@Alexandra Galbraith

Since the days of white-label 12-inches, electronic music has been as prolific as it is progressive, and these days the sheer number of weekly releases is astronomical. Stay on top of the deluge with a handpicked selection of essential new tunes taking the genre to places you may never have imagined. We add a new track to this playlist every day. If you hear something you like, add it to your library.

From mesmerising electronica to gently shimmering indie-rock via soothing acoustic pop, this diverse collection is your escape route from the stresses and strains of the daily grind. Our editors regularly update this playlist—if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

Techno has taken many forms over the years: the stargazing fantasia of its Detroit pioneers; the stripped-down exactitude of minimal; the scorched-earth brutalism of its hardest incarnations By and large, techno represents dance music at its most focused and fat-free: Just powerful, pumping machine grooves and commanding synths, sculpted to achieve maximum dance-floor hypnosis. The genre was born in black Midwestern communities in the '80s, as the style’s innovators—Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May—set about translating American funk and European synth-pop to newly affordable electronic gear. Outside the underground, the style languished in the U.S., but it flourished across Europe in the ’90s and ’00s, spawning dub techno, Berlin techno and dozens of further offshoots. In the late ’10s, as a new generation of EDM fans turned its tastes to darker, steelier grooves, techno began infiltrating festival stages worldwide via crossover artists like Ellen Allien and Amelie Lens. But it’s a subterranean sound at heart, one that thrives in opposition and, like its creators, takes the DIY ethos as a matter of pride.

Latin America's electronic music scene is as diverse and eclectic as the range of cultures that comprise it. From woozy synth-pop to left-field house and techno to wired-up takes on traditional Latin styles (think the shuffle of cumbia or the meditative hum of Andean folk music), this mix highlights the region's best cutting-edge, dance-adjacent sounds. Our editors update this playlist regularly. If you like a track, add it to your library.

Rediscover the genre’s chart-toppers, classics and lost favourites. Our editors regularly update this playlist—if you hear something you like, add it to your library.

If your idea of an amazing night out is a black-box room with sweaty walls, one light bulb, a banging system and a sign on the door that reads “no phones or photography allowed,” then this set is for you. Indulge in an open-minded mix of avant-garde house, techno and other forms of dance music that fall comfortably, intoxicatingly left of centre. We update this playlist every week. If you like a track, add it to your library.

As the super-club universe of the late ’90s evolved, one venue reinvigorated Ibiza and brought back its raucous and lawless original party spirit like no other. DC10 initially found fame with its Circoloco party, which originally began at 6 am every Monday morning, and helped birth the European minimal techno sound. Residents like Loco Dice, Luciano and Ricardo Villalobos pioneered a stripped-back and propulsive sound which mirrored the bare-bones interior of the club where the music could be heard. Many of the proponents of this sound went on to be the next generation of superstar DJs—and many of the records they played went on to become stone-cold classics. This playlist features our favourites.

“Hey Siri, play the Chilling Out playlist.”

There’s something special about ambient music that can be relaxing and compelling at the same time. A soundtrack for escaping, unwinding or drifting away to sleep, these largely contemporary tracks (with a few classics mixed in) will soften your senses while still offering dedicated ambient listeners new corners to explore. Our editors regularly refresh this playlist. If you like a track, add it to your library.

If dance music took root in the ‘90s, its branches grew every which way in the ‘00s. Techno and house went from underground concerns to worldwide forces, yielding timeless anthems like Daft Punk's “One More Time.” An increasingly global perspective blurred both genres and borders, giving us songs like M.I.A.'s “Paper Planes”. And the Y2K comedown produced a wave of enveloping (and occasionally melancholy) downtempo from Air, The Avalanches, Moby, Boards of Canada and other artists keeping it easy like Sunday morning. Yet as dubstep kicked off toward the end of the decade, there was no shortage of earthshaking futurism.