There is no more confusing, broad category than electronic music. I suppose, the name is meant to refer to musics that are conceived and executed sans traditional instrumentation. But I think you need to plug in amplifiers in order for them to work, so I don’t know that ‘electronic’ is the best thing to tag a genre with.

But within that enormous swath of electronica, yet another tag has been applied – that of IDM (Intelligent Dance Music).

Looking back, I don’t know that I really heard that word too much before the year 2000 or so, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t in use at some point prior to that. But under that broad umbrella of IDM falls everything from Prefuse 73 to Squarepusher. And while those to acts share little in common, the manner in which they both produce music is comparable at least. So the genre doesn’t necessarily have sonic similarities so much as theoretical relationships, which, perhaps, makes this all the more confusing.

One of the foremost groups, that in hindsight probably contributed to a great deal of these stylistic similarities within the genre are Kruder & Dorfmeister.

Kruder & Dorfmeister functioned during the early part of the ‘90s and didn’t exactly break up, but each member has subsequently been involved in other projects for just about a decade now.

With Tosca releasing No Hassle on K7 this year, it’s the first return of the Dorfmeister half of K & D to music fans since the 2006 G-Stone released Souvenirs. But the album that really should define this duo (the other half of Tosca is Rupert Huber) is their initial release – the indispensible 1997 Opera.

More than ten years on, Tosca has eschewed much of the hip hop inspired music of that first disc and turned in twelve tracks of vaguely ambient, big beat IDM. The percussive propulsion of the rap beat is still there in a great many situations, but it’s submerged under layers of soothingly (and rather plain) electronic sounds. Of course there are tracks that seem more closely tied to straight dance music – “Oysters in May” for one. But there are various and a bit too infrequent hints at the trip hop influence from the group’s past.

“Fondue” is probably the most funky track that Tosca turns in here. The drum and bass that moves this track into its groove isn’t absent from other offerings found on No Hassle, but here, it’s simply emphasized.

Of course nothing since Opera can really compare to the work that Peter Kruder released as Peace Orchestra. Even the cover of that album – a plain of pink, the color of your skin, affixed with a band aid that held the band’s name – surpasses the design of Tosca’s discs. But the blunted hip hop that springs from that disc will probably be most satisfying to readers here.

It’s not to be understood that this latest disc from Tosca is without merit. The fact, though, that this duo has moved so far afield from what fans may expect makes this something short of indispensible.