And when the music spoke, they became electronic performers, spinning the vocoded voices on Moon Safari into a new cast of robo-dialects.
Its hub is Beijing, with the electronic performers Wang Fan, Sulumi, Yan Jun and FM3; Sun Wei, who creates sound collages under the name 718; and Dou Wei, one of China's biggest rock stars, whose solo career includes numerous spacey, dreamlike albums that incorporate traditional instrumentation.
He sees electronic performers as "the leaders" in live show innovation, stating, "They have the best lasers and the best lighting shows".
Ronen Givony, 29, whose adventurous Wordless Music series has won a large, enthusiastic (and young) following over the last two seasons by bringing together classical performers and indie rock bands, is overseeing the classical and electronic performances.
No one electronic music performer is like the other, but the same can't be said for their often-repetitive stage shows.
Such obfuscation distinguished electronic music performers from their counterparts in genres like hip-hop and alternative rock, where artists were treated like rock stars.
Besides booking a highly-curated selection of progressive house, techno and electronic music performers from across the globe, Garden will embark on a small US and European tour in November.
Amy Lambert, 21, offered a musical number using a Soundbeam, a device that emits an electronic beam; the performer interrupts the beam to create a tone, and moves closer to or farther from the device to vary the tone's pitch.
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Electronic dance music performer Avicii may be the artist who most frequently inspires people to say, "OMG I love this song, who is it?!" according to new data released Wednesday by Shazam.
