Few genre tags are as divisive—or as grudgingly necessary–as IDM. “Intelligent dance music”—as codified on Warp Records’ landmark 1992 compilation Artificial Intelligence–suggested, obviously, that electronic music could be as smart, challenging, and avant-garde as any music (and it insinuated that other electronic music at the time was not these things). As suited to home listening as to the live or club setting, this stuff was characterized by meticulously detailed sound design, melodic and rhythmic experimentation clicks and whirs and sample jitters playing outside the usual four-on-the-floor grids. Plaid weren’t on Artificial Intelligence, but they were contemporaries and have signed with the label since, and while their stuff can be more straightforward than the weirdest of their peers, with pretty melodies or easy beats cropping up here and there, expect it to sound plenty thoughtful live. Lately, their work has focused on audio-visual collaborations, so expect your retinas as well as your cochlea to be dazzled. With Copy, Vox Mod. ERIC GRANDY

Tue., Nov. 22, 8 p.m., 2011