Last Saturday i had a great discussion about this topic in my local record shop. The guy i was chatting with was the one who sold me my frist records, and that i lost contact once he stopped working at the shop… So 5 years after here is the situation :

The loop based techno has not evolved, the tracks have the same sounds, the same sequencing. Jeff Mills is an example, Ben Sims another. Whatever they try to do, they may succeed in convincing a few people like me who like thie rmusic anyways, but obviously they will bore more and more people that will never see the evolution, becasue its not perceptible.

SO instead of being democratized, techno got stuck into this nerds wold, who are the only ones that can tolerate this non-evolution, because they are too much passionate for that. Obviously the spectrum of potential buyers has seriously narrowed.

And among all these nerds, remove the ones that download and dont buy. Remove the ones that find more interesting to produce than to DJ (the guy who posted about « Bedroom producer » made a really goos statement).

1st conclusion : the techno records DEMAND has seriously gone down.

So, what about the OFFER ? Well, instead of going down, like in every market (we’re talking about sales, so why not about market ?) where the demand is reducing, it has risen up in an expected way. WHY ?

Because the people prefer to produce than to DJ. Because the DJs, even the good ones, need to release a record to get gigs, even if most of the time their production skills are not realted to their DJ skills. Because distributors, to keep their activity, accepted to issue crappy records that sell few.

Less demand, too much offer : it just seems techno world has not enouch read history books about what happened in 1929.

But i think we can find some good solution, who will come from people suffering from this situation. As Im among them, here are a few ideas :

- as shops do not deliver us the good stuff we expect from them (the unknown good producers, the not yet recognized newcommers, the unexpected stuff), then dont buy there. If there is a real demand for that stuff, after the successive collpasing of crappy shit dstributors and shops, then the real quality companies will emerge again. OF course that needs some years where u will die to get your stuff, but you need that to « clean » this situation. The « good » shops sell anyways the « same all the time stuff » anyways so get it there if u like, the « good » guys desserve more to earn money even with that stuff.

- If u want to start producing and expose your music, here is my personnal technique. Send it to established labels, the ones that have good tastes, whatver they’re new of old. If u are good enough, they will release you, if not that means you have to improve your sound. After having done this for some years im sure youll succeed. The other way is to distribute for free your music through internet (ex : by creating some netlabel). If your stuff is good, youll be heard, if not , at least you did not lose money and did not pollute the regular record market.

- If u are DJ and produce to get gigs, well, do the same as above. But first it means you have done all your best to expose your DJ talent. Put sets to download on the net, broadcast radio shows on FM / internet, send CD to promoters, DJ contests, whopever, youll never know who else will listen to it ! ! !

- Imagine other solutions, im sure your imagination is better than mine !!!

Was just my two cents... In conclusion i would to hear all your solutions. I dont care anymore about WHY were in such a crap, we all know we are in it. SO we need to know HOW to get out of this, and fast ....

Waiting for your ideas