Familiarity Breeds Contempt ? Is Techno Losing Its Edge ?

[Numeric]

Fair enough. Tbh, I think people like Mike Denhert, Peter Van Hoesen, Marcel Fengler, Shed etc are a lot closer to minimal than you might like to think (they have literally all been featured on the mnml ssgs page, and they are very popular with minimal heads) but they are definitely Minimal Techno rather than Minimal house, which is a big difference.

peter van hoesen - quartz no1

peter van hoesen - strip it, boost it (entropic dub)

to me, that sounds like just techno my old friend, no need for any minimal tags

[basslinejunkie]

exactly.the best techno is always 'minimal' in my opinion,always has been.things like magneze by surgeon,so simple but so good.

techno always goes through phases,the sweds had funky / the drumcode thing,after that hard techno has had its time.

im sure people like regis,function,james ruskin ect ect have seen all the hype created by the 'minimal' movment and thought do you know what, i can make something so much better.

listen to some of ruskin new material. you can still tell it is ruskin,it still has his stamp,but its a bit more stripped down.

[The Teknoist.]

ego breeds contempt also, this isnt/hasnt just happened in techno... it's the never ending cycle of progression and lack of isnt it. SO frustrating though isnt it!

[teknorich]

im sure people like regis,function,james ruskin ect ect have seen all the hype created by the 'minimal' movment and thought do you know what, i can make something so much better.

Maybe so, they may have seen the explosion of slower sounds and decided to do their own version, but keeping it more Techno sounding. That Quartz No1 track Numeric posted is superb. I'd definitely enjoy that on a dancefloor, and yeah it does sound darker for being slower. It seems like you two are the most informed on this type of sound, so can you post up a few youtube links between you for recommended listening? I already know things like this:

YouTube - Len Faki - My Black Sheep (Marcel Dettmann Mix)

...which I really like, tho it could perhaps do with a bit more development during the tune. (Saying that, a lot of the Shufflemaster stuff was basically a loop but it was well done, so it pulled it's own weight).

So yeah, any tracks you or Numeric can suggest would be welcome!

[teknorich]

(I know it's a long shot, but I'd kill for this ID:

YouTube - DVS1 at Satisfied 2 )

[djshiva]

it was more exciting in the 1990s, because it was newer, mor revolutionary and had fewer conventions. but there was also plenty of crap back then, and loads of good stuff being made now. it's just much more niche than it was.

electronic music, generally speaking, is much more institutionalized now. like most music scenes posing as social revolutions, it just ended up being a scene.

I don't think it was posing as a social revolution. It absolutely was one. But like most musical social revolutions, it was co-opted by capitalism and greed.

Look back through the history of music/social revolutions from jazz to rock and roll to reggae to punk rock to hip hop and it's always the same story. Youths tap into new ideas in music, build a social scene around it that challenges the mainstream, party their ****ing brains out, and then some business person realizes that there's money to be made by mass marketing not only the music but the "scene" as well. They water it down for mass consumption, and by the time it's been around a few years, there is only the slightest thread linking it back to what it was.

That doesn't devalue the reality of what it was; it just obscures it so only those interested in the roots ever bother to dig into it.

It didn't "end up" being a "scene". It ended up being a market. And that, ultimately, is what has both frustrated me, and also reminded me of why there is a necessity for a thriving underground.

That dynamic is the ultimate push/pull and the source of many frustrations, at least amongst people that I have been having this conversation with for a while. After so many years involvement, who doesn't want to perhaps make some money, travel a bit? But then you realize what that entails, what kind of commercial pusherman it can tend to make you, always promoting yourself instead of the music. Some people continue with it, others withdraw and try to find different ways to present the music and different sounds to pursue.

That, to me, is the heart of the issue. Are you in it for personal monetary gain? Or for the music and the fantastic community that can arise from music? I think it's essential to constantly scrutinize my own intentions, and I see some of that on a microcosmic scale with people I know. I think that gets lost as things get bigger, as careers get bigger, as paychecks get bigger. As does the "edge" in the music.

[TVart]

if i say i dont like new productions it will be a lie...but,, the truth is - OLDER TUNES JUST HAVE MORE ENERGY, THEY ARE MORE WILD AND DIRTY THEN THE NEW ONES. maybe i am to emotional , dont know....


btw,
when i was 16/17/18 all i was talking about, all i was doing was TECHNO it almoust all his forms... i was listening to a radio, recording shows, tracks... i was posesed.... i was drinking with my friends and have fun listening tones of tapes ,cds, or records....thats just what we are doing.
here,in serbia these days we even dont have a proper computer at our home....

todays kids have internet. end of story.


edit: sorry, everyone, for my crapy english....

[djshiva]

Regardless of my novel written above, I am RE in love with techno right now.

There is really good shit out there, you just have to dig past the Beatport Top 10 and take some time to find it. Which, if I recall correctly, was always the DJ's job. ;)

[SlavikSvensk]

I don't think it was posing as a social revolution. It absolutely was one. But like most musical social revolutions, it was co-opted by capitalism and greed.

Look back through the history of music/social revolutions from jazz to rock and roll to reggae to punk

how, exactly? what did raves or 90s electronic music culture change? it was a lot of fun, and felt like something really cutting edge. in some ways, it was cutting edge. but it didn't change anything big in society, or even really impact politics. reggae, for example, did. even that had an ambiguous effect on jamaican life, but it certainly shook things up in a way electronic dance music never did.

maybe i'm just being overly cynical, but in retrospect it just seems like an innovative way to blow off steam, backed by some fantastic music, and not too much else.

[djshiva]

how, exactly? what did raves or 90s electronic music culture change? it was a lot of fun, and felt like something really cutting edge. in some ways, it was cutting edge. but it didn't change anything big in society, or even really impact politics. reggae, for example, did. even that had an ambiguous effect on jamaican life, but it certainly shook things up in a way electronic dance music never did.

maybe i'm just being overly cynical, but in retrospect it just seems like an innovative way to blow off steam, backed by some fantastic music, and not too much else.

Really? Wow. Books have been written on this, so I'm certainly not going to cover it at length.

Firstly, let me qualify this with the disclosure that I don't necessarily believe that all impact is measurable in terms of "changing anything big in society" or "impacting politics". The personal is political, and to that end, a lot of my ideas (and my friend's ideas) of EDM culture are CERTAINLY anecdotal. But they seem to run pretty similar to other perceptions of earlier musical subcultures, so anecdotal or not, I feel there's merit there.

How do you measure someone's mind opening because of their exposure to people of all different walks of life? How do you measure realizing that the person next to you, while they may have different politics or ideologies, is dancing, right here, right now, to the same beat you are and that there's something intimate about that? How do you measure understanding that sometimes freedom is only found inside your head for those moments when the beat drops? These are all TOTALLY subjective, but potentially life-changing experiences. No way to measure them. No way to measure their impact on society or politics. But they're there. And I don't just say this from personal experience. I say this from many a discussion on this very topic.

You can accept that or dismiss it, but there it is.

Secondly, it's easy to look back on something like jazz and see the impact it made because history has had time to process it. Of all the subcultures I named, EDM is certainly the baby of the bunch, and as yet, I don't think we have a lot of distance to measure its impact.

Just to name a few impacts:

DIY (DO It Yourself, which wasn't invented by EDM but certainly had its impact on people and communities, both intentional and unintentional): people got off their asses and did it themselves.

Bedroom producers: within the time span of EDM we have seen technology begin its acceleration toward more simple and compact ways of being musicians. This is punk rock's "Anyone can have a guitar and form a band" ethos taken even further. Closely connected to DIY, but also it has helped push music technology to places we never dreamed of 20 years ago.

And politics? Really? The battles that have been fought over rave culture are pretty ****ing epic. But I could talk about that one all day and not even scratch the surface.

Anyhow, this is getting WAY off topic. If you want to start a thread specifically about this, though, I would be more than happy to chat about it. :)

p.s. Re: Jamaica. I don't think there are many musical subcultures comparable with Jamaica on many levels. I am not attempting to draw a false equivalence, believe me. But it does fall within the continuum of musical subcultures with impacts larger than the music, and that's why I mentioned it.

[The Teknoist.]

Regardless of my novel written above, I am RE in love with techno right now.

There is really good shit out there, you just have to dig past the Beatport Top 10 and take some time to find it. Which, if I recall correctly, was always the DJ's job. ;)

i agree completely. Crate dig (cyber-ly if need be) but yeah im finding a lot of great techno out atm... and am having more fun writing this album than i have writing anything for years.

My comment's have been on music in general really :)

[teknorich]

I don;t know if it has been romanticised or exagerrated, but the Criminal Justice Act in the UK was supposedly a reaction to the exposion of rave culture; that the Govt were afraid of the strength and popularity (as well as the illegal drugs etc involved and public hysteria over it) and so clamped down on it:

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Famous for using the phrase "repetitive beats" :-)

[Numeric]

So yeah, any tracks you or Numeric can suggest would be welcome!

james ruskin - solution

silent servant - regis edit (album sampler one)

dvs1 - pressure

would have liked to post something more recent from ruskin but couldn't find any on youtube and that 'solution' track is still class anyway

[morbid]

so much good techno about nowadays

Things are going full circle

YouTube - Ancient Methods vs. Adam X - Mital Regurgitation (Ancient Methods Mix)

YouTube - Kevin Gorman - Insomnia (Joseph Capriati's Dark Night Remix)

YouTube - Deadbeat - Grounation (Berghain Drum Jack)

YouTube - Marcel Fengler - Thwack

YouTube - Traversable Wormhole - Transducer

YouTube - Terence Fixmer - Drastik (Planetary Assault Systems Remix)

YouTube - Sascha Müller - Destruction

[djshiva]

Some great music suggested above!

Some Youtube links to tunes that have really been hitting on a level that brings back my excitement about techno:

MD2 - MD2.3 (Mike Dehnert)

Adam Jay - Techno's Coming Back

EQD - Equalized 003 A

EQD - Equalized 003 B

^^^I love both of those so much I couldn't pick just one. LOL

Dexter - Redbox

Mike Humphries - Tactical Recon

Traversable Wormhole - Closed Timelike Curve (Marcel Dettmann Rmx)

Pfirter - Superventricular

There is fantastic music out there, with plenty of "edge". I promise. :D

[SlavikSvensk]

Really? Wow. Books have been written on this, so I'm certainly not going to cover it at length.

Firstly, let me qualify this with the disclosure that I don't necessarily believe that all impact is measurable in terms of "changing anything big in society" or "impacting politics". The personal is political, and to that end, a lot of my ideas (and my friend's ideas) of EDM culture are CERTAINLY anecdotal. But they seem to run pretty similar to other perceptions of earlier musical subcultures, so anecdotal or not, I feel there's merit there.

How do you measure someone's mind opening because of their exposure to people of all different walks of life? How do you measure realizing that the person next to you, while they may have different politics or ideologies, is dancing, right here, right now, to the same beat you are and that there's something intimate about that? How do you measure understanding that sometimes freedom is only found inside your head for those moments when the beat drops? These are all TOTALLY subjective, but potentially life-changing experiences. No way to measure them. No way to measure their impact on society or politics. But they're there. And I don't just say this from personal experience. I say this from many a discussion on this very topic.

You can accept that or dismiss it, but there it is.

Secondly, it's easy to look back on something like jazz and see the impact it made because history has had time to process it. Of all the subcultures I named, EDM is certainly the baby of the bunch, and as yet, I don't think we have a lot of distance to measure its impact.

Just to name a few impacts:

DIY (DO It Yourself, which wasn't invented by EDM but certainly had its impact on people and communities, both intentional and unintentional): people got off their asses and did it themselves.

Bedroom producers: within the time span of EDM we have seen technology begin its acceleration toward more simple and compact ways of being musicians. This is punk rock's "Anyone can have a guitar and form a band" ethos taken even further. Closely connected to DIY, but also it has helped push music technology to places we never dreamed of 20 years ago.

And politics? Really? The battles that have been fought over rave culture are pretty ****ing epic. But I could talk about that one all day and not even scratch the surface.

Anyhow, this is getting WAY off topic. If you want to start a thread specifically about this, though, I would be more than happy to chat about it. :)

p.s. Re: Jamaica. I don't think there are many musical subcultures comparable with Jamaica on many levels. I am not attempting to draw a false equivalence, believe me. But it does fall within the continuum of musical subcultures with impacts larger than the music, and that's why I mentioned it.

it's only a social revolution if it brings lasting change, or at least has some measurable effect on society. of music based subcultures, i'd say only reggae and the hippie movement even did that. maybe punk too, but maybe not.

raves constituted a very interesting social phenomenon, for a while. again, maybe i'm just being overly cynical, but i think, taking the long view, they didn't end up having that much impact outside the people who went to them for that limited time in the 90s.

[Jay Pace]

Raves in the UK lead to changes in government policy and the legal system. Not bad for a bunch of wreckheads jumping around to repetitive beats.

[SlavikSvensk]

Raves in the UK lead to changes in government policy and the legal system. Not bad for a bunch of wreckheads jumping around to repetitive beats.

in what sense, though? directly or not directly related to the raves themselves?

[Jay Pace]

Directly
Criminal Justice Act was a direct response to raves, lead to massive protests and redefined the way the police dealt with crowds. The powers handed to the police to shut down raves of thousands of people ended up being used to shut down birthday bbqs with a dozen people. Raves also redefined how criminal networks operated and managed the demand for a new type of product (dance drugs), and it pushed drugs and drug culture into the mainstream. When raves eventually went indoors, into clubs, organised events or became festivals, they took all the baggage of raves with them - shady promoters, massive organised drug dealing, voracious drug consumption etc. Raves pushed a lot of "underground" things into mainstream consciousness.

Not sure if all the long lasting effects of raves were necessarily good things (horrible aggressive over-pólicing of all public gatherings being one of them). But they had a long lasting effect in england, set a lot of the precedents still being followed today. Also, there were strange unexpected effects, such as a decrease in football violence.

Anyways, lots of things changed.

Techno - don't personally think its lost its edge. Its difficult to detach the music in the 90s from the 90s themselves. I enjoyed going out more then, but I was younger, the context was different, everything was newer etc. Still think there are people putting out good tracks, djs playing good sets, live acts rocking it etc. Can't judge a scene based on whatever dross beatport has in its top ten.

[SlavikSvensk]

temporarily, yes. but how much is of lasting significance? how did raves affect politics or social life beyond the confines of the raves themselves?

a social revolution is something that broadly changes social life, or at least attempts to broadly change social life, outside the confines of itself. raves were a scene that many parts of society felt threatened by, but mostly for what was going on within them (i.e. "won't someone think of the children?!"), not for their effect on politics or mainstream, as with the hippie movement and reggae in jamaica. at least, that's how i've come to see it after gaining some distance from it...it did seem a lot more revolutionary at the time.