The new sound of clubland? Riots, explosions and gunfire

You can’t turn a pop culture corner without witnessing Armageddon at the moment. From superhero films to sci-fi TV shows, we’re clearly fixated with the end of days. And, yes, inevitably that’s extended to music, too. While pop continues down its cheerful, colourful path, a group of electronic artists seem increasingly concerned with soundtracking something more doom-laden.

The apocalypse is here, aurally speaking at least. These artists, who you’ll dance to at club nights such as London’s Endless, Berlin’s Janus, or New York’s GHE20G0TH1K, evoke a world of drone warfare, online abuse and devastated ecology. Sounds of explosions and gunfire fill the likes Paleta by Brixton chap Kamixlo and Pandemic by Houston grime producer Rabit. The impassive trap of Kanye collaborator Evian Christ and Berliner MESH seems to scan the scorched earth with the jaded stare of a warlord. Kuwaiti producer Fatima Al Qadiri’s new record Brute – whose cover features a Teletubby in riot gear – reflects on the militarisation of police with snares that connect like a cop’s truncheon. Less dancey types such as James Hoff and Kara-Lis Coverdale have reworked sounds of riots and punchbags; run a track from Norwegian TCF’s new EP through a spectrograph, and an image of Greek political unrest emerges.

Other electronic artists, such as Björk beat-maker Arca or terrifying new duo Hex, reflect on the mental toll of living amid this chaos, and their splintered music suggests we’re not taking it well. As a result, some are getting off the stinking Earth. Denver’s Thug Entrancer has based his new album Arcology around the idea of “a structure or object that is entirely self-sufficient and life-generating” – a panicked daydream of a planet as our own crumbles. Ready to hit the floor? I’ll get the Apple Cirocs in!

This digital violence is the inevitable byproduct of a world where humanity’s innate brutality is measured out in breaking news alerts on your smartphone. Its composers capture the panic that sits iceberg-like in our lives, where you’ll be eating a Froyo in Westfield only to remember that the Arctic might be gone before your children are born. It’s music that protests without a placard.

Although it’s heartening to hear dance artists engaging with our collective end-times mood, it has arguably always been thus. Guys smelling of vinyl cleaning fluid might point out 1990s techno duo Drexciya, who invented an entire underwater setting for their music populated by the babies of African women thrown off slave ships, while dubstep suggested social instability in its very frequencies.

While dance music might sell itself as escapist, this lot know that you can never truly blot out reality. Instead, the dancefloor becomes somewhere to confront the demons. It’s why they play downstairs, with the lights off.

Brute is out now on Hyperdub