Electronic tracks with rogue time signatures

  • Djrum – Blue Violet (15/8) From a Facebook post by the man himself:

    Lots of people have asked me about the time signature in 
    this track - and there's a discussion about it in the 
    YouTube comments - so I thought I'd shed some light.
    
    You'll notice that the synth pattern that starts the 
    track consists of 10 notes of equal length; so at 
    first you may hear it as 10/4. However when the 
    marimba part becomes audible it creates a polyrhythm.
    
    Now it should sound more like the synth is playing in 
    triplets, so the 10 notes spread across 30 beats (16ths) 
    making a time signature of 15/8
    
    The marimba pattern is made of two bars at 15/8, but 
    the bars split the 15 beats differently.
    
    The first bar splits into 4, 4, 4, and 3
    The second splits into 4, 5, 4, and 2
    
    Phew! So if you wanna dance to it, try counting in 15s.
    
    Or don't bother nerding out and just go with the flow.
    
  • NN – Deception (8/8). Deployed to great effect in DJ Stingray 313’s Boiler Room (watch from around 15:45 onwards)

  • Lucy – Ter (8/8). Credit to Upsammy for IDing this for me from her set at Strom 2023

  • 33EMYBW – Arthropods Continent (8/8)

  • Venetian Snares - Szamár Madár (7/4). Funny use of the Elgar cello concerto

  • Actress – Lost (6/4)

Honourable mentions

  • Rrose, Bob Ostertag – Pointillism - Variation Two. Can’t figure out the time signature but there’s some fuckery going on

  • Jon Hopkins – Light Through The Veins. The main drums are in 4/4 but there are some cool polyrhythms going on (was also sampled on Death and All His Friends, for the Coldplay scholars)

  • Autechre – Fold4, Wrap5. I think it is in 4/4, but the tempo is very messed up (Risset rhythm and that)

  • clipping. – Story 7. Not really electronic music but insanely cool rhythms – changes time signature about a million times (clipping. are great for stuff like this). Allegedly it goes 15/16 -> 21/16 -> 42/32 -> 4/4 (???)