hop and house DJs in Manchester for a while. He actually gave me money for an autograph I didn't want from a band that played at our school, so that was my limit of knowledge when it came to electronica: I didn't have to listen to it but I could use it to profit. I was so naive.

The EDM Band That Played at Our School

Is there a more Britain-in-the-nineties statement than that? Genuine but rhetorical question, as the factual answer to it, is, "No."

In the 90's, we had an anti-drugs propaganda course that we had to take as part of the curriculum. I distinctly remember the first time our drama teacher, Mr. Bales, who'd had more spliffs in his life than half of Colorado, begrudgingly had to give our class the introduction to it.

Our prize at the end of the three weeks of staring at a front-page newspaper article about the young girl who tried Ecstasy once was a live concert from a real life, famous band!!!

Mr. Bales's idea of "famous" wasn't mine. When he read from the release forms that they were the band who had recently had a hit in the charts called Freedom, one person in our class asked if it was Robbie Williams (the Judas of Take That) while I asked if they meant George Michael.

The answer was neither, and the band were relatively known in the EDM and house community, were from Scotland, and I'm sure felt like nothing was worth it any longer due to the fact they were playing a stage in a small auditorium to 200 kids as opposed to the nightclubs and venues they could have been.

The band's name was QFX. They were an electronic band, they were from Scotland, and they jumped around a lot. Other girls in our year had hormones that were running so quickly and so highly that the youngest member of the band was yanked from the stage and into a pit of greedy teenagers, which almost makes up for the number of way-too-handsy men at rock shows (but not quite).

It was this band whose autographs I sold to my cousin so he could put it on his wall beside his Ministry of Sound posters. When he asked if I was sure I didn't want to keep it, I placed my hand on his and, as the Louise Belcher to his Tina, made sure he knew just how lame I thought it was.

The Birthday Party at an EDM Club

One year, I was at a concert when a girl tapped me on my shoulder and asked if I had a light. Naturally, I did, because the anti-drug lessons were twenty years before that and I'd learned not to care. I gave her my light and we started talking, ending up heading out together after the gig had ended in the new dubstep capital that is Brixton.

We weren't there for an EDM show, but she told me her birthday and the celebrations around it were happening at the end of the week and that I should go. The club they were going to was primarily centered around electronic dance music and the stuff my cousin played if he played to a younger, less male-dominated audience.

I learned then that a heavy beat is a great way of forgetting who you are for a while, and a dropped bass goes crazy well with drinking. It was interesting to see a floor full of people feeling the things that I felt with other bands, or like I did with Jose's Knife cover, and it was difficult not to throw caution to the wind by diving right on in. All we were really missing were the glow sticks.

A Perfect, Raving Circle

Sometimes, you're rewarded for doing things you would not always necessarily do. Life has been known to give the people who take chances more of them to open their minds further, and that's what I believe my whole story has been and will be with electronic music. I know not to complain when it's all a bar is playing because sometimes it's needed, and chances can be like lightning. They don't always strike in the same place twice.

Toward the end of the birthday party at the club, a remix of a Fever Ray song started to play.

Fever Ray is the alias of singer-songwriter Karin Dreijer.

One half of The Knife; the band that, accidentally, brought EDM into my life.

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