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Re: Trying to learn more about techno
| quote: | Originally posted by Chimney
Being a trance listener most of my life I've recently discovered the wonders of techno through some of the people here.
I wonder though how I can get more experience in this genré. What are the differences between dub and melodic, what is typical for the old Detroit sound? So far I've done some reading on the history of techno (Juan Atkins and how it started) and heard some tracks/mixes from Villalobos and Gui Boratto.
As shameful as it may sound I sometimes have a hard time hearing the difference between progressive house & certain techno genres.
I'm a newb on this territory so educate me (or just indoctrinate me with your favorite artist)
Thank'you |
ok - first of all - gui boratto has little to do with villalobos has little to do with juan atkins
in a nutshell (ps i am abbreviating and generalizing to make this concise, so don't take this for the complete truth)
techno was birthed in detroit, by a generation of suburban detroit kids (most of them african-american) who grew up listening to deejays like the electrifying mojo and the hot mix five out of chicago. these deejays would play forward thinking electronic music like tangerine dream, kraftwerk, moroder, herbie hancock, parliament funkadelic etc. the detroit kids were also aware of what was going on with house music in chicago at the time, hearing ron hardy playing proto-house music produced with drum machines. some of these kids got a hold of drum machines and started making music with them. then they began to mythologize what they were doing, reading books like alvin toffler's 'future shock'. at this time, lots of people were doing related things - house music was basically disco remade with drum machines, electro was funk remade with drum machines, hip hop was funk remade with turntables, etc. techno became music of the drum machine itself, almost like an alien music - this is why it was so easy to mythologize. Additionally, many of the early detroit producers were influenced by bands like kraftwerk who marketed themselves basically as robots.
So techno music develops from these roots, people start to call themselves model 500, cybotron, drexciya, labels are called 'm-plant' , 'metroplex' etc.
a lot of the prototechno has roots in other kinds of music like funk and electro (eg cybotron's 'clear', drexciya's 'bubble metropolis', etc).
some of these records were imported to europe, particularly britain, germany, and the netherlands. detroit techno producers and deejays became celebrities in europe and went unrecognized in the united states.
eventually europeans started to create their own detroit techno and detroit producers also collaborated with european producers. European techno pioneers might be cristian vogel, kirk degiorgio, laurent garnier... and basic channel.
basic channel (aka mark ernestus & moritz von oswald) was a project begun in the early 90s that brought the techniques of dub music production to techno music production. mark ernestus and mvo had been purveyors and collectors of dub and reggae music for some time (if you do some reading about dub you will read about those cross-atlantic currents as well). they brought the ideas of soundscape, fracture, delay and reverberation as employed in dub music to the production of techno music. They released a lot of original material on their various labels and opened up a really important record store and mastering/cutting plant in Berlin. Additionally, they connected with other detroit artists like Carl Craig (coming in the third wave of producers nearly a decade after the originators) and released tracks in the united states on craig's label as well.
There are a ton of other branches of techno as well - the storm rave techno of brooklyn played by frankie bones and joey beltram descended from the 909-heavy efforts of jeff mills, etc. This in turn provoked an entire branch of electronic music that branched recursively..
I generally prefer to look at techno as a sort of attitude or position on music rather than a specific set of formal requirements for sound. This position is characterized by the controlling presence of the machine, particularly the rhythm machine, and the alien sonic worlds it allows humans to experience, rather than the usage of the machine to reproduce something that is not alien but already human. Be aware that this is a purist sentiment Also, as he has made it clear in the past, SYSTEM-J does not agree with this outlook on music at all. 
The farther we get from the origins of techno, the more it becomes codified into a set of formal requirements for sound, however. in other words - people are making techno a certain way because it sounds like techno should sound. The techno you hear today is second-third-fourth generation, variations on the theme. There is a lot of in-breeding with other genres as well. Acid techno in the early 90s, Tech House in the 90s, today we see this kind of minimal glitch techno infused house music, and there is dubstep-infused techno as well.
Last edited by nefardec on Apr-28-2009 at 21:42
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