More than ever, genres are a hot, sticky mess. As the digital music age allows for more sapling and mixing, many feel that dividing music by genres is becoming increasingly useless. This is especially the case when it comes to electronic music, in which virtually most of the sounds can and are created out of thin air, owing nothing to any existing musical style.

HOWEVER, being the pattern seeking mammals that we are, we would probably give anyone claiming to have created a new genre a difficult time, inevitably finding similarities in between styles which seem to inspire one another. Additionally, since electronica is fairly new as far as music goes, it's impossible to ignore how these styles are historically intertwined; a new sound is discovered/invented, which borrows itself to new scenes, which in turn become their own style, as has been the case in the linear relationship between Psytrance and Psybient, for instance.

The folks down at Design Infographics made this beautiful visualization to help see the connection between these electronica subgenres (click here for larger version):