TECHNO MUSIC AND SOUND

Techno is a form of electronic dance music (EDM) that emerged in Detroit during the mid to late 1980s. The first recorded use of the word techno, in reference to a genre of music, was in 1988. Many styles of techno now exist, but Detroit techno is seen as the foundation upon which a number of subgenres have been built.

The initial take on techno arose from the melding of Eurocentric synthesizer-based music with various American post-disco and pre-disco music styles such as Chicago house, funk, electro, and electric jazz. Added to this is the influence of futuristic and fictional themes that are relevant to life in American late capitalist society

( particularly the book The Third Wave by Toffler ).

Pioneering producer Juan Atkins cites Alvin Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" as inspiring him to use the word techno to describe the musical style he helped to create. This unique blend of influences aligns techno with the aesthetic referred to as afrofuturism. To producers such as Derrick May, the transference of spirit from the body to the machine is often a central preoccupation; essentially an expression of technological spirituality.

In this manner: "techno dance music defeats what Adorno saw as the alienating effect of mechanisation on the modern consciousness".

Music journalists and fans of techno are generally selective in their use of the term; so a clear distinction can be made between sometimes related but often qualitatively different styles, such as tech house and trance. "Techno" is also commonly confused with generalized descriptors, such as electronic music and dance music.

Origins

Detroit sound

School days

Chicago and House Music

Acid house and Rave

HARDTECHNO

Divergence

Definition of Electro Music

History of Electro Music

Contemporary electro

Origins

The "Belleville Four" at the Detroit Historical Museum, which honored them in its "Techno: Detroit's Gift to the World" exhibit (Jan 2003 – Jun 2004)

The initial blueprint for techno was developed during the mid-1980s in Detroit, Michigan, by Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May (the so-called Belleville Three), and Eddie Fowlkes, all of whom attended school together at Belleville High, near Detroit. By the close of the 1980s, the four had recorded and released material under various guises: Atkins as Model 500, Flintstones, and Magic Juan; Fowlkes simply as Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes; Saunderson as Reese, Keynotes, and Kaos; with May as Mayday, R-Tyme, and Rhythim Is Rhythim. There were also a number of joint ventures, the most commercially successful of which was the Atkins and Saunderson (with James Pennington and Arthur Forest) collaboration on the first Inner City single, "Big Fun".

Detroit sound

The early producers, enabled by the increasing affordability of sequencers and synthesizers, merged a European synth-pop aesthetic with aspects of soul, funk, disco, and electro, pushing electronic dance music into uncharted terrain. They deliberately rejected the Motown legacy and traditional formulas of R&B and soul, and instead embraced technological experimentation.

“Within the last 5 years or so, the Detroit underground has been experimenting with technology, stretching it rather than simply using it. As the price of sequencers and synthesizers has dropped, so the experimentation has become more intense. Basically, we're tired of hearing about being in love or falling out, tired of the R&B system, so a new progressive sound has emerged. We call it techno! ”

Juan Atkins, 1988

The resulting Detroit sound was interpreted by Derrick May and one journalist in 1988 as a "post-soul" sound with no debt to Motown, but by another journalist a decade later as "soulful grooves" melding the beat-centric styles of Motown with the music technology of the time. May famously described the sound of techno as something that is "...like Detroit...a complete mistake. It's like George Clinton and Kraftwerk are stuck in an elevator with only a sequencer to keep them company.

Juan Atkins has stated that it is "music that sounds like technology, and not technology that sounds like music, meaning that most of the music you listen to is made with technology, whether you know it or not. But with techno music, you know it."

The sound exerted an influence on widely differing styles of electronic music, yet it also maintained an identity as a genre in its own right, one now commonly referred to as "Detroit techno."

School days

Prior to achieving notoriety, Atkins, Saunderson, May, and Fowlkes shared common interests as budding musicians, "mix" tape traders, and aspiring DJs. They also found musical inspiration via the Midnight Funk Association, an eclectic five-hour late-night radio program hosted on various Detroit radio stations, including WCHB, WGPR, and WJLB-FM from 1977 through the mid-1980s by DJ Charles "The Electrifying Mojo" Johnson. Mojo's show featured electronic music by artists such as Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, and Tangerine Dream, alongside the funk sounds of Parliament, and danceable selections of new wave music from bands such as Devo and the B-52's.

Despite the short-lived disco boom in Detroit, it had the effect of inspiring many individuals to take up mixing, Juan Atkins among them. Subsequently, Atkins taught May how to mix records, and in 1981, "Magic Juan", Derrick "Mayday", in conjunction with three other DJ's, one of whom was Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes, launched themselves as a party crew called Deep Space Soundworks (also referred to as Deep Space). In 1980 or 1981 they met with Mojo and proposed that they provide mixes for his show, which they did end up doing the following year.

During the late 1970s/early 1980s high school clubs such as Brats, Charivari, Ciabattino, Comrades, Gables, Hardwear, Rafael, Rumours, Snobs, and Weekends[34] created the incubator in which techno was grown. These young promoters developed and nurtured the local dance music scene by both catering to the tastes of the local audience of young people and by marketing parties with new DJs and their music. As these local clubs grew in popularity, groups of DJs began to band together to market their mixing skills and sound systems to the clubs in order to cater to the growing audiences of listeners. Locations like local church activity centers, vacant warehouses, offices, and YMCA auditoriums were the early locations where underage crowds gathered and the musical form was nurtured and defined.

Clear, Cybotron's 1983 electro classic.

Chicago and House Music

The music's producers, especially May and Saunderson, admit to having been fascinated by the Chicago club scene and influenced by house in particular. May's 1987/1989 hit "Strings of Life" (released under the alias Rhythim Is Rhythim) is considered a classic in both the house and techno genres.

Atkins also believes that the first acid house producers, seeking to distance house music from disco, emulated the techno sound. There is also suggestion that the Chicago house sound developed as a result of Frankie Knuckles' using a drum machine he bought from Derrick May.

Acid house and Rave

In the UK, a club following for house music grew steadily from 1985, with interest sustained by scenes in London, Manchester, Nottingham, and later Sheffield and Leeds. The DJs thought to be responsible for house's early UK success include Mike Pickering, Mark Moore, Colin Faver, and Graeme Park.

By 1988, house music had exploded in the UK, and acid house was increasingly popular. There was also a long established warehouse party subculture based around the sound system scene. In 1988, the music played at warehouse parties was predominantly house. That same year, the Balearic party vibe associated with Ibiza based DJ Alfredo Fiorito was transported to London, when Danny Rampling and Paul Oakenfold opened the clubs Shoom and Spectrum, respectively. Both night spots quickly became synonymous with acid house, and it was during this period that the use of MDMA, as a party drug, started to gain prominence.

Other important UK clubs at this time included Back to Basics in Leeds, Sheffield's Leadmill and Music Factory, and in Manchester The Haçienda, where Mike Pickering and Graeme Park's Friday night spot, Nude, was an important proving ground for American EDM, including the first techno from Detroit. Acid house party fever escalated in London and Manchester, and it quickly became a cultural phenomenon. MDMA-fueled club goers, faced with 2 A.M. closing hours, sought refuge in the warehouse party scene that ran all night. To escape the attention of the press and the authorities, this after-hours activity quickly went underground. Within a year, however, up to 10,000 people at a time were attending the first commercially organized mass parties, called raves, and a media storm ensued.

The explosion of interest in EDM during the late 1980s provided a context for the development of techno as an identifiable genre.

The New Dance Sound of Detroit, an album compiled by ex-Northern Soul DJ and Kool Kat Records boss Neil Rushton (at the time an A&R scout for Virgin's "10 Records" imprint) and Derrick May,

was an important milestone and marked the introduction of the word techno in reference to a specific genre of music. Although the compilation put techno into the lexicon of music journalism, the music was, for a time, sometimes characterized as Detroit's high-tech interpretation of Chicago house rather than a relatively pure genre unto itself. In fact, the compilation's working title had been The House Sound of Detroit until the addition of Atkins' song "Techno Music" prompted reconsideration. Rushton was later quoted as saying he, Atkins, May, and Saunderson came up with the compilation's final name together, and that the Belleville Three voted down calling the music some kind of regional brand of house; they instead favored a term they were already using, techno.

"We had no inhibitions, no standards, we just did it. That's why it came off so fresh and innovative, and that's why...we got the best of the best."

HARDTECHNO " as we say in France "

( Free tekno, Teknival, Free Party, Acid techno, and DIY culture )

In the early 1990s a post-rave, DIY, free party scene had established itself in the UK. It was largely based around an alliance between warehouse party goers from various urban squat scenes and politically inspired new age travellers. The new agers offered a readymade network of countryside festivals that were hastily adopted by squatters and ravers alike. Prominent among the sound systems operating at this time were Tonka in Brighton, DiY in Nottingham, Bedlam, Circus Warp, LSDiesel and London's Spiral Tribe. The high point of this free party period came in May 1992 when with less than 24 hours notice and little publicity more than 35,000 gathered at the Castlemorton Common Festival for 5 days of partying.

This one event was largely responsible for the introduction in 1994 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act ; effectively leaving the British free party scene for dead. Following this many of the traveller artists moved away from Britain to Europe, the US, Goa in India, Koh Phangan in Thailand and Australia's East Coast. In the rest of Europe, due in some part to the inspiration of traveling sound systems from the UK,rave enjoyed a prolonged existence as it continued to expand across the continent.

Spiral Tribe, Bedlam and other English sound systems took their cooperative techno ideas to Europe, particularly Eastern Europe where it was cheaper to live, and audiences were quick to appropriate the free party ideology. It was European Teknival free parties, such as the annual Czechtek event in the Czech Republic that gave rise to several French, German and Dutch sound systems. Many of these groups found audiences easily and were often centered around squats in cities such as Amsterdam and Berlin.

GO TO OUR EUROPEAN ALTERNATIVE PARTIES and ENJOY...

Divergence

By 1994 there were a number of techno producers in the UK and Europe building on the Detroit sound, but a growing range of EDM styles were by then vying for attention. Some drew upon the Detroit techno aesthetic, while others fused components of preceding dance music forms. This led to the appearance (in the UK initially) of inventive new music, some of which bore little, if any, relation to the original techno sound; jungle (drum and bass) being a primary example, its origins having more to do with hip-hop, soul, and reggae, than with the EDM from Detroit and Chicago.

With an increasing diversification (and commercialization) of dance music, the collectivist sentiment prominent in the early rave scene diminished, each new faction having its own particular attitude and vision of how dance music (or in certain cases, non-dance music) should evolve. Some examples not already mentioned are trance, industrial techno, breakbeat hardcore, acid techno, and happy hardcore. Less well-known styles related to techno or its subgenres include the primarily Sheffield (UK) based bleep techno, a regional variant that had some success between 1989 and 1991, and a scene that was responsible for putting Warp Records on the map. By the end of the 1990s a number of post-techno EDM styles had emerged including wonky techno, ghettotech (a style that combines some of the aesthetics of techno with hip-hop and house music), nortec, glitch, digital hardcore, and so-called no-beat techno.

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