New technology has widened the number of possible approaches available to musical composition. It's become possible to write, record and perform music without the use of anything even close to a traditional musical instrument. As an instrumentalist, I have mixed feelings about this, as you may have guessed. I'll get to my reservations tomorrow, but first, I should say that I do find the music of many electronic artists intriguing and diverse, rife with unusual and beautiful textures, settings and rhythms. And I listen to quite a bit of it. In fact, I've probably listened to the Mancunian duo known as Autechre (members: Sean Booth and Rob Brown) as much as any other active recording artist over the last couple of years, which is a realization that surprises me. Paradoxically, it's the human quality of their work that maintains my interest. (Thematically, I think that there's some overlap with Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times and its consideration of the effects of mechanization on human life.) My album of choice from their repertoire is Quaristice from 2008, and it's also the one that I would recommend to a listener new to their music. Here's a link for the opening track, "Altibzz": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ZyEGTIsvE. By the way, most of their titles, and their name as well, are, like the ones above, part way between language and science fiction, and it's interesting to note the condensed, poetic quality that can be contained in "words" that aren't, strictly speaking, part of a language. Their music, I think you'll find, is equally thought-provoking in this way.