[HN Gopher] History of Techno
___________________________________________________________________
History of Techno
Author : unquote
Score : 446 points
Date : 2021-04-29 05:53 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.beatportal.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.beatportal.com)
| tomcam wrote:
| An accurate history. Got to see where this music evolved from in
| real time. Worked in an all-black mailroom (except me) in the 70s
| where there was one station and one station only: Los Angeles'
| KISS 106. You heard Cerrone, Cameo, Toto, Grandmaster Flash,
| Prince, Teena Marie, Kool and the Gang, Black Russian, EWF---the
| least formatted format on the market. It was a Cambrian explosion
| of dance music, much of which became the basis of techno styles.
|
| Combine that with the fact that Southern California set so many
| music trends, and literally nothing until about the Nirvana era
| was even remotely new to me for decades (and of course Nirvana's
| music style isn't particularly new to anyone who listened to the
| White Album or Iggy Pop, not that it's not great music). It was
| all recycled constantly in the dance music world and continues to
| be to this day.
|
| Techno and hiphop so obviously came out of these roots that I
| laugh every time someone names a new variant of EDM, which is
| about twice a week. Prince, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Kool in the
| Gang didn't even call themselves R&B groups. They called
| themselves rock bands, intentionally. Nothing new etc.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > Los Angeles' KISS 106. You heard Cerrone, Cameo, Toto,
| Grandmaster Flash, Prince, Teena Marie, Kool and the Gang,
| Black Russian, EWF---the least formatted format on the market.
| It was a Cambrian explosion of dance music, much of which
| became the basis of techno styles.
|
| That sounds a lot like the Electrifying Mojo, mentioned in the
| article. Mojo played rock and other stuff too.
| bisRepetita wrote:
| Berlin in the 90s. That's what made it for me. Love Parade.
| E-Werk. Tresor. East-Berlin hidden bars. Tiergarten outdoor
| parties.
|
| I went from "techno is boom boom music" to "mind-blown" in one
| week. Forever.
|
| Thank you Detroit, thank you New York City, and huge thank you
| Berlin.
| gdsdfe wrote:
| People look at me weird when I say that I like techno, glad I'm
| not the only weirdo around :)
| mellavora wrote:
| Wonder how this stacks up to Toops's Oceans of Sound?
|
| this is the book cover:
| https://monoskop.org/images/9/9f/Toop_David_Ocean_of_Sound_A...
| adriancooney wrote:
| This looks great, thanks for posting. Have you another other
| books like this you'd recommend?
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| https://jointhefuture.net/book/
|
| Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Birth of British Bass
| Music
| Severian wrote:
| Simon Reynolds's book _Energy Flash_ is a pretty good read on the
| history of early techno / rave culture up to about the 90s (if I
| remember corectly, it's been awhile). A lot of history regarding
| Detroit techno and the roots of the genre.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Flash-Journey-Through-Culture/...
| da39a3ee wrote:
| I thought I might see Luke Slater's name but no. If you don't
| know it try his 1997 album Freek Funk. It's a very beautiful
| album of techno.
| olivermarks wrote:
| missed out here are Morgan Khan's seminal 'streetsounds' techno
| vinyl compilations which were very successful in the the UK. I
| was hanging out with Herbie Laidly and the Mastermind Roadshow in
| the mid eighties, they mixed a lot of that vinyl which brought
| Techno/electro to a much broader audience.
|
| https://www.discogs.com/label/906-Street-Sounds
|
| https://youtu.be/QWuAdxoiVPA
| randomopining wrote:
| Proper techno is like tribal music on steroids imo. Same time of
| communal trance vibes.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| Reminds me of the track that is considered the first hardcore
| techno track, originating from Frankfurt as well:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACxT5_SLjfM (Mescalinum United -
| We Have Arrived)
|
| Funny that the Techno scene in Frankfurt is pretty much gone.
| cpach wrote:
| These threads are pure gold, thank you folks <3
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| Tze hizztorry of Tekkno iz incomplete wiffout manntionink tze
| meme of tze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techno_Viking
|
| _Uffz, Uffz, Uffz!_
| Dowwie wrote:
| 1978 Kraftwerk live performance of 2 songs:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdubMwbOndo
|
| Kraftwerk's first live recorded performance was in 1970:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWUiLJnEYJI
|
| How many people in the 1970 audience sensed that they were
| listening to something as significant as what it became?
| anthk wrote:
| Well, a few years later Jarre released Oxygene, so is not
| completely alien for that audience.
| tmearnest wrote:
| I've been listening to techno (not EDM in general, Techno) since
| the 90s. It's definitely my favorite music for deep work;
| something about the tight repetitive loops is just perfect for
| concentration. Since the pandemic started I've been listening to
| techno mixes almost constantly in order to mask the noise from
| everyone else in my house. Initially, I found it difficult to
| find decent mixes since Techno has become a generic term for EDM.
| I just returned to following the genre so I really didn't know
| where to look. However once I found a single Soundcloud account
| curating mixes of the style I like, it opened up an unlimited
| supply of music through following recommendations. Maybe someone
| will find this useful:
|
| https://soundcloud.com/invite-1
| spiralx wrote:
| I've got about 40 or so playlists on SoundCloud for individual
| techno DJs I like, as well as a couple for general techno mixes
| - they're all the ones with "techno" in the title :) You'll
| find a some overlap with the artists in your playlist in fact,
| I've got playlists for Ben Sims, The Advent and Drumcell that I
| found in the first minute of scrolling through it.
|
| What sort of techno do you prefer? The artists I've got are
| mostly the tougher end of European techno, there's also some
| Detroit techno, acid techno and hard techno/schranz. You can
| look at my likes for my favourites...
|
| https://soundcloud.com/spiralx/sets
|
| I've also been into techno since the 90s and it's still my
| favourite thing in the world :) The combination of relentless
| kick drum and the constantly changing synths and percussion
| never fails to draw me in. It manages to sooth my ADHD with the
| constant heartbeat of the kick drum while the constant
| progression of everything else serves to keep my attention from
| wondering off after a few bars.
| emptyfile wrote:
| Here's a great channel I found in 2020 for techno mixes. Seems
| like its mostly folks from Berlin but there are a few big names
| also.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/H%C3%96RBERLIN/videos
|
| EDIT: There's craploads of content, a lot of styles, although I
| will observe that oldschool sounds have continued to come back
| in a big way in 2020. Rave, electro, acid.
|
| Here's my favourite party set from 2020.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0qeZ1fpWwU
| subpixel wrote:
| I lived in Germany in the 90s and early 2000s, loathed
| techno, and I must admit that bouncing around a dozen or so
| of these videos gave me a flashback of nostalgia for lost
| youth mixed with the same desire to escape the music.
|
| No offense intended - divergent musical taste should be
| celebrated!
| brianzelip wrote:
| My favorite HOR BERLIN:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MBQFq06w5Y
| gregsadetsky wrote:
| So happy to see HOR references on HN! Thanks for your
| recommendation!
|
| Videos I've come back to way more than once below (most of
| these are on the harder side of "electro" -- hard techno,
| hard acid -- but not all)
|
| Lady Starlight (live modular!)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kb9oVM7CQbI
|
| Tigerhead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpuHmH495us
|
| Tham https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdOfhuYW_OI
|
| The Brvtalist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0qeZ1fpWwU
|
| FJAAK https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwpF8CAcGQ8
|
| SPFDJ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ7lbqyLbX8
| comprev wrote:
| Tham is awesome! Really working all 4 decks during his
| mixes, with multiple tracks looping in layers.
|
| Dax J and Hector Oaks also need a mention - Hector adding
| a sparkle of punk to electronic mixes.
| nocobot wrote:
| I did not expect to find a link to hor on hn news today.
| Interesting overlap
| hahamrfunnyguy wrote:
| You may also like SlamRadio https://soundcloud.com/paragraph
| ceh123 wrote:
| Not sure if you have spotify, but here's my "techno" playlist
| that has over 800 songs in it so far. I put techno in quotes
| because I'm sure someone can find songs in there that aren't
| "real techno" but you won't find any big room EDM, that's for
| sure.
|
| https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1LSjVUxQk1Nrh7kHavZ4uu?si=...
| bityard wrote:
| Nice, I will be checking that out.
|
| I maintain a YouTube playlist called "music to hack by" which
| is up to over 500 songs now. Basically the criteria are: 1)
| electronic 2) has a beat (no ambient) 3) few to no vocals, with
| only one or two exceptions
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2A7B99AB93F1E522
| dylan604 wrote:
| DI.fm is 100% dance music with so many channels dedicated to
| the nichest of niche genres. They have channels dedicated to
| mixes as well.
| laumars wrote:
| Slam, Adam Beyer (Drumcode) and Chris Liebling (CLR) are all
| good places to start. They all have weekly radio stations.
|
| From there on you can follow an guest DJs who you like the
| style off.
|
| Also when did "techno" become an umbrella term again? I was
| possessed off enough when "EDM" was redefined as a specific
| genre (and such a lousy one at that).
| nicholassmith wrote:
| If you like Slam then Reclaim Your City
| (https://soundcloud.com/reclaim-your-city) is a good one to
| go with it.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Reclaim Your City is fantastic! I've been listening to it
| for years. Endless totally techno sets from a wide range of
| DJs and a wider range of tracks, and they're all really
| expertly put together. Seamless is the rule, not the
| exception. It generally feels like it's one mad synthesizer
| boffin performing on a giant machine, rather than picking
| individual tracks to play in sequence. Rarely can you tell
| when they switch from one track to another.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Swedish techno... That brings me back. If you like Adam
| Beyer, check out Cari Lekebusch and Jasper Dahlback too.
|
| His style is a bit less minimal, but Boris Brejcha is
| absolutely sick.
| laumars wrote:
| Already got a stack of records from Cari and Jasper.
| Particularly love Cari's Agent Orange stuff.
|
| I've not knowingly come across Boris before though. Pretty
| sure I'd have heard some of his records play but looking at
| his discography I think he might have started making a name
| for himself around the same time I hung up my own DJ
| headphones so he's not a name that's immediately
| recognisable for me.
|
| I did recently hook my decks up again but not yet had a
| chance to play anything.
| josht wrote:
| +1 for Boris Brejcha
| rchaud wrote:
| > Also when did "techno" become an umbrella term again?
|
| I would guess in the '90s, when there was a lot more
| crossover between electronic music and other genres. Rock and
| hiphop oriented stuff like the Prodigy and Chemical Brothers
| were topping the dance charts, and other more conventional
| techno like Aphex Twin and Underworld were getting decent
| media coverage as well.
|
| Plus movie soundtracks at the time tended to include a lot of
| techno. Trainspotting, Pi, Hackers, The Jackal, The
| Saint....discovered a lot of artists thanks to these.
| laumars wrote:
| Yeah, I was around then; buying those records, going to
| those clubs and in many cases partying with those DJs. But
| that was the end of "Techno" as a synonym for "electronic
| music. By then there was already numerous sub genres and
| many of them because music styles in their own right (like
| rock, metal, blues are all guitar music) with people
| identifying themselves as trance, house, hardcore et al
| clubbers rather than techno.
|
| My comment was in regard to how the GP suggested that
| techno has since become another umbrella term again now. Or
| maybe I misunderstood their post?
| oogetyboogety wrote:
| +1 adam beyer
| pas wrote:
| https://www.uzic.ch/ - online radio
|
| https://soundcloud.com/hate_music/sets/hate-podcasts
|
| https://soundcloud.com/resident-advisor/sets/ra-podcasts
|
| https://soundcloud.com/resident-advisor/sets/ra-podcast-arch...
| FuckButtons wrote:
| Just to pitch in a suggestion for anyone looking: NTS radio and
| boiler room both have a huge number of mixes by techno artists
| - generally speaking I find artists by listening to mixes on
| NTS and checking the track list and then find mixes by them on
| boiler room.
| datameta wrote:
| Very much seconding Boiler Room. Been a huge fan of all
| genres electronic but those sets have made me "understand"
| Techno, specifically.
| randomopining wrote:
| I think the repetitive loops of percussion and basslines let
| you keep a certain part of your mind "busy" so you can focus on
| other things. Like it occupies some sort of nervous energy and
| let's other areas of the mind run more free.
| ylhert wrote:
| I agree completely - techno is hypnotic and almost by design is
| meant to be heard and not listened to, and I find this really
| helps me maintain focus/flow while working. No vocals, ear
| catching melodies, or overdone chord progressions that try to
| grab your attention. Techno is my go to work music for this
| reason!
| aasasd wrote:
| 'Techno Live Sets' are good at long mixes in the genre, though
| they do delve into house regularly: https://www.techno-
| livesets.com
|
| (IIRC they were on Mixcloud previously, but parted ways for
| some reason.)
| mason55 wrote:
| Wow, I didn't realize they have a website. They're also on
| the iOS Podcasts app which is how I have always consumed the
| feed.
| you_know_the_ wrote:
| Cercle channel on YouTube puts out some great techno shows.
| They go to historical places and record a set with some of the
| best djs Here is the link for Pan-Pot set
| https://youtu.be/hENgrbIMiy4
| layoutIfNeeded wrote:
| lol, the linked video is not techno but some pretty bland
| tech-house...
| Jommi wrote:
| That's not techno, it's Techno
| Jommi wrote:
| It's fascinating how the "techno" moniker nowadays really just
| means any non festival non house dance music.
| jldl805 wrote:
| Not among people who care it doesn't.
| comprev wrote:
| By that logic anything with a guitar is rock music.
|
| Techno has a vast range of styles.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Also a good historical primer
|
| Pump Up The Volume - A History of House Music - Documentary -
| 2001 - Channel 4 (UK)
|
| https://youtu.be/pRRg8M4fvUo
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Juan Atkins (Cybotron) interview (Bleep43, 2009). Long, deep.
|
| http://www.bleep43.com/bleep43/2009/10/4/juan-atkins-intervi...
|
| 'Alleys of Your Mind'
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMHNhJJnve4
| Jiocus wrote:
| Juan Atkins as "Model 500"
|
| "The Flow", here as an original MTV music video,
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZJt0XlhEoQ
| the-dude wrote:
| Classic history tree of electronic music :
| http://music.ishkur.com/
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26212706
| globular-toast wrote:
| The original Ishkur's Guide is one of those Flash projects now
| lost to time. This new one is OK, but doesn't come close to the
| original for me. I always loved electronic music, even as a
| kid. In the UK we regularly had tracks (trance especially)
| crossover into the charts. But before Ishkur's Guide I didn't
| really know what I was listening to. It opened up the door to a
| whole world of music for me.
| twelvechairs wrote:
| Neither this or OPs seem to give any acknowledgement to
| Japanese pinoeers (particularly YMO and its members)
| ratww wrote:
| No, there's a long paragraph about YMO in "Electro" and some
| of their songs are played in "Synthpop".
| andruby wrote:
| Do you happen to know if the old version of "Ishkur's guide to
| electronic music" is still available somewhere? IIRC it was a
| flash site with mostly music bubbles. It opened me up to fringe
| music genre's like Italo, Acid Jazz and Ghetto Tech.
| omnibrain wrote:
| It's part of BlueMaxima's Flashpoint:
| https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/
| andruby wrote:
| Thank you. Installed it and enjoyed listening to the
| carefully cut loops :)
| tern wrote:
| I believe it's here, but of course you need Flash
| http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/
|
| Another favorite is Ishkur's "trancecracker" comic, which you
| can find here:
| https://modwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=245900
| cpach wrote:
| I haven't used a Flash site for ages but I guess it would
| not be impossible to run it in a VM somehow.
| radley wrote:
| Heh... KLF worship
| monocasa wrote:
| That comic is the funniest fucking thing I've seen in a
| long time.
|
| I was literally just making the argument with my friends
| who were going "oh, I wish Tiesto was still playing trance;
| he turned his back on the trance scene" to which I
| responded "Tiesto was never a trance DJ, he was a mainstage
| DJ. He's still a mainstage DJ, and you don't get on the
| mainstage playing trance anymore".
| cpach wrote:
| Love that comic, first saw it like 15 years ago or so
| (^_^)
| HKH2 wrote:
| You don't get on the main stage without words/lyrics.
|
| Also, any musician that wants to get big should know that
| the fastest way is to add words/lyrics.
|
| Music is such a universal language that it needs to be
| annotated or something.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| > Also, any musician that wants to get big should know
| that the fastest way is to add words/lyrics
|
| Ahem. I think you'll find it's a little bit more
| complicated than that
| MagnumOpus wrote:
| It's not though.
|
| In the last 50 years, you can probably count the number
| of chart-toppers without lyrics on one hand. Animals,
| Axel F, Doop, Flat Beat, and Sandstorm (and I am not sure
| if these even topped charts everywhere).
|
| Sure, if you are into the niche of EDM or techno club
| music, the situation is different, but none of those
| tunes sell millions of copies.
| circlefavshape wrote:
| It is though. The number of _non_ -chart-toppers _with_
| lyrics is beyond counting. You don 't make yourself a
| chart-topper simply by writing music with lyrics
| HKH2 wrote:
| Okay, it's almost always necessary but not sufficient.
| HKH2 wrote:
| I probably could've worded it a bit better.
|
| The point is you could spend hours actually developing
| subtleties in engineering, especially in timing and
| mixing, to produce something profound.
|
| Or you could get a drum machine and a 303, and get
| someone sexy to sing/rap/speak over the top, make a
| video, and save a lot of time. A lot of pop music these
| days is quite simple, except for the singing, which I can
| admit is talented, but it's more about
| personality/fashion than music.
| monocasa wrote:
| Mainstage is a specific genre of EDM, ironically known
| for being particularly transparent and banal these days.
| Some of the most likely to have lyrics that are basically
| just another beat track, IMO, if they have them at all.
|
| Trance ironically enough (including a lot of the stuff
| Tiesto worked on) is known for having very deep lyrics
| and that's a good chunk of what people are missing I
| think when they make the comments like above.
|
| I'd check out Beautiful Things by Andain if you're
| curious. The lyrics are about a woman who believes she
| gave up her life and potential to be a traditional wife
| and is contemplating suicide to end her regret.
| radley wrote:
| Actually, he definitely was a trance DJ. I remember when
| his first single was released. He understood how to make
| simple melodies with hooks which a lot of us respected.
| Over time, he learned how to make "epic" trance hooks
| that help pioneered the rise of the EDM genre.
|
| Mainstage antics are part of performance. Check out every
| mainstream genre before EDM. Van Halen Jump is probably
| my fav example :)
| monocasa wrote:
| My point was that he played trance because that got you
| on the mainstage (particularly in 2000 era Netherlands),
| and as soon as other genres were played on the mainstage
| he switched.
|
| There's plenty of even trance without mainstage antics.
|
| I'm mainly being pithy more than anything else, lol.
| spiralx wrote:
| Oh thanks, I remember laughing at that comic 15 years ago
| or so, back when I had "trance sucks" as an avatar on at
| least one dance music-related forum :)
|
| The fact that it's originally a Jack Chick tract about how
| evil Muslims are makes it even better lol.
| ahurmazda wrote:
| Its easy to miss but descriptions of the different genres are
| the true mvp. Some of the saltiest things I have read, true
| hilarity.
|
| E.g `Eurotrance`:
|
| > "The rank repugnance of the self-fellating culture of DJ
| worship is at the forefront of this many-headed hydra of
| rapacious rot. Overbearing anthems, boring breakdowns, and
| tasteless DJ vanity have combined into one monstrous,
| obnoxious, pompous, unlistenable Babylonian nega-demon. Who is
| to blame for unleashing such a hideous beast of seething filth
| upon our ears?"
| jasondoty wrote:
| The descriptions are salty at every genre that is even
| somewhat popular. God forbid people actually enjoying the
| music without being under influence of several drugs
| skrebbel wrote:
| You're mixing up "you shouldn't like this" with "I don't
| like this".
|
| The site is basically one very elaborate opinion piece.
| Ishkur doesn't like Eurotrance. Deal with it.
| tarsinge wrote:
| These kind of rants have gone really old for me, like the
| person is stuck in 2009 at the golden age of
| Pitchfork/Vice/Hipster blogs... music elitism/criticism.
| rchaud wrote:
| I wish some of those humorous rants still existed. Music
| criticism now is so staid and boring. There are more
| paragraphs dedicated to the author's navel-gazing about
| their personal circumstances, than what the damn record
| sounds like.
|
| I even wish the elitism still existed. I used to go to
| Pitchfork, Coke Machine Glow and sites of that type to read
| about music that wasn't getting covered elsewhere. Now it's
| basically Rolling Stone, but worse because it pretends to
| be counter culture while devoting endless posts to TSwift
| or Drake or any number of artists that can be heard on
| every major radio station.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| Don't get out your eulogies too prematurely -- let's not
| forget Anthony Fantano's meteoric rise in large part due
| to his Gordon Ramsay style critic rants! With that said,
| I do agree with your directional assessment, but I wonder
| if it's more due to economic and discovery forces (lower
| cost to production, discovery AND publication than ever
| before).
|
| That is to say -- I've found that while the sheer volume
| of mass-produced crap has gone up (including but not
| limited to music criticism), so too has the sheer volume
| of rare, underground jewels. I don't know if/maybe doubt
| discovery has been cracked yet.
| tarsinge wrote:
| > so too has the sheer volume of rare, underground jewels
|
| This. As for discovery, it's never been easier to find
| things by oneself. Bandcamp (nice place to bootstrap
| rabbit holes), Spotify artists playlists, Youtube
| channels, Subreddits...
| rchaud wrote:
| The Fantano phenomenon puzzles me. I have tried to watch
| his videos, but they're so boring. He looks into the
| camera for 10+ minutes just talking.
|
| There are never any cut-aways, or song clips, or on-
| screen graphics...anything to reduce the monotony. And
| yet he has a million subs and the comments section does
| include discussion of the record. It's not very deep, but
| it does exist.
|
| For me though, it's too boring. I'd read the review if he
| wrote articles, but definitely would not watch.
| p1necone wrote:
| You know what annoys me 1000x more than elitism? People who
| are elitist about not being elitist.
|
| This is just some guys opinions on music, let him talk
| about them, you don't have to agree.
| tarsinge wrote:
| There is nothing elitist, that's the point, I'm past
| defining myself and judging people through music taste.
| the-dude wrote:
| Except Ishkur is running his electronic music site since
| 2000. Which is basically since the beginning of time in
| internet terms.
| anthk wrote:
| That's nothing.
|
| Spain, 1999: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH9W5LRcVzk
|
| This was everywhere. Everywhere.
|
| People did their own remixes with computers at home.
| Everyone and their cat tried to do their first
| techno/trance song in High School.
|
| When "modern EDM" hit the US we have been listening to
| Techno/Trance since where, from 1992-1993? There were
| even official Techno/Trance remixes bought by everyone,
| too.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I really wish you'd stop with this smug condescension.
| You are utterly ignorant of the US music scene during
| this period, and in general, based on your comments.
|
| You seem to be basing your views on top 40 charts and
| what was protrayed in media. It's true, techno and
| electronica only rarely appeared there in the 90s. That's
| because electronica in the US was entirely centered
| around clubs and raves. Radio was controlled by a handful
| of big labels that all had a specific intent to shape the
| market towards specific genres. So techno in the US never
| became a "factory" product.
|
| But that doesn't mean we weren't listening to it. I grew
| up in Kansas in a smaller city. In high school we were
| going to jungle or trance parties just as often as
| grunge. All the big box book and music stores had
| substantial electronica sections. We discovered music at
| parties, via word of mouth, and by the latter half of the
| 90s, via the internet.
|
| People have been listening to techno in the US
| continuously since its inception in Detroit. But we've
| been listening to a whole lot of other electronica
| subgrenes as well.
|
| The kind of music in your link has never been popular
| with electronica fans here. We find it manufactured banal
| empty trash to be blunt. The closest to that style that's
| been popular here would be Oakenfold and the like.
|
| You also misunderstand hip hop in one of your comments.
| It is not just popular with black Americans. It's been
| popular with Americans of all sorts since its inception.
| In fact hip hop essentially subsumed pop in the late 90s.
|
| There's been a lot of exchange between hip hop and
| electronica in the US too, particularly due to both using
| the 808 a lot. The latest electronica fad, the revival of
| phonk, is another example. It's a fusion of trap with
| breakbeat techno. And it's yet another example of how
| electronica is fundamentally international, as the
| revival has been driven by russian producers like this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smbiKaOAN3Q
|
| I don't really know what you're trying to accomplish with
| your smugness, but to be blunt all it's doing is making
| you look both ignorant and prejudiced.
| anthk wrote:
| >You seem to be basing your views on top 40 charts and
| what was protrayed in media. It's true, techno and
| electronica only rarely appeared there in the 90s. That's
| because electronica in the US was entirely centered
| around clubs and raves. Radio was controlled by a handful
| of big labels that all had a specific intent to shape the
| market towards specific genres. So techno in the US never
| became a "factory" product.
|
| So was Spain. People shared music with each other. Radio?
| pop and rhythm & blues everywhere in top charts. While
| people IRL got into the clubs everywhere.
|
| >The kind of music in your link has never been popular
| with electronica fans here. We find it manufactured banal
| empty trash to be blunt.
|
| Here we had several substyles. As I stated, Andalusians
| were more fans of breakbeat, while the North liked
| progressive/proto-hardbass in 1999-2001 and the East with
| Valencia and its "route" among Barcelona was the Techno-
| Trance heaven. Ibiza longly was, was, it is, and it will
| be, THE "chill-out/house" genre place from Spain. For
| obvious reasons: partying tourism and a "hippie" vibe
| since the 60's.
| coldtea wrote:
| Because sarcasm and personal taste have gone out of style?
|
| Not to mention those things were a thing at the time of
| Lester Bangs or the NME, 50+ years ago (and even in
| reviewers of classical music) hardly a Pitchfork era
| phenomenon or invention....
| tarsinge wrote:
| I think that music defining one's identity and their
| lifestyle has kind of gone out of style. I just remember
| the late 00's/early 10's as crazy on judging people on
| what they listen (or they clothes, like Vice Do and
| Don't), not saying it didn't exist before. But maybe I'm
| a bit sensitive because I did go through that phase and
| it's still fresh...
|
| Also to add to this the more I lean to the content
| creation side and work with artists, the more genres
| become blurry and irrelevant. Seeing critics and the
| creator of that history tree obsess over this and create
| micro genres to try to fit every music and their listener
| into this is just silly and far removed from how a good
| composer or producer with eclectic tastes works. Nowadays
| a mainstream song can be surprisingly creative, while the
| N-th production in a "good taste approved sub-sub-genre
| of techno" will have 0 artistic value.
| taneq wrote:
| I find sarcasm and personal taste are at least somewhat
| negatively correlated... but then again I guess that's
| just my personal taste.
| coldtea wrote:
| Is that sarcasm?
| taneq wrote:
| ...maybe? ;)
| matt_j wrote:
| Salty, but not wrong!
| shermozle wrote:
| He's, uh, not a fan of the Dutch.
| skrebbel wrote:
| It's absolutely delightful. You just know that when someone
| knowledgeable disses you with so much care and attention,
| there's some deep-seated love behind all that hatred.
|
| We love you too Ishkur! <3 from Holland
| renaudg wrote:
| You forgot to quote the "best" bit a few paragraphs later :
|
| _> It's important to first explain the horrible template
| that ruined Trance music. Somehow a musical artform that
| devoted itself to hypnotic rhythms and spacey soundscapes
| became, inside of a decade, a mass produced assembly line
| McProduct for middle class Europeans (pejoratively known as
| Trancecrackers because they're white. Terribly, tragically,
| sunblindingly, basic-bitch-ordering-a-pumpkin-spice-latte
| white) who should have not spent their young adulthood
| clubbing but rather dying horribly in another continent-
| engulfing conflict (I mean, come on: Europe is due)._
|
| You know, one could answer this with an equally salty
| comeback, like how ironic it is for an American to think he's
| in a position to lecture white Europeans in any way about
| electronic music culture or taste : we built, grew and lived
| this music revolution for 20 years, while white America was
| still all about stale rehashes of guitar-based genres*, and
| black America all about hip-hop. To some extent, they still
| are.
|
| Then around 2009**, when we had matured this into something
| commercial enough to be sold to the US public, we exported
| the cheesiest, bro-ready fringe of it as "EDM" and sure
| enough, it caught on like wildfire. Frat boys & sorority
| girls had "never heard anything like this OMG!" :)
|
| But with remarks like the one he makes about war, it's
| probably sufficient to say that this guy, knowledgeable as he
| is, sounds like a bit of a bigot and a right d*ck.
|
| *This was the era when Eminem had lines like "nobody listens
| to techno" (and by "techno" he meant Moby, lol), while in
| Europe the Berlin Love Parade had a million people in the
| streets each summer. I was dumbfounded in the late 90s at how
| many different names the id3 tag format had for country music
| and Christian genres. It was a complete WTF from a European
| perspective !
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ID3#Genre_list_in_ID3v1[12]
|
| ** David Guetta-produced "I gotta feeling" for the Black Eyed
| Peas is widely credited to have launched EDM into the US
| mainstream. Soon after he & Tiesto had their Vegas
| residencies, EDC & UMF blew up and the rest is history.
| CPLX wrote:
| > This was the era when in the US Eminem had lines like
| "nobody listens to techno", while in Europe
|
| Perhaps it will add a little context to note that Eminem,
| like Techno, is from Detroit.
| anthk wrote:
| Yeah, but everyone was listening to Eurotrance and pre-
| hardbass here in 2000.
|
| Spain, 1999:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH9W5LRcVzk
|
| Meanwhile, the US got the shittiest EDM ever in 2010-2011
| as something "revolutionary".
|
| You kickstarted the acid house genre, but you let it rot
| in the dust in the 90's.
|
| We Europeans had a huge underground fanbase since late
| 80's, and since mid-90's trance has been huge for example
| in Spain and Germany, up to the point to be broadcasted
| in the state-backed first TV channel in the mornings.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| North American techno fan for almost 30 years here.
|
| Europe had an _audience_ for techno, yes but also an
| audience for some of the cheesiest garbage dance music on
| the planet.
|
| Don't lecture us -- Detroit and Chicago are the heart and
| soul of techno & house, even if the artists from there
| weren't always appreciated at home.
|
| Europe has been exporting its garbage trance and
| progressive crap since the late 80s. Soul driven techno
| from African-American artists had a way of being exported
| over to Europe, absorbed by the locals, and shipped back
| as soulless amphetamine driven crap.
|
| Electronic music in Europe has always been a huge
| industry, and some amazing music made... but as a % of
| product produced/consumed.. only a small amount of it was
| good (which amounted to a lot of excellent records in an
| absolute ocean of other junk.)
|
| Back in the day there was an amazing amount of quality
| underground music coming out of Chicago, New York,
| Detroit / Windsor, and smaller centres in the midwest,
| too. Great stuff even from here in Toronto. The west
| coast was an entirely other story, mostly dominated by
| "funky breaks" and trance and stuff I didn't like.
|
| Also I can't tell from your tone if the YouTube video you
| posted is made to be made fun of, or enjoyed? Because to
| me it's clearly the former. The kind of shit that teenage
| kids at raves back in the 90s would take meth to and
| grind their teeth and we'd just gag at.
|
| Yes, we had all that crap here back in the mid-90s. Huge
| raves, mostly crap. EDM is just what the next generation
| called it, and I guess maybe it had a broader audience.
| renaudg wrote:
| >Europe had an _audience_ for techno, yes but also an
| audience for some of the cheesiest garbage dance music on
| the planet.
|
| That's actually a sign that a genre has taken hold and
| reached maturity in a location, with subgenres catering
| for every layer of society.
|
| As a genre ambassador, you know you've won when your
| sound (even a watered down version of it) has become the
| sound of pop music chart-toppers. That happened in Europe
| in the early 90s, in America in the early 2010s.
|
| > Don't lecture us, Detroit and Chicago are the heart and
| soul of techno, even if the artists from there weren't
| always appreciated at home.
|
| I don't know, that's a bit like saying that Helsinki is
| the heart and soul of Linux, and Uppsala that of MySQL,
| which is technically true but ... this isn't really where
| it came of age and blossomed.
|
| > Europe has been exporting its garbage trance and
| progressive crap since the 90s. Soul driven techno from
| African-American artists had a way of being exported over
| to Europe, absorbed by the locals, and exported back as
| soulless amphetamine driven crap.
|
| That's controversial. Techno is often described as the
| child of African-American soul music on one side, and
| white European experimental electronic music on the
| other.
|
| It's trendy to stress the former and downplay the latter,
| and that's certainly fair enough for house music.
|
| But when it comes to trance, eurodance, etc, I think that
| owes almost nothing to America or African-American music,
| and everything to Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| > That happened in Europe in the early 90s, in America in
| the early 2010s.
|
| Not my recollection, though? "Electronica" was a
| mainstream record store category and a huge market in the
| late 90s and early 2000s in North America long before
| this "EDM" label was applied later.
|
| I think, yes, that it fell out of fashion post 9-11 and
| so in the 10 year gap the EDM thing happened later. So
| we're really talking about a generational horizon thing
| here, where EDM was the re-emergence of the mainstream
| top-40 "rave" thing 10 years later for the next
| generation.
|
| But I remember 3 waves of this stuff:
|
| very early 90s, late 80s, crap like C&C music factory,
| etc. was the mainstreamization of house music. "pump up
| the volume" KLF "What Time is Love" etc. was chart
| topping mainstreamization of acid house, hell it got
| played all the time on the jukebox in my smalltown /
| rural Canadian high school. I worked an indoor mall
| amusement park and the early 90s equivalent of today's
| EDM was on constant rotation. Dance megamixes, etc.
|
| mid-late 90s, "Electronica"; Chemical Brothers, Prodigy,
| Underworld, etc. were big. And then the tail end of that
| it just was everywhere.
|
| And then later, this EDM thing.
|
| So 10 year waves, and at no point has it really been
| foreign to North America. There were huge several
| thousand person raves all through the late 90s. It's just
| that in _context_ of hip-hop R&B dominance in North
| America and its exports, maybe it looks to Europeans as
| non-existent.
| renaudg wrote:
| I'm not questioning the experience of North American
| music lovers and club-goers like yourself, I'm sure you
| could get your hands on that stuff.
|
| But take a look at the Wikipedia pages for the tracks and
| artists you mentioned, and see how high they went in the
| US vs European charts (to be fair, I was surprised that
| the Prodigy did so well in the US)
|
| My claim is that the degree to which a genre becomes
| mainstream in a location is a good reflection of this
| place being "ground zero" for it.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Yeah I'm just saying it was far more mainstream than is
| intimated. "Charts" have always been a marketing tool,
| it's questionable to me from the 80s on how much they
| reflect what people were actually listening to.
|
| The point is that mass consumption of dance music was a
| huge thing in North America.
|
| I mean it's funny. In the early 90s I went to visit my
| extended family in Germany. At that point I was already a
| major techno fan, but the funny thing is that when I went
| to Europe all my cousins, the music they listened to was
| mostly American R&B and hip-hop. Watching overdubbed
| episodes of Family Matters. Huge consumers of a side of
| North American culture that I did not. So to me the
| demographic situation is more complicated.
|
| I think many Europeans on this thread might have a biased
| perception of what music consumption in the 90s in North
| America looked like based more on North American exports
| than on what was actually happening here. That and most
| people here are quite young.
| anthk wrote:
| >I think many Europeans on this thread might have a
| biased perception of what music consumption in the 90s in
| North America looked like based more on North American
| exports than on what was actually happening here
|
| Kinda like the American perception on European's techno
| culture.
|
| Hint: when the clubs released their yearly compilation
| based on 3 or 4 CD's, you had one disc per genre: Techno,
| trance, house and progressive/sung. So in the end we
| listened to all of the EDM offer inbetween depending on
| the mood.
|
| Also, as I said, dance megamix CD's in Spain could be
| found as early as late 80's. Ok, more like vinyls, but
| the concept stays.
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| renaudg and cmrdporcupine
|
| I don't have much to add to this apart from to say I
| think you're both right to varying degrees.
|
| But more importantly I'm enjoying this passionate
| discourse on HN about a genre of music that I care deeply
| about.
|
| I think it's fair to say that dance music today wouldn't
| exist without the breadth of innovation that happened on
| both sides of "the pond" in recent decades - and to not
| be too European/US centric - elsewhere around the world
| too.
| anthk wrote:
| We got dance megamixes in Spain too, in early 90's.
| _bohm wrote:
| For someone who seems to have been around the scene for
| quite a while, you come off as woefully uneducated on the
| history of electronic music.
|
| Electronic music is and has always been an international
| phenomenon. Innovations happen due to cross-pollination of
| styles, not because specifically white Europeans "mature"
| it.
|
| The Techno that blew up in Europe was initially imported
| from African Americans. Jungle/DNB was born out of mixing
| UK Hardcore with Jamaican Reggae/Dancehall/Dub music.
|
| Footwork, Club, Bounce, Industrial, House, Electro, to name
| a few, are all styles that were prevalent on dancefloors in
| the US during the time you characterize it as "all about
| stale rehashes of guitar-based genres". All of these styles
| are woven into the DNA of the new underground generation.
| Nobody "owns" electronic music, and the scene is so much
| better when people stop claiming that anyone does.
| renaudg wrote:
| > For someone who seems to have been around the scene for
| quite a while, you come off as woefully uneducated on the
| history of electronic music.
|
| I suppose that's one way of saying you have a different
| perspective from mine.
|
| >Electronic music is and has always been an international
| phenomenon. Innovations happen due to cross-pollination
| of styles, not because specifically white Europeans
| "mature" it. >The Techno that blew up in Europe was
| initially imported from African Americans. Jungle/DNB was
| born out of mixing UK Hardcore with Jamaican
| Reggae/Dancehall/Dub music.
|
| I've addressed most of your points in another comment :
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26981256
|
| A lot of the genres that Ishkur despises are every bit as
| European homegrown as Motown is African-American to the
| bones.
|
| > Nobody "owns" electronic music, and the scene is so
| much better when people stop claiming that anyone does.
|
| Sure, but that's a bit like saying Silicon Valley doesn't
| own the Internet. It's technically true but SV is still
| (or was until very recently) a mecca, ground zero for all
| things Internet.
|
| There is such a thing for music genres as well, and a
| good indicator of that is the extent to which that genre
| has bubbled up into mainstream pop music charts.
| _bohm wrote:
| I'm happy to acknowledge that there are many subgenres of
| electronic music, including some of my favorites, which
| truly were grown and blossomed in Europe.
|
| I took issue with your original comment because of the
| claim that electronic music is basically an ethnically
| white, European phenomenon. The SV->Europe comparison
| would be apt here if Europe were indeed _the_ mecca for
| all electronic music. This is obviously false unless you
| ignore huge swaths of the history or massively constrain
| your definition of what constitutes electronic music.
|
| If you use the charts to measure what's happening at the
| underground/local level of any place, you're never going
| to get a good picture. Based on the charts
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_number-
| one_ai...) it would appear that Europeans seldom listened
| to music written by Europeans in the 90s!
| lodovic wrote:
| Definitely. The influence of the reggae/dub music
| experiments of the 70s on both rap and EDM is underrated.
| throwit1q2e3r wrote:
| > This was the era when in the US Eminem had lines like
| "nobody listens to techno"
|
| That was a diss line about Moby, a "techno" artist who
| achieved mainstream US popularity around that time. Eminem
| wasn't trying to accurately depict the state of electronic
| music in the US, he was being salty.
| renaudg wrote:
| I know, but precisely : referring to Moby as "techno"
| says everything on how clued up about electronic music
| the average US listener or artist was at the time :)
| cat199 wrote:
| but if the line had no basis in reality, he would just
| sound like an idiot, so ...
| n4r9 wrote:
| He also claimed Dr Dre was locked up in his basement in
| another lyric, so I'm not sure truthfulness was top of
| his priority list.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| Clearly being facetious there
|
| By my own memory as a teenager growing up in the rave
| scene, electronic music was weird and unapproachable to
| pretty much everyone. Big Beat like The Crystal Method
| and Prodigy had made some waves, and of course there was
| Moby, but outside of my raver friends and a brief attempt
| to get eurodance (like Alice Deejay) on Top 40 radio by
| the local media conglomerates, "techno" was pretty niche.
|
| I mean, in the early 2000s I saw Paul Oakenfold -- twice
| -- at small clubs, and it was easy to get into the front.
| I would write requests in big letters on my phone and see
| if I could get the DJ to play them. (Tiesto wasn't as
| approachable but that asshole would crank the speakers up
| well past their distortion point)
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| most brilliant thing I've seen this week. I want to see
| feedback like this as the top comments of every "Show HN" :D
| yowlingcat wrote:
| Immediately did a Ctrl-F to see if Ishkur's guide had been
| mentioned on this thread and was not disappointed. As sassy as
| it is, the deep relational depth and exhaustive Ishkur put into
| making sense of the whole history of electronic music (and
| really the /whole/ history -- right back to its origins in
| musique concrete) made a really big impression on me as a
| teenager. It's probably a large part of what made me get a
| double major in music in college.
| thu2111 wrote:
| Is it me or is drum and bass entirely missing from that site?
| Not sure you can have a real history tree of electronic music
| that misses it out.
| atlanta90210 wrote:
| Long live Drum and Bass and jungle. Drum and Bass day was
| this month.
|
| It is tough being a fan in the US when the kings of DnB all
| live in the UK. Can't wait for Fabric to reopen - its time
| for a visit.
| thinkmassive wrote:
| If you visit Denver be sure to visit the Black Box. They're
| a dnb-focused venue and have an excellent sound system for
| such a small place.
|
| https://blackboxdenver.co/
| bane wrote:
| No, it's a major branch of the tree near the top.
| radley wrote:
| Telekom has been running a fun "Name that Techno Tune" series on
| YouTube:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfRh37c5lvivabQPDnLGR...
|
| It's pretty challenging to play along.
|
| Edit: I'll just add that these histories are always subjective
| and regional. This one seems to focus on "pure" techno, but
| overlooks artists like Ken Ishii and skips over the first peak
| techno era with Eon, Lords of Acid, Bizarre Inc, etc.
|
| Edit 2: and no mention of Phuture's Acid Tracks? A crime I say!!
| james-bcn wrote:
| I'm surprised there's no mention of New Order's Blue Monday in
| there. I thought it was seen as a key moment in the history of
| techno? Can anyone with more knowledge than me comment on why it
| isn't there?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYH8DsU2WCk
| radley wrote:
| There were tons of electronic dance tunes during that period of
| time. Blue Monday was a great tune and had some great original
| ideas, but it at the peak of synth pop.
|
| That same year, Phuture released Acid Tracks which influenced
| Hawtin to make Spastik.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igNBeo3QSqc
| insickness wrote:
| Agreed. It is apparently "the biggest selling 12-inch single
| ever." But maybe because of its classic song structure
| (verse/chorus), it is not lumped in with what is typically
| considered techno.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| I have never seen it mentioned in a history of techno, but it's
| quite popular with many people who like electronic music today.
| calmoo wrote:
| I've never heard anything about this track in the context of
| techno, its a synth pop tune really.
| Tenoke wrote:
| It's definitely influential and you can occasionally hear it
| in some of the clubs mentioned in the article to this day
| (typically at closing).
| james-bcn wrote:
| Ok. The subtleties of the classification elude me.
| siquick wrote:
| Quality article covering a lot of good ground. Hard to imagine
| that this kind of music is now nearly 40 years old.
|
| If anyones interested in hearing what modern techno is up to this
| is a pretty good list:
| https://www.soundshelter.net/collection/techno-records
| Scown wrote:
| Cheers for this... Hadn't heard of Soundshelter, great site!
| Techno thursday it is then.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Missing:
|
| Bedrock For What you Dream off
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzHmXaUSL6o
|
| Undeworld Born Slippy:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQGOlawi6n0
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Haha I listened to For What You Dream Of just yesterday. Great
| track.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Check out Underworlds first two rock albums btw. "Change the
| Weather" will grow on you.
| tbronchain wrote:
| Techno finds its roots in tribal music. Its repetitive patterns
| allow deep self-reflection and strong connection to inner
| feelings.
|
| disclaimer: I love techno
| Ariez wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx9GH6L7VwI
|
| This one has connected with me recently on that more tribal
| level!
| tbronchain wrote:
| Thanks for sharing!
| dekoruotas wrote:
| HN. Your new definitive guide to Techno.
|
| Good one!
| senorjazz wrote:
| > Techno finds its roots in tribal music
|
| Not really. Not in the in sense of where the music came from.
| I'd agree on an enjoyment level it taps into something similar.
| But the roots of the genre as far as I am aware owe nothing to
| tribal music.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > tribal music
|
| What tribes? Where? When?
|
| Techno is the sound of automation, or as one of the Detroit
| originators said, 'like James Brown and Kraftwerk stuck in an
| elevator together'.
| anthk wrote:
| Just a remark: Spain had much more variety than Valencia's Ruta
| del Bakalao and Ibiza.
|
| For example Catalan dance clubs made a huge hit here in
| 90's/early 00's such as Pont Aeri and Scorpia.
| bogomipz wrote:
| If you want to go back a little further and understand why
| Germany and Kraftwerk always feature so prominently in articles
| written about the history of Techno then I recommend reading
| about WDR Studio in Koln.
|
| WDR Electronic Music Studio was sponsored by the then West German
| state beginning in the early 1950s. Its charter was basically to
| promote a musical identity that was a contrast to the GDR's
| populist state music policy. Kraftwerk's Ralf Hutter listened to
| the radio broadcasts that came out WDR. Everyone from Karlheinz
| Stockhausen to Conny Plank worked out of WDR Studios. The
| following are couple of good articles on WDR Studio:
|
| http://120years.net/wdr-electronic-music-studio-germany-1951...
|
| and
|
| https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/08/stockhausen-ph...
|
| This is also a good article on the environment in and around
| Dusseldorf that birthed some of the artists mentioned in the
| Beatport article:
|
| https://www.factmag.com/2016/02/02/dusseldorf-krautrock/
| auiya wrote:
| There's a good track on YouTube that touches on the high points
| of electronic music since 1929 -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqukyEC3qWM
| dirktheman wrote:
| I'm missing a reference to the hardcore 'gabber' techno which was
| a hugely popular subculture in The Netherlands in the 1990s...
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabber
| justaj wrote:
| That's perhaps because many believe that gabber has more roots
| in house, rave and punk rather than techno.
| Tenoke wrote:
| It is mentioned in the article.
| underlines wrote:
| Does anyone remember the iconic Ishkur's guide to electronic
| dance music V2.5?
|
| The famous original is still hosted as flash here:
| http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/
|
| And after more than a decade the update V3:
| https://music.ishkur.com/
| omnibrain wrote:
| You can use the original flash version via BlueMaxima's
| Flashpoint: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/
| partomniscient wrote:
| Yes indeed. I actually went looking for it to post here and
| remembered it was a flash blob, and wondered whether it still
| existed? I didn't remember who posted it or where, just what it
| looked like back in the day. Glad you mentioned it otherwise I
| might still be looking.
| kristopolous wrote:
| This is about as conventional a narrative as you can get. I've
| never been happy with it though, it's way too much of a tidy,
| linear, clean through-line.
|
| For instance, this narrative always leave out free-style and
| electro like Hashim (example: 1983,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykK0uEjSsqY), Newcleus, etc.
| Soulsonic Force (1982:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHQ11l4uiM4) predated Atkins
| Cybotron project and Atkins even said he didn't see a huge
| difference between the free-style, electro, and what he was
| doing.
|
| It also leaves out Italo Disco and the British New Wave movement.
| Take the intro to 1983's Hypnotic Tango by My Mine for instance:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6EbVwOumlE
|
| They do an obligatory Kraftwerk but the entire berlin school and
| midera is left out in the cold as well (Tangerine Dream for
| example. 1975, Ricochet P2 for instance
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoSNbCNYsA4) along with artists
| who were giant in their day like Jean Michelle Jarre.
|
| Also what's left out are the other influential Krautrock artists
| like Manuel Gottsching and his 1981 E2-E4 album.
| (https://youtu.be/ys0HyevZpQg).
|
| There's also the left-field weird albums that were mighty
| influential at the time, such as Misa Criolla by Fuego (1981:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Era1x9hRnBQ) There's your "four-
| on-the-floor" with tape loop sampling. Speaking of children What
| about the next year, Liaisons Dangereuses - Los Ninos Del Parque
| ... https://youtu.be/a_sAH2QGotE there's your techno
|
| Or take the Bobby Orlando sounding driving beat in Le Jete - La
| Cage Aux Folles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzI2v0RJ8DQ) - a
| common track of the hot-mix 5. Or Massimo Barsotti's cover of Led
| Zepplins' Whole Lotta Love
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsEwWSs-t7w)
|
| Or what about Stopps "I'm Hungry" from 1983?
| https://youtu.be/I26lP56-UeA ... this strange track was played in
| Chicago house clubs, Belgium pre rave new beat "acid house"
| parties and the early EBM scene. Pretty expansive one to leave
| out
|
| And keeping things in the US, they always ignore the west coast,
| with outfits like Megatone records out of san francisco and gay
| club music (eg Hi-NRG) and people like Bobby Orlando.
|
| Anyway the history is vast and rich and this article is
| essentially the same story that's always written. I dunno, I
| almost feel like this structure misses the boat. I know that's a
| big claim.
| jim-jim-jim wrote:
| I was really confused when I bought a Cybotron record in the
| 2010s expecting to hear canonical techno. It's totally just
| electro!
|
| Newcleus is fully sick though. I dunno if people overlook them
| as a gimmick or what, but the first album is just track after
| absolute track.
| kristopolous wrote:
| To be honest I think after the rise of gangsta rap and miami
| bass, the whole era kinda got discarded: whodini, mantronix,
| man parrish, egyptian lover, grandmaster flash. Actually you
| could probably say the writing was on the wall after the
| decline of the party rockers in 1983-84 (epitomized by the
| Busy Bee Starski/Kool Moe D battle from 1981). Afrika
| Bambaataa is still occasionally releasing btw. 2017:
| https://youtu.be/sOx7VeHPIJY - if you were hoping for a more
| faithful traditional electro, check out this label instead
| https://dominanceelectricity.bandcamp.com/
|
| The current narrative still discards it as if big hits like
| Freeez's IOU and Alexander Robotnick's Problemes d'amour
| wasn't influential when that style mutated just a tad a year
| or two later and called itself techno.
|
| Speaking of Cybotron and electro check out Nitro Delux
| "Journey to Cybotron Transform" off Cutting Records (1986)
| rorykoehler wrote:
| >Take the intro to 1983's Hypnotic Tango by My Mine for
| instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6EbVwOumlE
|
| It's like a better version of Sven Vath's Electric Salsa.
|
| BTW the link for Manuel Gottsching E2-E4 is the wrong one
| (duplicate of Hyponotic Tango). Here is the right link:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ys0HyevZpQg
| kristopolous wrote:
| Yeah fixed it. I wrote that on my cell phone sitting in my
| driveway.
|
| Also if you like that please check out his 1975 release
| "Inventions for Electric Guitar".
|
| I can't praise this one enough
|
| https://youtu.be/khejrbgdc4w
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I liked the e2 e4 album so much I drained my car battery
| listening to it and now I need to buy a new one.
| dimal wrote:
| Also strange that "I Feel Love" isn't mentioned. I thought this
| was the first real electronic dance music song. There was other
| "electronic music" but "I Feel Love" was strictly for dancing,
| which was new. "Supernature" is mentioned here, but AFAIK, that
| was released after "I Feel Love" and is pretty derivative.
| tern wrote:
| Histories of techno always leave out some of my favorites from
| the early 2000s Adam Beyer / Drumcode era of fast maximalist
| techno--Zenit records for instance
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPN0gicPJTTUJVhVMzCne...
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOfuXwU6GoQ
|
| And I was surprised they mentioned Surgeon and Regis, but not
| their Downwards Records
|
| https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBilbhSIIhgKbRezA7RoO...
| kristopolous wrote:
| That whole movement was kinda self contained. Early 2000s
| Central Europe.
|
| There's a party drug contribution that's really instrumental
| to these movements. I have been thinking of how to do a
| musical taxonomy by narcotic, but it's hard to do without
| making everyone sound like a junkie.
|
| New Beat and MDMA, Disco and cocaine, freeform Jazz and
| heroine, etc. (I'm a big fan of all of these btw, and could
| likely make you want to "delete my number" talking about
| them. But pretending like Gino Soccio
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhAPoip5YeQ) or Tantra
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyqkePY6FKY) or the partiers
| listening were sober is personally, not very plausible. Sure,
| I'm sober, but I'm an outlier)
|
| The big theory here is the genres that seem to compactly come
| and go in a few years, seem to have a high degree of self
| similarity in releases (take reggae or psytrance for
| example), and seem to be popular with the party kids might be
| heavily linked to a particular single or set of narcotics.
|
| Take happy hardcore for example. Thousands of tracks, labels,
| artists, a huge culture and scene behind it, of well, to be
| honest, a bunch of teenagers on drugs. Take psychedelic rock
| and LSD.
|
| Again, this is a really touchy subject but I kinda think
| drumcore is in that camp. It follows the same chronological
| and social patterns and seems to fall in the same circles.
|
| I'm not a drug user but I've been to enough parties to know
| there's certainly a different prevalence in different
| circles. It's even more difficult because you know, it's all
| technically illegal so people aren't entirely forthcoming and
| people don't tend to leave great documentation of illegal
| substance use around for future historian study.
|
| Maybe a cross comparison with police arrest reports would be
| as authoritative as we can get? Even that is tough though
| because in all the hundreds of underground raves I went to in
| my teens and twenties in california, police arresting people
| happened at I believe zero. So that sample size is extremely
| small.
|
| And even then, everything usually gets consumed rather
| immediately and if they bust a dealer what they're finding
| are the unsold inventory so even that's not a good metric,
| the "empty shelves" are the important ones.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Yea, that Swedish techno and its offshoots ... it was/is
| amphetamine music. That's my jerky opinion anyways.
|
| Boom-tss, boom-ts, fist pump
| logotype wrote:
| I grew up with Drumcode. It was quite common with forest
| raves here in Sweden, basically a huge sound system in some
| remote place and people dancing over night. And at one point
| there were also some organisers who rented a whole cruise
| liner, with people like Adam Beyer and Thomas Krome DJ'ing.
| My favourites include: surgeon, headroom, the advent,
| invexis, chris liebing, planetary assault systems, mark
| broom, pounding grooves and richie hawtin. Then I fell into
| the rabbit hole of more experimental music such as autechre
| and have been stuck there ever since
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Drumcode is still going strong and Beyer does a weekly
| podcast, which is excellent (and supports RSS too). I still
| love that sound even though I'm now far too old to have the
| stamina to party like I did in the 90s/00s.
|
| IDM has also been a huge love of my life. I'm not sure I
| could pick a favourite out of techno or IDM though. But
| Drumcode Radio is certainly good music to run to.
|
| Slam did a rather nice podcast that sat somewhere between
| techno and experimental. I don't know if their podcast is
| still going but their RSS feed has certainly stopped :(
| comprev wrote:
| Drumcode has become the EDM festival gateway to many
| people and has earned the nickname "business techno".
| Gently bobbing along at 125-128 with predictable
| buildups/breakdowns and is very "FX friendly" on the
| mixer.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Aside from the beat rate, what you've described there
| could equally apply to all genres of dance music. Almost
| every track follows the same rules phrasing and has a 4/4
| time signature (often with really accented four-to-the-
| floor kicks or percussion). The predictable buildups and
| breakdowns are a feature: most people can't dance to
| something they can't follow. Just look at how differently
| people dance to IDM (it's not uncommon to see a mosh pit
| at some gigs). That said, even IDM has a good few tracks
| with a predictable phrasings to them too.
|
| Sure, some genres are more predictable than others
| (hardhouse, for example, is effectively the "painting by
| numbers" equivalent of EDM) but as a retired DJ who used
| to mix on 3+ decks and throw in the odd non 4/4 track too
| (typically 3/4 but I had some more esoteric records too),
| I can't think of many tracks from many genres that were
| particularly hard to DJ.
|
| ...well there was this one track that was difficult, not
| because of the phrasing nor time signature, but because
| the producer decided to _fade in_ the start of the track.
| Very unhelpful that!
|
| What I've written here also applies to a significant
| amount of rock and it's various sub-genres too.
|
| As for the "FX friendly on the mixer", that's been
| technos style since the 90s. It's nothing new and
| certainly not anything specific to Drumcode. Richie
| Hawtin even released a compilation album called "Decks,
| EFX & 909" in 1999 and his style is _very_ different to
| Adam Beyer 's. In the early 00s Misstress Barbara wrote
| in a cover sleeve on one of her mixes about how her sets
| were about creating new compositions live using 3 decks,
| heavy EQing and effects. Her style also differed
| massively from Drumcode.
|
| Source: retired DJ and producer. Not a household name but
| played a few gigs in and around London. Mostly techno but
| with house, electro, breaks, EBM, rock, metal, industrial
| and pretty much anything else thrown in that had the
| right vibe to it.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| It's funny because I guess I'm old but that kind of stuff
| feels sort of like the "end of the road" for techno and not
| part of the history, more of the end of the history.
|
| I liked some of it at the time -- I have some of the Code Red
| Adam Beyer stuff on coloured red vinyl somewhere -- but it's
| a bit soul-less and monolithic. A very white middle class
| European straightlaced "thump thump thump" interpretation of
| the genre.
|
| The stuff from Europe in the late 90s and early 2000s that I
| loved the most that got left out of the "techno history" was
| the "No Future" / Scandinavian Records school -- Neil
| Landstrumm, Cristian Vogel, Dave Tarrida, etc. really wonky
| wonk stuff, very creative. That's what I was playing back
| then.
| tern wrote:
| I totally agree for 90, even 99% of the tracks from that
| era, but there are some serious gems in there. I really
| enjoy the Youtube account "TECHNO" for finding some of it.
| A few producers that stood out to me: Kobaya, Rino Cerrone,
| Samuel L. Session, Leandro Gamez, G-Force, Tomie Nevada,
| Headroom, Gaetano Parisio, Damon Wild & Echoplex (slightly
| difference scene), Ade Fenton ... and many others less
| famous and with fewer releases.
|
| Adam Beyer's tracks himself and most of the stuff on
| Drumcode from any era though is totally boring, I agree.
| And we can also agree the Neil Landstrumm and Cristian
| Vogel (I'd argue early Villalobos too) are the height of
| the end of techno history.
|
| Quite possibly I just like this stuff because it reminds me
| of video game soundtracks from the era.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Damon Wild, that's good stuff.
|
| Here, crack a cool one and breathe this in, for a little
| while:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RFY8GK5PAA
| spiralx wrote:
| > I liked some of it at the time -- I have some of the Code
| Red Adam Beyer stuff on coloured red vinyl somewhere -- but
| it's a bit soul-less and monolithic. A very white middle
| class European straightlaced "thump thump thump"
| interpretation of the genre.
|
| I've got a couple of those records and I can tell you that
| Adam Beyer and Drumcode still sound like that today,
| they've really nailed that "far duller than it sounds" sub-
| genre of techno.
|
| > The stuff from Europe in the late 90s and early 2000s
| that I loved the most that got left out of the "techno
| history" was the "No Future" / Scandinavian Records school
| -- Neil Landstrumm, Cristian Vogel, Dave Tarrida, etc.
| really wonky wonk stuff, very creative. That's what I was
| playing back then.
|
| I managed to see Landstrumm play two days before the start
| of lockdown last March as part of the 20 Years of Don't
| evening at the Bangface Weekender, how's that for good
| timing? :)
|
| https://bangface.com/weekender2020/lineup/
|
| I was going out to a lot of squat parties that played it in
| the 00s when there was tons of it coming out of London from
| labels like Don't, Yolk, Chancer, Victim and 4x4
| Recordings, and also went to Jerome Hill's Uglyfunk night
| regularly (it's still going in fact but I've not made it
| there recently). Mark Hawkins was probably my favourite
| producer followed by Jerome Hill and Michael Forshaw.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Nice man.
|
| I've only managed to see Landstrumm twice, cuz of being
| on this side of the pond. Once in the early 2000s he DJ'd
| along with DJ Hell at a local club, and actually he was
| quite competent on the vinyl (more than Hell was) and he
| played a lot of Chicago and Detroit classics. It was a
| good night if I recall.
|
| The other time was actually very recent (2019), someone I
| know locally knows him personally and brought him over
| into my local small Ontario city to play live. Small gig,
| maybe 50 people there. Even got to shake his hand and say
| hi.
|
| Def. one of my favourite musicians in the genre.
| spiralx wrote:
| I also saw him as Crystal Distortion back in the mid-00s
| at Uglyfunk and as himself in the early 10s, so that's
| only one more time than you :)
|
| I'm a big fan of Detroit ghetto-tech like DJ Godfather,
| and have a similar problem of it only existing on the
| other side of the Atlantic... The weekender I mentioned
| has had at least one of the top DJs over every other year
| or so over the last decade which is amazing, because
| otherwise I've been out to see it played three times in
| the past two decades, so I feel your pain :)
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I believe I saw Godfather and some others in that vein at
| the first Detroit Electronic Music Festival back in 2000.
| Maybe in 2001.
|
| Sweet little Canadian me was ... shocked ... by the way
| people uh, danced to that stuff.
| spiralx wrote:
| Hah, I bet, watching people dancing to it in Boiler Room
| videos is different enough from what I'm used to, and
| that's got to be a lot tamer than you'd see somewhere
| without cameras filming the entire thing!
|
| The first time I saw this clip it was amazing how distant
| it was from everything I've experienced since going to my
| first club in 1995 - and the video is from closer to 1995
| than 1995 is to today!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EarSRa19sZc
|
| I've seen Model 500 and wasn't impressed to be honest,
| but then again electro isn't my thing at all so that's
| more about me lol, my friends enjoyed it a lot :)
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Electro was my thing back then. But I think I'd tire of a
| whole gig of just Model 500.
|
| The DEMF dancefloor vibe while the booty stuff was
| playing was... raunchy. Like full on grinding, ass
| rubbing, etc. Didn't see that stuff at clubs here. The
| rave/club/techno scene back then here was pretty
| androgynous and public displays of affection would have
| been very gauche. Not so in Detroit at certain gigs
| spiralx wrote:
| First time I saw DJ Godfather they had DJ Stingray play
| before him and I enjoyed that style of modern harder
| electro a lot more, if only because the production was so
| much better :)
|
| The scene here was neither androgynous nor restrained in
| the public displaying of affection - but overtly sexual
| displays were very much in the minority and stood out,
| probably because British people loved being able to shed
| our passively-aggressive polite and emotionally stunted
| personas for an evening by consuming large amounts of
| pills and just wanting to dance and hug people ;)
|
| I've seen some full-on stuff at squat parties though.
| Ecstasy and alcohol can make people _completely_ lose
| their inhibitions lol.
| l33tbro wrote:
| Agree. It's always such a 'just so' with these kinds of
| articles about Detroit techno. That being said, I think
| Kraftwerk is actually a little underrated in their influence. I
| know that probably seems hard to believe given the praise they
| got, but there was something about the spectre of 4 white robo-
| mannequins that triggered some latent afro-futurist impulse
| that, for me, goes back to Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane.
| rchaud wrote:
| Daft Punk is the biggest electronic group in recent memory
| and wouldn't exist without Kraftwerk (and italo-disco).
|
| Similarly, Underworld of "Born Slippy NUXX" fame in the '90s,
| are indebted to Kraftwerk (and Brian Eno) as well.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| It's a shame this isn't the top comment, because it's a lot
| more interesting than Ishkur's smartassery and all the across-
| the-pond sniping.
|
| There used to be a great website called Deep House Page which
| archived loads of Hot Mix 5 mixes, and you could really hear
| just how diverse that early era of post-disco dance music was,
| before it even got pigeonholed into "house" or "techno" and the
| myriad of subgenres that came since. Sadly the page has
| disappeared, and I'm not sure where to find the mixes now.
|
| Meanwhile, in parallel, people in other countries were
| experimenting with synthesizers and unconventional composition
| too. I remember finding mixtapes of an obscure Australian band
| called Hugo Klang (https://hugoklang.bandcamp.com/) who were
| doing techno-y stuff with the 303 a few years before Phuture
| put together their seminal tune.
|
| Without a doubt the big names that everyone remembers as the
| progenitors were hugely influential. Already in the 90s people
| were writing articles that started out exactly like this one,
| so we're already a full generation into the myth. But it's
| still interesting to go digging and find all the other stuff
| that surely played a part in influencing all the other people
| whose stories never got written up.
| kristopolous wrote:
| I have all the dhp mp3s archived somewhere if you want one
| evanelias wrote:
| Great song picks. Absolutely agree. Hell, the article even
| largely omits the massive influence of house on techno in
| general, as most of these narratives seem to do.
|
| As a result, many people seem to think techno preceded house.
| But taking the view that Juan Atkins' early 80s work was
| basically electro and not yet really "techno", it's pretty
| clear that house was already quite prevalent prior to techno
| becoming a distinct genre.
|
| And even then, early 80s italo-disco was leagues ahead of house
| in terms of production quality... a few of my personal
| favorites:
|
| Charlie - "Spacer Woman" (1983)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZDPCjEoIMI
|
| Klapto - "Mister Game" (1983)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQUVg-HCjEE
|
| Mr Flagio - "Take a Chance" (1983)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDV_dBYp4h0
|
| Fun Fun - "Happy Station" (1983)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb5B1C5PFVo
|
| Meanwhile on the house side we have debatable-first-house-
| record Jesse Saunders "On and On" (1984)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUeMFG4wjJw. Although my
| personal favorite under-appreciated proto-house pick would
| actually be from nyc, Boyd Jarvis "The Music Got Me" (1983)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYfG8tcEl3E.
|
| These articles always mention "Shari Vari" since it's so early
| (1981) and influential (and still good!) but I always find it
| odd that they omit so many great tracks from the next few
| years.
| kristopolous wrote:
| These are all nice and currently somewhat famous as much as
| tracks from that era go.
|
| The question here, and most of this stems from the
| deephousepage reference elsewhere in this thread, is that in
| the actual 80s tape recordings (I've got an archive of most
| of them) from say WBMX or WBLS or any contemporary first hand
| accounts, I don't see these tracks playing prominently.
|
| The more heavily played are things we may find less
| interesting today such as Pamala Stanley - Coming Out Of
| Hiding https://youtube.com/watch?v=M6G8dKgsEG0 ... catchy 80s
| pop, ok. You listen to the old recordings and this song comes
| up frequently. Also Bobby Orlando's dozen songs that all
| sound the same come up a lot (the flirts, divine, ronnie
| griffith, i spies) probably because their similarity in bpm
| and key made them versatile toys for the 80s dj.
|
| Our perception of the past through the lens that the modern
| world "as a context" creates defines a narrative that we
| impose on the events.
|
| I'm interested in I guess two things here. From simplest to
| hardest
|
| 1. What's the perceived reality of who heard/influenced what
| and why do we tell ourselves that
|
| 2. What's the actual reality and where's the evidence?
|
| We have the mighty Memex machine at our fingertips and can
| immediately call up forgotten songs from far off lands with a
| few twitches of our fingertips. A Japanese synthesizer album
| from the 70s, a bollywood orchestration from the 60s and say
| a funk song from the Bronx in 1971, immediately recognize a
| through line and claim "aha, these are connected". But how
| would this fiction be possible in "before the internet" days?
| Records traveled, ok, Goa beach parties were real, sure. But
| I want to be careful in trying to remove my "person of the
| future" context in trying to understand the past
|
| For instance, there's a bunch of Mexican knockoffs of italo
| disco tracks in the 80s and they could get away with it
| because Italy and Mexico are far away from each other.
|
| I wrote an article about this 4 years ago, let me quote it:
|
| The 1987 Mexico release Trebol - TI - 71161, produced by J.
| Brenner of Mannequin, "Boom Bam"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqLt7SwaN90
|
| is a nearly 100% knock-off of the 1986 Italian release SQ
| 87504, produced by Miki Chieregato and Roberto Turatti, of
| Paul Lekakis, "Boom Boom":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0ovsnO7Akg
|
| So yeah, that's an example of the context warp.
|
| Now given that, who actually heard and owned what and how it
| happened is tough. Famous people know how important origin
| stories are and so they tend to not be great self
| documentarians. It makes the whole thing tricky especially
| since not very many people take this as obsessively as I do
| so the records are continually destroyed and altered
| 3dee wrote:
| No music style appeared out of nowhere. So it will always be
| hard to pinpoint where things started. Maybe it is even
| impossible.
|
| I always have a mixed feeling about music style
| classifications. It shifts focus from the music to discussions
| about what style a piece of music is.
|
| Maybe techno originated from rhytmic tribe music. Who knows.
| Personally I don't care.
| kristopolous wrote:
| The classification limits the perception like the Himbu color
| experiment.
|
| That's why these early pre-language explorations are great.
|
| Luckily there's a lot of independent artists these days that
| are exploring things and refusing to label them with an
| abstract genre.
|
| We need our modern John Cages to feel empowered. I think it's
| important.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I was one of those independent artists and frankly it was
| sometimes a lot harder to get booked in the early to mid
| 00s because people started to identify themselves with
| those labels. The techno crowd were generally more open
| minded but outside of that things would often get
| ridiculously pigeon-holed.
| DanBC wrote:
| > Hashim (example: 1983,
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykK0uEjSsqY)
|
| From the YT description:
|
| "As stated below by Jerry Calliste Jr., this video is not and
| original version of Hashim - Al Naafiysh (The Soul). Probably
| it was made for the purposes of one of the UK television
| programs, like " The Tube", during the early 80's. This
| recording is one of the first hip hop stories to be seen and
| published on the British Television. The track "Al Naafiysh
| (The Soul), was originally used for this video, added by
| unknown author or crew which worked on the video, as the only
| thing that was known so far, was Geoff Stern, the director."
|
| One clue to this is that there isn't anyone smoking in the
| video, and the tube windows have a "no smoking" roundel. The
| smoking ban on the London Underground came in on the 9th July
| 1984.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Yep. Not an original video at all. It's still great.
|
| These days sometimes the artist makes a video for an old
| song. For instance, Earlene Bentley made a video for "Caught
| In The Act" 23 years after she released it.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55KOBCgv7f4
|
| It's not exactly common, but it's interesting to see it what
| it happens. (her "big" hit btw, in the early 80s, in
| specifically gay clubs was "The Boys Come To Town"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl0fBil_4dU) ... it has that
| 80s hard driving orchestration ... pretty nice. The
| instrumentals are _occasionally_ sampled on this one, about
| as much as Two Tons o ' Fun are. It's always nice to overhear
| the latest pop song and be like "oh look, there's Barbara
| Roy's instrumentals from If you want me still living on".
| (https://youtu.be/lOCMRk8Nex4?t=272 for the uninitiated)
| cpach wrote:
| Just out of curiosity: What do you mean by New Wave in this
| context? When I hear new wave I think of acts such as Adam and
| the Ants and Duran Duran. But are they related to techno?
| kristopolous wrote:
| Yeah, absolutely. You're just a few steps away with a lot of
| Duran Duran (Rio era) and records like Night Move's
| Transdance arguably gets there.
|
| I mean heck, take Polices Synchronicity part 1,
| https://youtu.be/Si5CSpUCDGY. If someone told me that was how
| an album by underworld or say sasha started from 1999, I'd
| believe it, swap the vocals and the physical drums with some
| synths and it's basically done
| l33tbro wrote:
| I feel no-wave also might have been influential. ESG could
| easily be read as proto-techno in this context. 'Erase You'
| and 'Dance' have that same kind of reductionist, tribal
| sensibility.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Their track "Moody (Spaced Out)" shares a strange
| similarity with Atmosfears "Dancing in Outer Space". I'm
| sure it's independent, it just made me think of it right
| away
| l33tbro wrote:
| Both great tracks! You ever see the criminally underrated
| film 'Vampire's Kiss' with Nicholas Cage? Features ESG
| playing that song live in a club.
| jjgreen wrote:
| In the UK in the late 70's, New Wave was just post-punk
| without the vomit.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| They try to be as concise as possible.
|
| For example, they completely missed out Front 242, Nitzer Ebb.
| However they at least mention the genre, EBM.
|
| And to be honest: what is techno else than Tallas invention in
| a record store? Frontpage magazine? So many things left out,
| but who cares? You either witnessed parts of the 90th or not.
| ;)
|
| I never understood my parents fondness for Woodstock and how an
| e guitar could be the center of a "sound revolution". Around 30
| years later, I really understand them: Dorian Gray, Loveparade,
| 303. ;)
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| > They try to be as concise as possible.
|
| Calling it the "definitive history of techno" and then trying
| to be as concise as possible seems a bit presumptuous to me,
| though...
| kristopolous wrote:
| I think my main contention can be illustrated by trying to
| discover where Disco comes from. I was looking for this kind
| of shoestring style story for years.
|
| Then I gave up trying to construct it. The reality is it's a
| bunch of things smashed together like pressing all the
| buttons at the soda fountain at once. That's what happened.
|
| That's where techno came from as well.
|
| Sometimes the narratives are super clean, like rappers
| delight for rap (there's pre rappers delight style rap
| records, but under like a dozen or so) or the amen break and
| dnb or the configuration of the swing drum kit for swing
| music or house music proper being "the stuff knuckles plays"
| in Chicago.
|
| But a few styles are inherently messy with no clean lines.
| Rock, Disco and Techno are three
|
| Rock is especially super messy, here's Meade Lux Lewis in
| 1927 for instance, https://youtu.be/tDuLezFRMNU swap the
| piano with a guitar and you have 50s rock
| evanelias wrote:
| > I think my main contention can be illustrated by trying
| to discover where Disco comes from.
|
| Isn't the concise answer Philadelphia? :) Partially joking,
| I know this is an oversimplification.
|
| In any case, this interview with Earl Young from The
| Trammps, discussing the origin of four-on-the-floor, is
| pure gold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsf51_a1ceI
| zwp wrote:
| Thanks for your great contributions in this thread.
|
| Can you please help me understand "rock is super messy"?
| The traditional narrative is "rock was mostly derived from
| blues (+ some other influences)" but the counter(?)example
| you provided is a classic 12 bar blues.
|
| Do you have some messier examples? Or did I miss your
| point?
| mmmmmk wrote:
| The book, The Seventh Stream, by Phil Ennis is a good
| resource to understand the origins of rock. It is a lot
| more complicated than just the blues.
| insickness wrote:
| They actually did mention Nitzer Ebb if you do a ctrl-F. Yes,
| very cool techno-ish, minimal seminal music. Ritchie Hawtin
| used to spin Murderous into his sets.
|
| Recently there was a cool documentary about Wax Trax records
| called Industrial Accident. Worth seeing. Interviews with
| Front 242, Ministry, Revolting Cocks, KMFDM, Thrill Kill
| Kult, Trent Reznor, Frontline Assembly, etc.
| wiz21c wrote:
| Any reference about that documentary ? The rev's, FLA, 242,
| all my not so youth :-)
| [deleted]
| evanelias wrote:
| Another vote for that documentary, it's absolutely a joy.
| Not streaming for free anywhere, but worth the cost:
| http://www.waxtraxfilms.com/
| wiz21c wrote:
| Thanks for bringing this. This article basically looks at what
| beatports has to propose but it just totally forgets so many
| things that it's not even funny. What about "pop corn" too ?
| kristopolous wrote:
| I don't think popcorn is part of it to be honest. It's some
| adjacent siderail of groups like Mannheim Steamroller or BBC
| Radiophonic (eg Delia Derbyshire/Dr Who theme) or for that
| matter, video game music.
|
| Check out the "Soothing Sounds for Baby" album by Raymond
| Scott (1962) for an early example of this.
|
| To put Popcorn in comparison to what would be on the techno
| track at that time, look at Hugo Montenegro's Moog album,
| released the same year. His MacArthur Park rendition I would
| argue is a closer direct ancestor to techno being in the
| pursuit of electronic dance. Direct link
| https://youtu.be/eNM6187cznE
|
| There's certainly "bridges" between the worlds like the 1979
| Automat album https://youtu.be/w7nQHBiv_u0 or the Droids
| "Star Peace" but synth and techno are kinda like the
| catholics and eastern orthodox, they split off a long time
| ago and kinda have their own worlds.
| Tenoke wrote:
| To be fair, it'd need to be a book to cover everything and
| they include quite a lot here.
| mmmmmk wrote:
| I'm a little confused by the American focus of the article.
| Kraftwerk's Autobahne came out in 1974, and there was a well
| established electronic movement coming out of krautrock, which
| became techno. Americans were late to the scene.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| > which became techno
|
| > Americans were late to the scene
|
| I think you've got to pick one or the other. It became techno
| in America in a culturally deeply American way. I wish people
| would embrace the cultural exchange and parallel/convergent
| evolution at the core of musical evolution instead of holding
| on to laughably provincial notions of cosmogony.
| mmmmmk wrote:
| I'm not holding onto laughably provincial notions of
| cosmogony- it is just strange to start a history of a subject
| several years after its development, and only make passing
| reference to its progenitors. Krautrock developed into
| electronic music, including Kraftwerk, who coined the term
| 'techno'
| yowlingcat wrote:
| > I'm not holding onto laughably provincial notions of
| cosmogony
|
| > it is just strange to ... only make passing reference to
| its progenitors
|
| Which one is it?
|
| Electronic music didn't begin with Krautrock, it began with
| avant garde composers pushing limits. Messiaen, Ives,
| Varese, Cage; all of this in the late 19th century to early
| 20th century. Krautrock itself is deeply indebted to its
| own stylistic progenitors in American minimalism, including
| artists like Terry Riley (as well as Germans like Karl
| Stockhausen). Assuming you're not trying to make proto-
| nationalistic strawmans in service of which scene was the
| "one true" progenitor, it's hard to do anything but to
| think globally -- otherwise, you'll miss the forest for the
| trees.
|
| I always felt that part of the joy of Krautrock was in how
| it was able to rebel against American influence and
| conservative German mores while dialectically integrating
| its raw materials. But that's why I would caution against
| being too territorial about these things. It's why I warn
| against provinciality. Electronic music developed in
| parallel across the globe, much like all modern music.
| mmmmmk wrote:
| You're being a bit too clever. The term 'techno' is
| attributed to Kraftwerk who were hugely influential for
| all forms of electronic music after them. It is strange
| to only mention them briefly later on, and present it as
| the history of techno.
| [deleted]
| jldl805 wrote:
| Maybe the "term" but the "genre" techno was really born
| in Detroit. Not a really controversial statement.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| anthk wrote:
| Kraftwerk wasn't the first group/soloer doing electronic music.
| josht wrote:
| I recently discovered Boris Brejcha and can't recommend him
| enough. He has a great live set at Grand Palaris that's
| phenomenal:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqz8c4ZP3Wg.
|
| I find live performances quite nostalgic for obvious (pandemic)
| reasons. Along those same lines, Fatboy Slim at BA i360 in
| Brighton UK is worth experiencing:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AvC05kXS9I.
| dbcooper wrote:
| Music for Programming is a great site for electronic music mixes
| that are suitable for working to.
|
| https://musicforprogramming.net/
| wolverine876 wrote:
| I posted it below, but here's an amazing history of the Music
| Institute in the late 1980s, in a way the peak of the scene where
| techno was created:
|
| http://music.hyperreal.org/lists/313/08.html
| siquick wrote:
| If anyone wants more then Techno Rebels by Dan Sicko is widely
| considered to be the bible for the early history of Techno from
| Detroit.
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/493341.Techno_Rebels
| mqp wrote:
| I'm pleased to see accuracy in the history of techno.
|
| I for one did not know it's roots took place back in the 70s and
| from the black community.
|
| These days when I look at techno artists and their raving
| followers, its prodimently white. I have since taken active steps
| to seek out the lesser know black artists to support.
|
| Many modern music fundamentals are origins from the black
| community and very little is correctly attributed and/or black
| artists are sidelined.
| SvenMarquardt wrote:
| Detroit techno is a completely different beast to the modern
| European techno scene. Less than 1% of DJs playing at Berghain
| are black. Modern techno is dominated by Europeans.
| HKH2 wrote:
| It's not uncommon for a popular techno artist to talk about how
| Detroit techno influenced them. As far as I've seen, Detroit
| techno artists, most often Black, are given a lot of respect
| for their contributions, so I would like to hear about who was
| sidelined or not correctly attributed.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| If you want to see quite the videos check these out:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV8_eUJ6C1w [ Acid Mix Detroit
| Chicago - New Dance Show 1989 ]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz2wInkVkRU [ Techno Jam - New
| Dance Show 1989 ] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aUAqboAvQM [
| City of Techno (Detroit) - New Dance Show 1991 ]
|
| Great examples of the racial diversity in the early scene in
| Detroit. I think this was some public access TV show?
|
| Anyways speaking from living in Latin America the scene here is
| HUGE for techno and house, I would probably say the numbers
| here are bigger and more diverse than I've seen for the same
| scene in North America and balance out the melanation factor
| quite a lot
| Toutouxc wrote:
| It's bizarre and charming at the same time to hear music so
| similar to the colder, minimal kind of techno you'd expect to
| hear at a dark themed party in a shady club full of edgy
| young people, and see the happy, well dressed, colorful,
| smiling people in the video.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| It's good vibin videos for sure, looked like a great time
| [deleted]
| SvenMarquardt wrote:
| Yes, LATAM has the wildest contemporary techno scene after
| Europe. The US had next to no techno scene pre-pandemic, a
| party or two in NY or LA each weekend was it, now its dead.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Yeah they even have a hardtechno/schranz thing going on in
| Colombia and Venezuela, bit too turbo for me but still cool
|
| Colombia had someone spinning that who was when she was
| still alive quite the amusement because she changed her
| name to ladyzunga cyborg and then... this
|
| https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/80/590x/Colomb
| i...
|
| RIP abcdefg hijklmn opqrst uvwxyz
| devmunchies wrote:
| > it's roots took place ... from the black community
|
| > origins from the black community
|
| gotta give credit to the engineers who pioneered electronic
| music synthesis, like Robert Moog, or the Japanese who created
| Korg synthesizers in the article.
|
| Influences for any technology, project, art, etc come from a
| large web of sources. Racial gatekeeping and attribution is
| close-minded.
|
| Let the people enjoy techno without guilt.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| Why guilt? The first stuff anyone started calling techno was
| pretty black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhtdRd9AuIs
|
| And that's OK, there's literally nothing wrong with this. I
| think there's also a lot of stuff to be said about how
| there's anecdotes about how the early rave scene had a lot of
| previously unheard of racial unity going on, stuff like
| skinhead and rasta gangs or even rival football ultras
| encountering each other and literally just vibing when they'd
| be fighting each other before
| devmunchies wrote:
| > Why guilt?
|
| GP made it seem like whites being a big part of current
| techno scene is bad.
|
| > The first stuff anyone started calling techno was pretty
| black
|
| you could say the first stuff anyone started calling
| electronic music was pretty white. point is, racial
| attribution for something that has a huge array of
| influences is silly.
|
| > unheard of racial unity going on
|
| yes, the way it should be.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| This article is about techno specifically, not electronic
| music. There's a lot of electronic music that has nothing
| to do with techno - techno is a genre, like chiptune,
| trance or dubstep.
| devmunchies wrote:
| > As part of Beatportal's new series on the history of
| electronic dance music, Marcus Barnes explores the rich
| history of techno, from the 1970s right through to today.
|
| it's a series about electronic music history.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > GP made it seem like whites being a big part of current
| techno scene is bad.
|
| I don't see that; I don't see any "guilt", using your
| word. Can you point it out? People have other motives.
|
| My impression is that you brought your own (reactionary?)
| bias to it, using a reactionary talking point whether it
| really applies or not. Why bring down someone who is
| trying to expand their experiences, knowledge, and
| community, in a world where racism is common and leads to
| many people being excluded. We should work to include -
| that's great, creative, positive; there's no reason it
| needs to be motivated by guilt.
| devmunchies wrote:
| This confuses the heck out of me. I saw my comment as the
| more inclusive.
|
| > using a reactionary talking point
|
| ???
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Probably your first time discussing these things on the
| Internet!
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| One root is there definitely in America. However this piece
| overlooks the work of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream in Europe
| in the early 1970s.
| senorjazz wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WpudasPafg
|
| Good documentary on the origins of house and techno from 70s
| disco, to 4 to the floor disco and the coming of the 808, how
| this moved to house in chicago and some sci fi nerds with a
| love for kraftwerk in detroit started techno. Then how the UK
| got involved and these DJs from the US, used to playing to
| 50-80 people in tiny underground, often gay clubs would come to
| the UK and play to 10,000 in massive outdoor / warehouse events
| and rave was born
| mdbauman wrote:
| For anyone seeing the copyright claim and wondering what this
| was, it seems to be a BBC documentary called _Can You Feel It
| - How Dance Music Conquered the World._
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11719632/
| anthk wrote:
| White European here (Spain).
|
| Black people in the US invented basically the three modern
| music roots:
|
| - Blues/Rock
|
| - Techno
|
| - Rap
|
| The problem is rap had much better marketing in the US, ditto
| with rhythm and blues in the 90's.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Omitting jazz from the list of African-American musical
| innovations is like omitting goal-scoring from Messi's
| achievements or MacOS from Apple's.
|
| Also, by "rap" I think you mean 'hip-hop', which includes
| sampling and mixing, especially using turntables.
|
| > Well, blues is the son of jazz music :)
|
| Try some Muddy Waters and John Coltrane, listen, then report
| back.
|
| With due respect, beyond every form of music being related to
| every other (just like you are probably a distant relative of
| mine), they are such different genres that my impression of
| the comment - which could be completely wrong - is that the
| commenter has not listed to jazz, blues, or both.
| dpeck wrote:
| Can't forget jazz there either.
|
| And I'd argue that blues and rock are separate, but that most
| rock until late 90s was heavily influenced by blues. But
| that's all just fun trying to draw lines where there isn't a
| clear difference sometimes.
| anthk wrote:
| Well, blues is the son of jazz music :)
|
| PD: I didn't put Blues/Rock as separate entities, but two
| genres where late blues albums could be considered
| something as proto-rock. And ditto with jazz-swing-blues.
| It's like a continuum.
| te_chris wrote:
| More like the father!
| anthk wrote:
| Oh, TIL. As blues got played until really long (until it
| gave birth to rock), I tought the opposite.
| npunt wrote:
| Neat article but completely unnecessary scrolljacking. If you
| pinch zoom in, you can't even pan around normally. Scroll down a
| bit and then tap the (also completely unnecessary) arrow in the
| bottom right, and it'll ever.. so.. slowly.. scroll you back to
| the top.
|
| The web gives bad designers too much rope to hang everyone with.
| radley wrote:
| Beatport has been a UI nightmare since the SFX acquisition back
| in 2014.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Agreed. Smooth scrolling should never be used in majority text
| readable sites.
|
| I ended up using the "Reader view" on Safari read it.
|
| I archived it and here's the archive version of it to avoid the
| scrolling problem:
|
| https://archive.is/rk0DB
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back-button
| breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be
| interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then
| friendly feedback might be helpful._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| chmod775 wrote:
| It has some custom... sloooow... smooth scrolling
| implementation.
|
| I have smooth scrolling turned off because it makes me
| impatient. You can't continue reading while everything is
| moving. Now _slow_ smooth scrolling...
| pornel wrote:
| Yup, it's all wobbly and either scrolls too slowly or jumps and
| I lose my position.
|
| I can't read it.
| elric wrote:
| Happy to see that New Beat got a shoutout. IMO one of the more
| under rated electronic genres. If you're interested, I can
| recommend the documentary "The Sound of Belgium" (2012).
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Cool to see so much discussion about techno on here!
|
| I've been a huge dance music fan/nerd ever since I was a teenager
| and techno is my favourite genre, particularly the deeper and
| more hypnotic varieties.
|
| Check out Donato Dozzy's 2008 Labyrinth set for an idea of what I
| mean, it blew my mind at the time (still does) and redefined my
| musical tastes quite a lot:
| https://soundcloud.com/user-602354628/sets/dozzy-labyrinth-2...
|
| Would be cool to chat techno more with people from this site (and
| further afield, but I guess I'm thinking the shared interest in
| tech is another thing in common), I find sites like Reddit don't
| really work for me for whatever reason... would there be any
| interest in a Discord or whatever for techies who like techno?
| (lol, sorry). Could be fun to share musical discoveries and maybe
| lead to other interesting connections.
| arrakeen wrote:
| i've been listening to dozzy's "plays bee mask" constantly for
| the last two weeks. really excellent
| ambient/synth/drone/whatever
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Yep, wonderful album. Check out his album K for a slightly
| more upbeat but similarish vibe, and also the Voices from the
| Lake album.
|
| Bee Mask's albums are fantastic too. Have been getting really
| in to ambient lately
| randomopining wrote:
| Yeeeeeah dude. Anything in realm of Dozzy is awesome. Check out
| Wata Igarashi for a polished spacey sound. I also like the
| funky techno with detroit and hip hop vibes of the Zenker
| Brothers.
|
| Best techno party ever is No Way Back during Movement in
| Detroit. Most likely featuring one of the above.
|
| Of course I still like more semi-mainstream techno stuff, Ben
| Klock and Dettmann. And then even more mainstream, I love
| Prydz's polished big progressive and big tech sound.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Ah yeah big fan of Wata. His remix of Blachington Mill is one
| of my fave tracks for several years, his "infinite arpeggio"
| thing is so unique: https://open.spotify.com/track/5MsKTeSpd6
| Lehr899HOjdN?si=fu4...
|
| Also check this wicked set he did recently in Japan, amazing
| music and really nice visuals cut to Japanese nature:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tUva4XDGBm4
|
| I'm in London so never had the chance to check out the US
| techno scene, have been to some great nights in the U.K. and
| Berlin though. Getting a bit old for regular clubbing now but
| I'll still go out for the odd special night. I saw No Way Out
| have a cool looking live stream coming up actually!
|
| And yea, Dettmann, Klock etc are great at what they do, would
| happily dance to them. And I was really into Pryda in 2007/8
| kind of time so I'm with you there too!
| randomopining wrote:
| Yeahh that's an insane track. Spiraling arpeggios into
| infinite, like you said.
|
| Yeah that set is crazy. New track Cylinder into the crazy
| unreleased 303 one is madness.
|
| How old is too old? I've had a reprieve because of covid
| and I wonder when I go back if I'll like it as much as I
| did in 2019.
|
| I've def matured in reducing excesses... And I think I'm
| less of a chin scratching techno elitist.
|
| What spots or events are best in the UK?
|
| Still want to make it to Labyrinth one day too.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| I'm 36... still enjoy late nights but find it messes up
| my sleep for days after even if I am fairly sensible with
| alcohol etc., so I'm more selective about when I go out -
| has to be worthwhile! Day parties I'm down for (tho they
| have a way of turning into night parties lol)
|
| In London, good venues are Corsica Studios, Pickle
| Factory, The Cause, Fold... all pretty low key and
| underground. There's good stuff in other cities too but
| I'm not really familiar with it any more.
|
| Yeah, Labyrinth is the dream!
| SvenMarquardt wrote:
| Get yourself over to the continent. If you start partying
| at 4am Sun morning you can finish at 10pm Sun night and
| be fresh Monday.
| 11thEarlOfMar wrote:
| Ok, how do we classify this?
|
| (Wait for the narrator)
|
| https://open.spotify.com/track/5O6MFTh1rd9PeN8XEn1yCS?si=jNp...
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Also missing the techno performed with classic philarmonic
| concerts:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wPbNf1jhzM&t=2632s
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hS9qK_Z1IM
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhGXn9Qo9HA
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Some thoughts from someone who was there, on the fringe of it:
|
| Detroit: is a land of wondrous musical invention, just new trends
| but whole new paradigms over and over, and it's never credited:
| Motown, of course; Punk (Iggy Pop & the Stooges, MC5 - name
| earlier punk!); Funkadelic (George Clinton et al); and Techno. At
| their heart they are creative, artistic, non-commercial (Motown
| being a big exception to the latter). Try to name other
| communities that match it, and give Detroit some due.
|
| Techno: I've heard it described (by someone who would know) as
| the music of black middle class kids in Detroit. Think of what
| that means: Think of the historical implications, for the next
| generation after the civil rights era. Think of how rare that
| image is - today - in our public sphere, 'black middle class
| kids'. And from this perspective, to great disappointment, the
| black musical genre that America embraced was hip-hop, which sold
| itself as the stereotype many whites have of African-Americans:
| Poverty, violence, crime, lack of education, acting out, etc.
| That's what people associate with black kids - and that's what
| they bought - not futuristic techno; everyone in the world knows
| hip-hop is 'black' music; few outside techno know its origins. It
| makes me angry to this day. Here's a bit of that history, from
| the 313 (Detroit area code) techno mailing list:
|
| http://music.hyperreal.org/lists/313/08.html
|
| Through the 1990s, Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and
| the other techno pioneers, legends and stars elsewhere, were
| unknown in Detroit beyond the small techno community. Every
| summer in Hart Plaza downtown, Detroit hosts various weekend
| festivals, such as a large country music festival. In 2000 a new
| one was added to the schedule, the Detroit Electronic Music
| Festival. I can't express the shock, the bewilderment, of local
| Detroiters when a million people from around the world showed up
| - to Detroit? For electronic music? Why??? The visitors knew more
| than the locals. And I was there - my favorite musical memory -
| for the moment Derrick May, long ignored in his hometown, at last
| took to the turntables before a massive crowd _in Detroit_ :
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4xqV9_7rf0
| golemiprague wrote:
| It is not what "poeple associate with black kids", it is what
| it was and what it is, most black kids are not middle class.
| The black community first and foremost were the one to adopt
| hiphop as their "voice".
|
| In general, all types of electronic music thrived in Europe
| rather than in the US, house, techno, trans, even
| dub/regeae/jungle etc. not necessarly just the black middle
| class music.
| fodmap wrote:
| Juan Garcia Castillejo wrote in 1944 'La telegrafia rapida: el
| triteclado y la musica electrica' (Fast telegraphy, trikeyboard,
| and electric music). You can read the gist of it at
| https://nathanjohnthompson.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/la-teleg...
|
| Here's the book in Spanish
| https://archive.org/details/latelegrafiarapida.eltritecladoy...
| and this is a homage to his work in 2013
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFZk6WrbOKw
| anthk wrote:
| Gracias.
| kristopolous wrote:
| Check out the soviet Nikolai Voinov who worked with electronic
| graphical sounds in the 1930s https://youtu.be/Mmejo9WL2gY
| fodmap wrote:
| Very interesting. Thanks for that link.
| LargoLasskhyfv wrote:
| You can do that today on some of your gadgets with
| https://warmplace.ru/soft/ans/
|
| ;-)
| Krasnol wrote:
| I loved the Gray back than. It was just right for me and for the
| time back than. Something I realized at a "revival" party for it.
| Growing up and out of time sucks some times ;)
| graderjs wrote:
| It was the late 90s. I was 16 or 17. I used to sneak out,
| literally out the window and over the roof, to the fence, and
| to the ground, after bed time and trek to the city, to go to
| "61 Regent St". An "underground" club in Sydney. Techno all
| night, strange new media generative video art projected on the
| walls, people with glow sticks, UV lights, dreadlocks. A
| "drinks counter" that also sold marijuana. Place was tiny,
| always filled with cigarette smoke. Sort of like a hippy
| culture vibe, but techno. Dumonde's Tomorrow. I was so tired
| one night I fell asleep under the pool table. Somehow sleeping
| even as the bass reverberated everything. Dancing until early,
| then if I wanted more, walk over to the slightly more hardcore
| "Icebox" in the Cross. Both places closed for many, many years.
| dkobia wrote:
| I love techno / house music. I've been unable to shake it since I
| caught the bug many many years ago in Kenya. It came as a
| pleasant surprise and shock to meet Carl Craig at thanksgiving
| some years back. My wife neglected to mention he was her cousin
| -- real Detroit House music royalty. They understand he's big
| somehow but all that is lost because techno and house are not
| considered "American" or "black" music for that matter. I've had
| the pleasure of hanging out on stage with Carl watching him do
| his thing which I could have never imagined happening.
| disgu wrote:
| That has got to be the worst scrolling behavior I've ever seen on
| a website in my entire life.
| busymom0 wrote:
| If you are interested in reading it, here's archive:
|
| https://archive.is/rk0DB
| lifeformed wrote:
| It actually gives me motion sickness.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back-button
| breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be
| interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then
| friendly feedback might be helpful._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| pgt wrote:
| I love techno and I can't wait to read this article, but I had
| to stop and come back here just to say this site's scrolling
| behaviour is driving me nuts.
|
| If any designers are reading this, please avoid smooth
| scrolling.
| mbertschler wrote:
| on a trackpad I tried to 2 finger pinch to zoom, instead it
| took one finger as scroll input, zooming impossible
| Thlom wrote:
| Did they change it? Scrolls normally in latest Chrome on Win
| 10?
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| Some things are ment to be brokken
| k3liutZu wrote:
| Also works fine in Safari, looks like regular scrolling.
| mradmin wrote:
| There's also some wacky code in the HTML. Check out the body
| tag: <body class="post-template-default single
| single-post postid-4483 single-format-standard bridge-
| core-1.0.6 qode-title-hidden qode_grid_1200
| footer_responsive_adv qode-content-sidebar-responsive
| transparent_content qode-child-theme-ver-1.0.0 qode-theme-
| ver-18.2 qode-theme-beatportal disabled_footer_bottom
| qode_header_in_grid wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-6.0.5
| vc_responsive "><noscript><iframe
| src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-
| WVTMQP&user%5BisLoggedIn%5D=0&"
| height="0" width="0" style="display:no
| ne;visibility:hidden"></iframe></noscript>&
| lt;br style="display:none;" >
|
| If it's not clear, all that code is within the class attribute!
| shivbhatt wrote:
| Don`t mind but when i see this kind of title, i always think what
| will new in post. When i check post i always disappoint with
| useless information.
| vehemenz wrote:
| Hidden gem of a YouTube channel with hundreds of old-skool house,
| dnb, and techno mix tapes:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/c/MixtapeMagic/videos
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(page generated 2021-04-29 23:02 UTC)