A negative term for a release by an electronic musician, indicating that it is of mediocre quality. The word refers to the fact that many electronic musicians keep unreleased demos on their hard drives, and suggests that a new release is little more than a "
dump" of some older, inferior tracks. The accusation is often used in the
case of albums that appear to have been released in a hurry, as a stop-
gap, or to fulfill a contractual obligation.
When Aphex Twin released the double-album Drukqs in
2001, many critics, noticing the varying
quality and uneven sequencing of the release, accused him of putting out a hard drive
dump to fulfill contractual obligations with Warp Records. Others hailed it as his masterpiece.