About PulseRoots
PulseRoots is an interactive map of electronic music: a single tree that connects broad families such as Techno or House with the styles and substyles that grew out of them.
What you can do here
Explore the tree to see how styles relate to each other, open any genre to read a description, meet its key artists and listen to an example track, and use the timeline to follow more than a century of electronic music history.
Who builds it
PulseRoots is designed, built and curated by Mikel Aramendia. It is a personal project, not a commercial catalogue. You can see other work on my portfolio, follow the code on GitHub or support the project on Buy me a coffee.
How the tree is built
Each genre is placed in a family, and families branch down into styles and substyles. Descriptions are written and edited by hand, using encyclopaedic sources such as Wikipedia as a starting point for the historical facts. Artist lists and example tracks are curated and linked to Spotify so you can listen to the sound being described.
The hierarchy is an interpretation, not a law. Genres overlap, split and merge over time, and different scenes may describe the same sound with different names.
Limitations
Classifying music is inherently subjective. A style placed under Techno here may sit under House or Breakbeat in another taxonomy, and that is fine: the goal is to show relationships that help you understand the landscape, not to settle debates.
Corrections and suggestions
If a description is wrong, a genre is missing, an artist is miscredited or a track does not represent the style, tell me. Corrections are the most useful contribution you can make. Send a message through the contact page.
Updates
The dataset and the interface are reviewed periodically. New genres, better descriptions and additional example tracks are added over time, and the sitemap reflects the current state of the site.