The techno of nowadays indeed sounds a lot like the old stuff that we were playing in the early 90ies, but slower. Everything comes back... the youngsters of today don't know the stuff we call "old" or classics, and so this sound comes back every few years.
The same with dubstep: I have heard that wobbly sound lots and lots of times about 10 years ago: but then it was called Nu Skool Breaks and just had more like a pitched up hiphop rhythm underneath. I used to love that stuff until it all ended in mashups and one trick pony tunes. A bit like what's happening now with Dubstep, which is also getting drowned in releases that all sound exactly like the one before.
Anyway, i don't think recycling a sound is a bad things per se: when i hear what Ben Klock f.e. does, that's great for me: he just takes the familiar sounds and writes his own story with it. It's not because it's been done before, that it means it's not innovating or interesting enough.
Less analysing, more dancing, I say. I feel that's what's really lacking these days: people stand still on the dancefloors and confuse the club with a pub. It's all become too business and too safe imho. Or maybe I'm just getting old. No, I'm sure I'm getting old
PsyTox wrote:The techno of nowadays indeed sounds a lot like the old stuff that we were playing in the early 90ies, but slower. Everything comes back... the youngsters of today don't know the stuff we call "old" or classics, and so this sound comes back every few years.
The same with dubstep: I have heard that wobbly sound lots and lots of times about 10 years ago: but then it was called Nu Skool Breaks and just had more like a pitched up hiphop rhythm underneath. I used to love that stuff until it all ended in mashups and one trick pony tunes. A bit like what's happening now with Dubstep, which is also getting drowned in releases that all sound exactly like the one before.
Anyway, i don't think recycling a sound is a bad things per se: when i hear what Ben Klock f.e. does, that's great for me: he just takes the familiar sounds and writes his own story with it. It's not because it's been done before, that it means it's not innovating or interesting enough.
Less analysing, more dancing, I say. I feel that's what's really lacking these days: people stand still on the dancefloors and confuse the club with a pub. It's all become too business and too safe imho. Or maybe I'm just getting old. No, I'm sure I'm getting old
Torque wrote:Techno has nothing to do with the machines used
hmmmm ... not so sure about that
What about cover versions of detroit techno tracks by indie bands? There are quite a few tracks that are considered techno that i know of where nothing was sequenced.
Torque wrote:
Techno is nothing more than a soundtrack to what you imagine the future looks like. It's not music, it's futurism.
Maybe in the 80s and early 90s when technology seemed futuristic, but now it is very normal. We are in the 21st century - maybe techno can be about the present.
If you think artists like Jeff Mills Juan Atkins and UR are talking about the 21st century in their music then you haven't been listening. More like the year 3000
Torque wrote:IMO there are very few people left that are actually making "techno" most people are just trying to make dance music with the sounds used in techno music and that might as well be house.
I think you are right about this, but then house and techno have interacted a lot and being a purist isn't very helpful.
All i said is that the difference is in concept. It takes allot more talent to present your music in context than it does to just make it. If you guys don't believe me than try coming up with a concept first and a subject matter that has nothing to do with music, make the music to fit the idea in your head and then present it in a way people will understand. It's a hell of allot easier to just make a track with sounds that you've heard in other techno records, slap a piece of art on a label that has nothing to do with the track and sell it. People are bored right now because that's all they're getting. I wouldn't pay for that sh!t either. Lets all be honest with eachother here for a second, for somebody that has been a trained live musician just throwing together tracks that sound like other techno tracks is easy as hell, we all know it. But the thing allot of people can't do is make the leap of logic it took to make it in the first place. That's how innovation happens within and outside of a genre and that's how it will continue to happen.
i totally know where youre coming from Torque, but not everyone who has been into techno necessarily understands it from the classical purist Detroit techno perspective, where techno was invented by a couple of guys with a sci-fi concept in just one moment of inspiration.
when i listen to that early stuff, it all sounds individual, with lots of different influences, no two tracks alike, no two artists alike, real musical innovation, pushing the boundaries, but not a homogenised concept.
i was making electrofunk and running a club in 1983, and techno kind of grew out of electro, and morphed into what we consider classic techno almost imperceptibly, and at the same time in europe, we had acid house and raves where there was no clear distinction between the various genres, it was all just machine music, and we loved it all.
the concpets you talk of were only very vague, and had already been glimpsed with Kraftwerk years earlier.
no one gave a toss about the concepts, we just wanted to neck ecstacy, and go mental to this new music in fields and warehouses.
it was about change and fresh energy. it was the future but it was happening NOW.
musical ideas disseminate very quickly and concepts become lost in translation, techno evolved into other things almost before it had gotten a foothold.
techno was mainstream in the UK by 1990, the detroit guys were in the top 40, it was and always will be DANCE music first and foremost.
if you'd been part of the scene in the UK, Germany or Belgium at that time, you'd know exactly what i'm talking about, and likewise i cant see it totally from your point of view because i wasnt in Detroit at the time.
no-one is right or wrong here, its just different perspectives, i think that much is obvious.
if i talk passionately about this, its because techno changed my world, nothing was the same again for me after techno, i'm not only indebted to those detroit pioneers, but to everyone who was part of the massive UK scene at the time, the machines, the musicians, and my fellow ravers,
you just cant single out one element and say 'this is what techno is !'
steevio wrote:i totally know where youre coming from Torque, but not everyone who has been into techno necessarily understands it from the classical purist Detroit techno perspective, where techno was invented by a couple of guys with a sci-fi concept in just one moment of inspiration.
when i listen to that early stuff, it all sounds individual, with lots of different influences, no two tracks alike, no two artists alike, real musical innovation, pushing the boundaries, but not a homogenised concept.
i was making electrofunk and running a club in 1983, and techno kind of grew out of electro, and morphed into what we consider classic techno almost imperceptibly, and at the same time in europe, we had acid house and raves where there was no clear distinction between the various genres, it was all just machine music, and we loved it all.
the concpets you talk of were only very vague, and had already been glimpsed with Kraftwerk years earlier.
no one gave a toss about the concepts, we just wanted to neck ecstacy, and go mental to this new music in fields and warehouses.
it was about change and fresh energy. it was the future but it was happening NOW.
musical ideas disseminate very quickly and concepts become lost in translation, techno evolved into other things almost before it had gotten a foothold.
techno was mainstream in the UK by 1990, the detroit guys were in the top 40, it was and always will be DANCE music first and foremost.
if you'd been part of the scene in the UK, Germany or Belgium at that time, you'd know exactly what i'm talking about, and likewise i cant see it totally from your point of view because i wasnt in Detroit at the time.
no-one is right or wrong here, its just different perspectives, i think that much is obvious.
if i talk passionately about this, its because techno changed my world, nothing was the same again for me after techno, i'm not only indebted to those detroit pioneers, but to everyone who was part of the massive UK scene at the time, the machines, the musicians, and my fellow ravers,
you just cant single out one element and say 'this is what techno is !'
Well i don't claim to have the one and only truth. What you hear from me is the philosophy allot of us have at Submerge, Underground Resistance and the satellite labels. This is a tight knit group of science fiction geeks, musicians and futurists. We sit around and have just as passionate conversations about Star Trek and the last show on the science channel as we do about musical equipment and recording techniques. Most of the stuff around here is made as a response to eachother not really what is going on in the dance and club community in the world. I don't really know what the dynamic is like in other places regarding creating electronic music but this is how allot of us think about it. Agree with it or not it has produced some interesting results.
that philosphy seems kinda alien to what I know of electronic musicians. Most of the people that I know are involved in a feedback loop where they are influenced by the culture in which the music is used in.
I think that's a good thing, but it's also somewhat dangerous. It can lead to staleness, where people are only producing music that fits into established ideas. But at the same time music that is purely conceptual can often be alienating and inaccessible.
Like said, I guess everyone has their own idea. I think it's really a positive thing, to have some direction, some feeling that leads you to a certain style, and a way to allow the concept or feeling to blossom.
Ultimately, I think there is a really weird fuckin relationship with an artist and the pieces that they make. Some of the greatest peices ever made, if you asked the musician about how they reached that stage, they won't be able to tell you. Maybe it involved co-incidence, or maybe they were so heavily invested in the project that they were almost merged together into a single organism. Or maybe they were thinking about concepts in a way that allowed their mind to be open to different patterns of thought.
