Rising Stars: Electronic

Electronic music has never been about one specific sound — more like a million scenes and subgenres that seem to shift on a daily basis. With so many tracks to take in at all times, we decided to do the impossible: stay on top of every trend in the twisted sphere of spliced samples, skewered beats, and crisscrossing synths. Up first are some of the world's biggest rising stars, from South London bass bin-imploding dubstep dons (Benga & Coki) to a pair of electro-shocked Parisians (Sebastian, Justice) and totally '80s revivalists from the land Down Under (Cut Copy, the Presets). Some of the same names pop up in our Next Steps, right alongside artists who are reinventing the very idea of 21st-century electronic music.

Getting kicked out of Juilliard was one of the best things that ever happened to Kelley Polar. Rather than leaving him feeling like a failure, the expulsion pushed the classically trained violinist to pursue his natural career path: densely orchestrated disco and pop sides in the vein of "Entropy Reigns (In the Celestial City)." Our Rising Stars: Electronic set is full of stories like this, including a Detroit techno traditionalist who speaks Japanese and builds hovercrafts in his spare time (Osborne), the steamy post-!!! project of John Pugh and one of Brooklyn's bleeding-edge fashion designers (Free Blood), and the Maurice Fulton-led "band," Syclops (it's really just the left-field producer playing tricks on us all). This wouldn't be a dance/electronic music playlist without a stack of remixes, though — which is why our Deep Cuts is bursting at the grooves with 'em.

Low Motion Disco is exactly what their name implies: a slo-mo soundtrack synced up to blinking glitter balls and a loft-party crowd that refuses to rest until the sun comes up. Aeroplane — the able-handed remixers of Low Motion Disco's ridiculously infectious "Love Love Love" — would fit nicely in a set of similarly minded club tunes, from the rich, candy-colored grooves of "Apples and Pears" and "I Feel Electric" to a Twilight Zone take on Metallica's penultimate power-ballad, "Nothing Else Matters." If you're looking for something harder and heavier, we've got that, too, as Crookers, Curses! and Boy 8-Bit threaten to decimate the dance floor with seared synths and elephantine basslines.

Ever since electronica's sudden emergence in the mid- to-late '90s, the house that disco built has been razed and remodeled so many times we barely recognize it anymore. That's a good thing — much like the outsider realms of rock and rap music, today's electronic artists pay tribute to the past while pushing things forward without a hint of hesitation. They also have a keen ear for what makes people move, whether that means channeling the spirit of Studio 54 and the Paradise Garage (the decadent and dark Blondie/Donna Summer duets of Glass Candy, the proto-house touches — check out those piano keys! — of the Juan MacLean) or a sound so alien it could have been beamed down from a space station (the choppy, post-hip-hop productions of Flying Lotus, the 8-bit blips 'n' beats of Crystal Castles).