Quote Originally Posted by MARK EG

if you track all techno music back, it will always boil down to atkins. if you take all hardness, attitude or atmosphere in techno music, it will always go through mills. and if you take all the mad wierdness in techno it will always trace back to aphex.

Don't think that you can really expect to get away with such a generalising comment, do ya? All points are very disputable.

OK, firstly - Atkins did not single handedly invent techno, it is disputable (and disputed, read Dan Sicko's Techno Rebels) that No UFO's was really techno, in intentions or outcome. Nude Photo is often cited as the first "real" techno track. Thats by the by. The fact is that there were many people in Detroit at that time making music that later became identifyable with techno, and just cos Atkins was a little older and releasing music first doesn't mean he can be hailed a techno "legend". Maybe in other ways he can, but Derrick May, and more so Kevin Saunderson were instrumental in taking the music to a global audience and being influential - May through his DJing, Saunderson through Innercity.

Mills I will agree with you on, although not using the universal terms you use. He was the biggest influence on the techno scene in the UK, many current "stars" took direct influence from his performances and began their own techno adventure, e.g Surgeon, Ruskin, Oliver Ho, Max Duley, Rob Alcock. Mills brought techno to Europe in a major way, and I think he continues to maintain high standards (thats another debate though).

Aphex? Well, considering that he was making what were in effect mutant forms of hardcore, Detroit Techno, Acid House, and nothing too "weird", at least, it wouldn't necessarily bend your mind anymore than other stuff that was about. So, he's traceable back to Detroit as well. By the time he started doing stuff that was properly far out (apart from Selected Ambient Works vol.2 from 1994) Warp Records had already established it's weird shit clientelle. In terms of the freaky shit thats about now, Warp as a collective has had a much bigger impact than Aphex.