Techno

For a long time, the word "techno" was more of an adjective than a noun. As the name of a separate genre, it was first used only in 1988. Previously, its creators were willing to put up with the label "house" and with their assigned place on the Chicago stage. In August 1987, NME journalist Simon Witter wrote that Derrick May is "one-third of the Detroit house-obsessed team." May himself calmly called his music house and never once mentioned cars, computers or science fiction: "House is a basement, club music, and if you forget about it and soften up, the guys will think that house is exhausted. We're tough nuts."

What separated the Detroit branch from the Chicago branch was originally just a market ploy. By 1988, music from Chicago had become a lucrative business in the UK (especially thanks to the much-hyped acid house). In 1987, Neil Rushton — a Birmingham-based DJ from the northern soul scene who founded the record companies Kool Kat and Network Records-began listening to tracks from producers in Detroit. "When the wave from the house explosion came here, I became more and more inclined to it," he recalls. — But people like Damon D'Cruz from Jack Trax and majors like Pete Tong already had Steve Hurley, Farley, and other guys. In other words, the Chicago arena has already been taken over." Thanks to his connections with Detroit, which he enjoyed as a collector of northern soul (by the way, Kool Kat is named after the famous Detroit soul song by Joe Matthews), Rushton immediately began to receive records with the phone code 313. "When I started importing from Transmat, KMS, and Metroplex, I was probably more interested in it than the average person. I dialed the phone number listed on one of the Transmat releases (I think ' Nude Photo’) just before the release of ‘Strings Of Life'. I called Derrick and started asking him about the record release. That's when it all started happening.";

TREND

Exploring the origins of techno, writer Kodwo Ashun states that " Kraftwerk is to techno what Muddy Waters is to the famous Rolling Stones: origin, authenticity, reality." Juan Atkins admits that from the very beginning he was fascinated by Giorgio Moroder and Kraftwerk. Atkins also says that " around 1980, I only had a record with Kraftwerk, Devo, Telex, Gary Numan, and Giorgio Moroder, and I drove my own car."

Derrick May confirms the influence of Kraftwerk, European synthesizers and techno music, commenting that " it was just cool and clean, and for us it was like space, just beautiful. There was so little beauty in Detroit. Everything in Detroit is terribly dirty, and that's why we were attracted to this music.

It's like it's fired up our imagination! May said that he sees his music as a direct continuation of the European synth tradition. He also identified the Japanese synthpop group Yellow Magic Orchestra, especially its member Ryuichi Sakamoto, as well as Kraftwerk. The 1979 YMO Technopolis, a tribute to Tokyo as the Mecca of electronic techno music, is considered an "interesting choice" for the development of techno music, anticipating concepts that Davis and Atkins would later explore with Cybotron.

Kevin Saunderson also does not deny the influence of Europe, but claims that he was inspired by the idea of creating music on electronic instruments-techno music! - I was more carried away by the idea that I can do everything myself.

Since the original sound was created in the early 1990s, it has spread to such an extent that a wide range of stylistically distinct music has become known as techno. This ranged from performances usually focused on pop music, to highly anti-commercial slogans and underground resistance. Derrick May is credited with experimenting with such works as Beyond the Dance and The Beginning, which make techno " dozens of new directions simultaneously and have the same extensive influence that John Coltrane once had on jazz."

Network Records lable was instrumental in popularizing Detroit techno in the UK. By the early 1990s, techno sound had gained a large following of underground musicians in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The heyday of techno in Europe sometime between 1988 and 1992 was largely driven by the rave scene and thriving nightclub culture.

TECHNO MUSIC SCENE

In the United States, with the exception of a few regional techno music scenes in New York, Detroit, and Chicago, interest was very limited. Detroit producers, frustrated by the lack of opportunities in their home countries, sought a livelihood in Europe.

This first wave of emigrants from Detroit was soon joined by several new artists, or "second wave", which included Octave Wang, Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, Jay Denham, and Stacy Pullen, while Jeff Mills, Mike Banks, and Robert Hood promoted their own unique sound. Many New York producers made an impression at the time, especially Frankie Bones, Lenny Dee, and Joey Beltram. In the same period around Detroit, Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva started an influential imprint with 8 more records.

The development of American techno between 1990 and 1992 contributed to the expansion and subsequent divergence of techno in Europe, especially in Germany. In Berlin, after the closure of the institution called " Ufo "appeared club "Trezor". For a time, the venue was the standard for techno music and hosted many of Detroit's top producers, some of whom moved to Berlin. By 1993, with the decline of techno in the British club scene, Berlin had become known as the unofficial techno capital.

Although eclipsed by Germany, Belgium was another hotbed of second-wave techno-technology during this period. R&S Records, based in Ghent, took the harder techno from geeks like CJ Bolland and Beltram, releasing "hard metal tracks" with sharp, dissonant synth lines that sounded like Hoover's frustration, " said one music journalist.

Moroder's "From Here to Eternity" and Manuel Getching's Proto-techno Masterpiece "E2-E4". Another example is a record called "Love in C Minor "by Jean-Marc Cerrone, a Parisian producer of euro-disco; it is called the first" concept disco " and the record from which the dance styles of techno, house and underground emerged. Another example is the work of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, which is called "proto-techno"; YMO has also used the word "techno" in a number of titles, like " Technopolis", the album Technodelic, and the rare flexible EP "Spirit of Techno".

The popularity of Italo-disco and euro-disco, which are called progressive in Detroit, as well as the new synth-pop at Detroit high school parties from which techno emerged, have prompted many commentators to try to redefine the origins of techno by mixing Detroit's musical forerunners. sound in a broader historical overview of techno-creativity.