----> should be our purpose for the coming days!
Extracts from a conversation:
I was recently in a conversation with a guy who works thru a distributor's office, and the sad thing about that is : funky techno sellings ( intec, recycled loops, ... ) are selling like 3000-4000 copies, and the labels with quality dance & non dance music takes nothing but a 800-1000 sails. ?
and every release is about the loops, you'v got 3 housy loops & 1 kick & one theme & rides, and there it goes 5000 copies ? every song is the same and I can't understand what kind of people are buying it, how stupid they have to be ???
has anyone listened to some of those "live sets" 60min of same loops & brakes & production?
i hate it...
I agree with you
Every realease on these labels are not necesary crap, but most of their productions are made in 5 minutes
And i think that if they sell a lot, it's because it's easy to mix
i was thinking the same thing last night listening to carl cox on the radio, really like some of the stuff he plays, always have, but some of it was just so bland - really percussive loopy... well you know the stuff i mean,i don't get it either, but at the same time, half that minimal stuff everyone is playing the now is wank aswell, its just as uninspiring.
so much hate, merry fucking christmas
yeah, me to
but some git sad to me : Carl Cox played minimal techno ?!!! fuck you
every one thinks loops are minimal ?!!
shithead
he used to play some really cool stuff, in fact his essential mixes are what got me in to techno and his non-stop 2000 mix cd hasn't aged a bit. would be cool to see an LD interview with him to hear his opinion on all this and where he thinks it will and can go
but a bit commercial & pathetic ?
Blessed with some great music, but the mix is a complete yawn-a-thon... The usual under-acheiving blend-fest that is 99% of commercially available mix CDs.
Techno is great. Funk is great. Italy is great. Sounds like a match made in heave to me. What could possibly go wrong?
marco passerani makes excellent, and indeed funky, itallian techno. don't know about this loopy shite, it's all pretty wack whatever the nationality...
We recently interviewed Cari lekebusch and asked him about this - I asked him if he thought this sort of thing was perhaps a little " unoriginal" and he did play a good devils advocate - saying that a lot of this was purely aimed at DJ's and made good tools for DJ's to be able to construct sets - he also said that a lot of this sort of thing was peretty much keeping a lot of vinyl sales afloat - I guess it makes sense - a lot of stuff I personally listen to is quite difficult to mix - try beatmatching Suhtekh and twerk for example - it's quite difficult to get it all sounding beat perfect - and for that reason - a lot of DJ's throw loops inbetween to get it all sounding beat perfect for the dancefloor.
I don't' think this is confined to Italian stuff either - a lot comes out of Europe though - chiefly - a lot of the Swedish/Prime (which was UK/Various) etc stuff does conform to this loop based, minimal, beat driven style.
I personally think - it does take a lot of the meaning and soul out of the music - but can see why folk want to buy it - It\s perfect for mixing with - and with everybody wanting to be a dj these days - it's an obvious connection that this is the sort of stuff that's gonna fly off the shelf real quick.
But to push an alternative - I guess this is why more forward thinking DJ's are using things like Ableton and the likes - it means unmixeable tunes suddenly become far more useable and it's much easier to construct your own style - bringing back a touch of originality in my book.
It's also why live PA's are suddenly far more feasable - I remember Live PA's being a dirty word years ago - a lot of folk I used to know couldn't get gigs playing live - but all of the DJ's could - it's great to see more people accepting the live side of things and I reckon this is beacuse it's far easier to maintain a flow with live now due to these fantastic new performance tools - not just ableton etc I mean either - look at Pacou and Matt Johnson - jamming it up with hardware - and making some great live music .
i think the loop based records will always be there - rather than write it off as rubbish though - I'd say the best tactic is to embrace it as yet another weapon in the locker - providing it's not like looped up Italian piano house
I agree with most of whats been said...marco bailey, lekebusch, picotto Twat et al are to blame for sending many punters down a techno dead end...Waht gets me about this type of music is the reliance on really predictable hat/ride patterns and arrangements as well as a completetly unoriginal approach to basslines and melodies...the messy midrange too...fucking BONGOS...
fuck it...I hate it all. hope everyone is having a fun (but discerning) xmas!
Artist - Arne Weinberg
Label - 11th Hour Technology
Released - ??
Titel - "Confessions Of A Believer" (EP)
I know four-fifths of diddly squat about Arne Weinberg, but that’s something I intend to correct as soon as possible, as this 12” is one of those sweet surprises that only comes along every few months. It’s difficult to describe, as the basic elements of the tracks – Derrick May-ish drum programming, Kraftwerk synth washes, YMO almost-but-not-quite-cheesy melody lines, early Guy Called Gerald analogue chirps – are not original in themselves… However each track is put together with such warmth, personality and originality that as it’s spinning, you feel no need to pick apart the influences: it hangs together perfectly in its own right. These are real little symphonies in the Detroit style, with new sounds and melodies coming in all the time, and the washes and pads creating a embracing sense of space while the rhythm parts never lose track of the funk, even during the breakdowns. Of the six (well, five and a half) tracks here, there is not a single clunker – this EP comes unreservedly recommended to anyone who loves sophisticated, emotive melody in their electronic music. A great reminder that the blueprint of Detroit techno still has endless possibilities for exploration and freshness, even so many years after it first emerged.
Brixton
Es laufen einem immer noch Leute über den Weg, die finden Brixtons Sound als Produzent und DJ zu hart, zu krass. Eigentlich ist es aber nur das Resultat aus jahrelangem Kontakt zur Szene und immensem Labelschaffens. Er hat den Technosound von den Anfängen durch, ihn mit seinen Prägungen weiterentwickelt und seinen Sound immer durch äußere Einflüsse verteidigt. Darum ist sein Sound immer noch so frisch, wie an den ersten Tagen.
Mit seinem sicheren Händchen hat er unter Pornostarmusic seine Labels vereint. Unter anderem das Techno Urgestein Holzplatten oder auch Kazumi mit seinen knackigen nach vorn gehenden Releases.
Für sein aktuelles Album "e Techno de" hat er sich die Holzplatten-Nummer 77 aufgehoben und dort ganze achts Hammertracks aufgeladen.
Der Sound ist durch die Reihe weg sehr experimentell, hart und schippert in der 140BPM-Gegend herum. Basis bilden zumeist verzerrte tiefe Bässe, zappelige und zischelnde Hats und kristallklare Stabs und Sounds, die den Tracks noch einen zusätzlichen Energieschub unterjubeln.
"Pisda" und "Si Les Acid" sind da nicht ganz so wild und wirken daduch etwas reiner und pumpender. Der Brixton-Touch bleibt. Der Killersound wurde dann für die D-Seite aufgehoben. "Locki" und Stuij" sind laut, rüttelnd und hauen den letzten Putz aus den Mauern.
Die experimentellere Fraktion der DJs dürfte sich über die vielen Loops - acht an der Zahl - freuen, die sich geschwindigkeitsmäßig nicht in den oberen Region aufhalten, durch die vielen Flächen und sinselnden Sounds aber sehr viel Raum für den Spieltrieb des DJs lassen. Ein Loop, ein Effektmixer und fünf Minuten sind schneller um, als man denkt. Danke für das Spielzeug, Brixton.
11. Dezember 04 - Clubnight Spezial
15 Jahre Groove
Die Groove-Macher um Thomas Koch a.k.a. DJ T. versammeln mal wieder das Line-Up des Jahres für ihre Birthday-Party im MTW und Robert-Johnson, Offenbach. Auf drei Floors sind Ricardo Villalobos, Ellen Allien, Ivan Smagghe, Steve Bug, Luciano, DJ Koze, Pierre, Anthony Rother u.v.a. dabei. Wetten, dass die Hütte aus allen Nähten platzen wird?! Früh hingehen ist angesagt, um sich ein Plätzchen auf der Tanzfläche zu sichern. Oder ihr bleibt entspannt daheim vorm Radio: die Clubnight überträgt live von 23 bis 5 Uhr!
www.groove.de
HISTORY Techno was primarily developed in basement studios by "The Belleville Three", a cadre of African-American men who were attending college, at the time, near Detroit, Michigan.
The budding musicians – former high school friends and mixtape traders Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson – found inspiration in Midnight Funk Association, an eclectic, 5-hour, late-night radio program hosted on WJLB-FM from 1977 through the mid-1980s by DJ Charles "The Electrifying Mojo" Johnson. Mojo's show featured heavy doses of electronic sounds from the likes of George Clinton, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream, among others.
Though initially conceived as party music and played at Detroit all-ages clubs such as the Music Institute, techno began to be seen by many of its originators and up-and-coming producers as an expression of Future Shock and post-industrial angst. It also took on increasingly urban, science-fiction oriented themes.
The music's producers were using the word "techno" in a general sense as early as 1984 (as in Cybotron's seminal classic "Techno City"), and sporadic references to an ill-defined "techno-pop" could be found in the music press in the mid-1980s. However, it was not until Neil Rushton assembled the compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound Of Detroit for Virgin UK in 1988 that the word came to formally describe a genre of music.
Techno has since been retroactively defined to encompass, among others, works dating back to "Shari Vari" (1981) by A Number Of Names, the earliest compositions by Cybotron (1981), Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder's "I Feel Love" (1977), and the more danceable selections from Kraftwerk's repertoire between 1978 and 1983.
In the years immediately following the first techno compilation's release, techno was referenced in the dance music press as Detroit's relatively high-tech, mechanical brand of house music, because on the whole, it retained the same basic structure as the soulful, minimal, post-disco style that was emanating from Chicago, New York and London at the time. The music's producers, especially May and Saunderson, admit to having been fascinated by the Chicago club scene and being influenced by house in particular. This influence is especially evident in the tracks on the first compilation, as well as in many of the other compositions and remixes they released between 1988 and 1992. May's 1987-88 hit "Strings Of Life" (released under the nom de plume Rhythim Is Rhythim), for example, is considered a classic in both the house and techno genres.
A spate of techno-influenced releases by new producers in 1991-92 resulted in a rapid fragmentation and divergence of techno from the house genre. Many of these producers were based in the UK and the Netherlands, places where techno had gained a huge following and taken a crucial role in the development of the club and rave scenes. Many of these new tracks in the fledgling IDM, trance and hardcore/jungle genres took the music in more experimental and drug-influenced directions than techno's originators intended. Detroit and "pure" techno remained as a subgenre, however, championed by a new crop of Detroit-area producers like Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, Richie Hawtin, Jeff Mills, Drexciya, Robert Hood, and others, plus certain musicians in the UK, Belgium and Germany.
May is often quoted as comparing techno to "George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator", even though very little, if any, techno ever bore a stylistic resemblance to Clinton's repertoire.
For various reasons, techno is seen by the American mainstream, even among African-Americans, as "white" music, even though its originators and many of its producers are Black. The historical similarities between techno, jazz, and rock and roll, from a racial standpoint, are a point of contention among fans and musicians alike. Derrick May, in particular, has been outspoken in his criticism of the co-opting of the genre and of the misconceptions held by people of all races with regard to techno. In recent years, however, the publication of relatively accurate histories by authors Simon Reynolds (Generation Ecstasy aka Energy Flash) and Dan Sicko (Techno Rebels), plus mainstream press coverage of the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, have helped to diffuse the genre's more dubious mythology. The genre has further expanded as more recent pioneers of the scene such as Moby, Orbital, and the Future Sound of London have made the style break through to the mainstream pop culture.
Musicology
Stylistically, techno features an abundance of percussive, synthetic sounds, studio effects used as principal instrumentation, and a fast, regular 4/4 beat in the 130-140 bpm range. It is very DJ-friendly, being mainly instrumental, relatively atonal (often without a discernible melody or bass line), and produced with the intention of being incorporated into continuous DJ sets wherein different compositions are played with very long, synchronized segues. Although several other dance music genres can be described in such terms, techno has a distinct sound that aficionados can pick out very easily.
There are many ways to make techno, but a typical techno production is created using a compositional technique that developed to suit the genre's sequencer-driven, electronic instrumentation. While this technique is rooted in a Western music framework (as far as scales, rhythm and meter, and the general role played by each type of instrument), it does not typically employ traditional approaches to composition such as reliance on the playing of notes, the use of overt tonality and melody, or the generation of accompaniment for vocals. Some of the most effective techno music consists of little more than cleverly programmed drum patterns that interplay with different types of reverb and frequency filtering, mixed in such a way that it's not clear where the instrument's timbres end and the effects begin.
Instead of employing traditional compositional techniques, the techno musician treats the electronic studio as one large, complex instrument: an interconnected orchestra of machines, each producing timbres that are at once familiar and alien. These machines are set in motion one by one, and are encouraged to generate the kind of repetitive patterns that are more 'natural' to them. Depending on how they are wired together, they sometimes influence each other's sounds as the producer builds up many layers of syncopated, rhythmic harmonies and mingles them together at the mixing console.
After an acceptable palette of compatible textures is collected in this manner, the producer begins again, this time focusing not on developing new textures but on imparting a more deliberate arrangement of the ones he or she already has. The producer "plays" the mixer and the sequencer, bringing layers of sound in and out, and tweaking the effects to create ever-more hypnotic, propulsive combinations. The result is a deconstructive manipulation of sound, owing as much to Debussy and the Futurist Luigi Russolo as it does to Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream.
The techno producer's studio can be anything from a single computer (increasingly common nowadays) to elaborate banks of synthesizers, samplers, effects processors, and mixing boards wired together. Most producers use a variety of equipment and strive to produce sounds and rhythms never heard before, yet stay fairly close to the stylistic boundaries set by their contemporaries.
Substyles and related genres
In the early 1990s, adventurous techno producers experimented with the style, spawning new genres that have taken on a life of their own. The most prominent of these techno offshoots are:
Detroit techno, music in the style of early techno from Detroit, not necessarily of that geographical origin.
trance, which now has many subgenres, all of which differ from modern techno in that they tend to have emphasize synthesized, melodic or harmonic figures in the lower midrange frequencies, and often use build-ups and crescendos, among other differences;
a short-lived subgenre called hardcore that evolved into jungle, based mainly on complex arrangements of sampled percussion, often at very high BPMs (180+), and often featuring loud, dub-influenced bass lines played at half time;
Gabba (Gabber) - very loud, aggressive techno that was born in Rotterdam. The essence of the gabber sound is, for example, a distorted Roland TR-909 bass drum, overdriven to the point where it becomes a square wave and makes a recognizably melodic tone. The typical gabber track is from 160 to 220 BPM (beats per minute).
IDM, representing techno's "avant-garde", a genre often influenced by and crossing over into ambient and experimental music, usually features complex, asymmetrical beat patterns that render it more for listening than dancing;
tech house, a fusion that often combines techno with a prominent bass line and other elements of house, at a slightly lower tempo;
Acid techno, a mainly UK-based style of techno that originally tended to prominently feature the sound of the Roland TB-303 synthesizer; and
Ghettotech, which combines some of the aesthetics of techno with hip-hop, house music, and Miami bass.
Less known genres or substyles include:
Bouncy techno, originating in Scotland in 1993 and influenced by Detroit techno and Gabba genres. Much of its characteristics have been used in the developing Happy hardcore scene since 1995.
Schranz, one of many names for European hard techno: percussive, bass heavy techno with a generally simple, repetitive structure. The name is heavily associated with Chris Liebing as giving rise to its popular useage since at his local record store the owner used to place aside certain records for his visits in a pile which was called the 'Schranz' pile.
Swechno, A name arising to describe the percussive sound arising from the Swedish techno scene, generally Swechno is accepted to be something which the prolofic Adam Beyer gave rise to with labels such as his Drumcode defining the style.
Tartan techno, originating in Scotland in 1991 and influenced by European techno, using vocals and piano melody hooks.
Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass, a short lived, localised northern English scene in the early 1990s.
Wonky techno, the birth of the term wonky techno can be traced back to London DJ Jerome Hill's record shop where a section had been setup proclaiming to be full of "Wonky" tracks. The tunes which make up this sub-genre take the name from how they sound, tunes often have harsh industrial type sounds as well as harsh beats, often messing with the beat structure to create breaks. Neil Landstrumm, Cristian Vogel, Dave Tarrida and Subhead are often to be considered excellent examples of this sound at work.
Occasionally some well-funded pop music producers will formulate a radio or club-friendly variant of techno. The music of Technotronic, 2 Unlimited, and Lords Of Acid were early examples of this phenomenon. Established pop stars also sometimes get techno makeovers, such as when William Orbit produced Madonna's "Ray Of Light".
Important artists
The "originators", the artists credited with "inventing" techno, although arguably German group Kraftwerk whom heavily influenced these musicians, pre-dated even these "first wave" techno artists:
Derrick May
Juan Atkins
Kevin Saunderson
Other "second wave" Detroit-area techno producers active since 1988-1990:
Eddie Fowlkes [some argue that he is an originator]
Richie Hawtin (Plastikman)
John Acquaviva
Carl Craig
Kenny Larkin
Stacey Pullen
Underground Resistance: Mike Banks and Jeff Mills (The Wizard)
James Pennington (Suburban Knight)
Robert Hood (X-101, X-102, X-103, The Vision)
Blake Baxter
Alan Oldham (DJ T-1000, X-313)
Drexciya
Other artists of note who primarily produce techno:
Aphex Twin
Moritz "Maurizio" von Oswald (Basic Channel)
Orbital
Underworld
Ian B. "Eon" Loveday
Peter "Baby" Ford
Mark Broom
Dave Clarke (the "Baron of Techno")
Chris Liebing
Carl Cox
Dave Angel
Richard Bartz
Fred Giannelli
Slam
Funk d'Void
Heiko Laux
Johannes Heil
Cari Lekebusch
Adam Beyer
Uwe "Atom Heart" Schmidt
808 State
Moby (from 1990 to about 1995)
Laurent Garnier
Ken Ishii
Sven_Vath
See also
Love parade
Freetekno
Drum machine
