Algorave / Live Coding

Algorave is a dance event and musical community built around algorithms; live coding is the practice of changing computer instructions while music or visuals are running. A performer can reshape repeating patterns through text, turning code into an instrument that changes during the set. The result can draw on techno and other electronic dance music, with rhythms that mutate as the instructions are revised.

Projected screens often let the audience see that process, though understanding the code is unnecessary. The point remains the music and the people dancing to it. Different systems and performers lead to different sounds: Yaxu’s Tidal-based recordings, Renick Bell’s generative system and ALGOBABEZ’s collaborative algo-pop provide distinct starting points. This is a shared way of making and presenting music, with a wider sonic range than a single beat formula suggests.

Algorithmic composition predates this scene. Within live coding’s more recent community history, TOPLAP formed in Hamburg in 2004 and developed a draft manifesto around exposed, improvisatory software performance. Alex McLean’s own account traces Tidal through earlier work with the band Slub, open-source sharing and a 2013 Barcelona residency that gave him time to document and teach it.

Algorave connected such practices with dance events and a growing range of musicians. Computer Club’s 2015 Peak Cut release paired Yaxu’s tracks with code and a usable software environment. Renick Bell’s 2016 Empty Lake documented another generative approach, while ALGOBABEZ debuted as a duo at Leeds Algorave that year. These examples show how records, workshops, shared tools and collaborations carry the practice between performances.