alt Hacker News"Western electronic music" is anything that uses an instrument with a filter cutoff knob.
Filter knobs and polyphony don't play together well.
That's why they gravitate towards "leads" or "pads" over a separate bass or percussion track. Unlike normal Western polyphony you want the two to NOT form chords or counterpoint.
This just isn't true. Try listening to any deep ambient, and you'll be hearing (a) instruments with filter cutoffs in use (b) chords (c) no percussion (d) no lead. Again, Roach's "Mystic Chords and Sacred Spaces" is as good a place to start as any.
What is true in ambient is that you frequently do not want the third in the chords, because it makes the chords "too obvious". A lot of drone music involves a variety of chords with the third omitted.