History of Techno

Quality article covering a lot of good ground. Hard to imagine that this kind of music is now nearly 40 years old.

If anyones interested in hearing what modern techno is up to this is a pretty good list: https://www.soundshelter.net/collection/techno-records

This is about as conventional a narrative as you can get. I've never been happy with it though, it's way too much of a tidy, linear, clean through-line.

For instance, this narrative always leave out free-style and electro like Hashim (example: 1983, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykK0uEjSsqY), Newcleus, etc. Soulsonic Force (1982: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHQ11l4uiM4) predated Atkins Cybotron project and Atkins even said he didn't see a huge difference between the free-style, electro, and what he was doing.

It also leaves out Italo Disco and the British New Wave movement. Take the intro to 1983's Hypnotic Tango by My Mine for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6EbVwOumlE

They do an obligatory Kraftwerk but the entire berlin school and midera is left out in the cold as well (Tangerine Dream for example. 1975, Ricochet P2 for instance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoSNbCNYsA4) along with artists who were giant in their day like Jean Michelle Jarre.

Also what's left out are the other influential Krautrock artists like Manuel Göttsching and his 1981 E2-E4 album. (https://youtu.be/ys0HyevZpQg).

There's also the left-field weird albums that were mighty influential at the time, such as Misa Criolla by Fuego (1981: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Era1x9hRnBQ) There's your "four-on-the-floor" with tape loop sampling. Speaking of children What about the next year, Liaisons Dangereuses - Los Niños Del Parque ... https://youtu.be/a_sAH2QGotE there's your techno

Or take the Bobby Orlando sounding driving beat in Le Jeté - La Cage Aux Folles (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzI2v0RJ8DQ) - a common track of the hot-mix 5. Or Massimo Barsotti's cover of Led Zepplins' Whole Lotta Love (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsEwWSs-t7w)

Or what about Stopps "I'm Hungry" from 1983? https://youtu.be/I26lP56-UeA ... this strange track was played in Chicago house clubs, Belgium pre rave new beat "acid house" parties and the early EBM scene. Pretty expansive one to leave out

And keeping things in the US, they always ignore the west coast, with outfits like Megatone records out of san francisco and gay club music (eg Hi-NRG) and people like Bobby Orlando.

Anyway the history is vast and rich and this article is essentially the same story that's always written. I dunno, I almost feel like this structure misses the boat. I know that's a big claim.

Do you happen to know if the old version of "Ishkur's guide to electronic music" is still available somewhere? IIRC it was a flash site with mostly music bubbles. It opened me up to fringe music genre's like Italo, Acid Jazz and Ghetto Tech.

Happy to see that New Beat got a shoutout. IMO one of the more under rated electronic genres. If you're interested, I can recommend the documentary "The Sound of Belgium" (2012).

Its easy to miss but descriptions of the different genres are the true mvp. Some of the saltiest things I have read, true hilarity.

E.g `Eurotrance`:

> "The rank repugnance of the self-fellating culture of DJ worship is at the forefront of this many-headed hydra of rapacious rot. Overbearing anthems, boring breakdowns, and tasteless DJ vanity have combined into one monstrous, obnoxious, pompous, unlistenable Babylonian nega-demon. Who is to blame for unleashing such a hideous beast of seething filth upon our ears?"