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History of Techno

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Re: History of Techno

#221

Post by ylhert »

tmearnest wrote: post #101

I've been listening to techno (not EDM in general, Techno) since the 90s. It's definitely my favorite music for deep work; something about the tight repetitive loops is just perfect for concentration. Since the pandemic started I've been listening to techno mixes almost constantly in order to mask the noise from everyone else in my house. Initially, I found it difficult to find decent mixes since Techno has become a…

I agree completely - techno is hypnotic and almost by design is meant to be heard and not listened to, and I find this really helps me maintain focus/flow while working. No vocals, ear catching melodies, or overdone chord progressions that try to grab your attention. Techno is my go to work music for this reason!

Re: History of Techno

#222

Post by cmrdporcupine »

spiralx wrote: post #219
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny because I guess I'm old but that kind of stuff feels sort of like the "end of the road" for techno and not part of the history, more of the end of the history. I liked some of it at the time -- I have some of the Code Red Adam Beyer stuff on coloured red vinyl somewhere -- but it's a bit soul-less and monolithic. A very white middle class European straightlaced "thump thump thump" interpretation of the gen…

> I liked some of it at the time -- I have some of the Code Red Adam Beyer stuff on coloured red vinyl somewhere -- but it's a bit soul-less and monolithic. A very white middle class European straightlaced "thump thump thump" interpretation of the genre. I've got a couple of those records and I can tell you that Adam Beyer and Drumcode still sound like that today, they've really nailed that "far duller than it sounds…

Nice man.

I've only managed to see Landstrumm twice, cuz of being on this side of the pond. Once in the early 2000s he DJ'd along with DJ Hell at a local club, and actually he was quite competent on the vinyl (more than Hell was) and he played a lot of Chicago and Detroit classics. It was a good night if I recall.

The other time was actually very recent (2019), someone I know locally knows him personally and brought him over into my local small Ontario city to play live. Small gig, maybe 50 people there. Even got to shake his hand and say hi.

Def. one of my favourite musicians in the genre.

Re: History of Techno

#223

Post by dimal »

kristopolous wrote: post #13

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 At…

Also strange that "I Feel Love" isn't mentioned. I thought this was the first real electronic dance music song. There was other "electronic music" but "I Feel Love" was strictly for dancing, which was new. "Supernature" is mentioned here, but AFAIK, that was released after "I Feel Love" and is pretty derivative.

Re: History of Techno

#224

Post by jamal-kumar »

devmunchies wrote: post #217
mqp wrote: post #117

I'm pleased to see accuracy in the history of techno. I for one did not know it's roots took place back in the 70s and from the black community. These days when I look at techno artists and their raving followers, its prodimently white. I have since taken active steps to seek out the lesser know black artists to support. Many modern music fundamentals are origins from the black community and very little is correctly…

> it's roots took place ... from the black community > origins from the black community gotta give credit to the engineers who pioneered electronic music synthesis, like Robert Moog, or the Japanese who created Korg synthesizers in the article. Influences for any technology, project, art, etc come from a large web of sources. Racial gatekeeping and attribution is close-minded. Let the people enjoy techno without guil…

Why guilt? The first stuff anyone started calling techno was pretty black. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhtdRd9AuIs

And that's OK, there's literally nothing wrong with this. I think there's also a lot of stuff to be said about how there's anecdotes about how the early rave scene had a lot of previously unheard of racial unity going on, stuff like skinhead and rasta gangs or even rival football ultras encountering each other and literally just vibing when they'd be fighting each other before

Re: History of Techno

#225

Post by tailspin2019 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #163
renaudg wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not questioning the experience of North American music lovers and club-goers like yourself, I'm sure you could get your hands on that stuff. But take a look at the Wikipedia pages for the tracks and artists you mentioned, and see how high they went in the US vs European charts (to be fair, I was surprised that the Prodigy did so well in the US) My claim is that the degree to which a genre becomes mainstream in a…

Yeah I'm just saying it was far more mainstream than is intimated. "Charts" have always been a marketing tool, it's questionable to me from the 80s on how much they reflect what people were actually listening to. The point is that mass consumption of dance music was a huge thing in North America. I mean it's funny. In the early 90s I went to visit my extended family in Germany. At that point I was already a major tec…

renaudg and cmrdporcupine

I don't have much to add to this apart from to say I think you're both right to varying degrees.

But more importantly I'm enjoying this passionate discourse on HN about a genre of music that I care deeply about.

I think it's fair to say that dance music today wouldn't exist without the breadth of innovation that happened on both sides of "the pond" in recent decades - and to not be too European/US centric - elsewhere around the world too.

Re: History of Techno

#226

Post by dang »

npunt wrote: post #2

Neat article but completely unnecessary scrolljacking. If you pinch zoom in, you can't even pan around normally. Scroll down a bit and then tap the (also completely unnecessary) arrow in the bottom right, and it'll ever.. so.. slowly.. scroll you back to the top. The web gives bad designers too much rope to hang everyone with.

"Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: History of Techno

#227

Post by dang »

disgu wrote: post #5

That has got to be the worst scrolling behavior I've ever seen on a website in my entire life.

"Please don't complain about website formatting, back-button breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then friendly feedback might be helpful."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: History of Techno

#228

Post by spiralx »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #222
spiralx wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I liked some of it at the time -- I have some of the Code Red Adam Beyer stuff on coloured red vinyl somewhere -- but it's a bit soul-less and monolithic. A very white middle class European straightlaced "thump thump thump" interpretation of the genre. I've got a couple of those records and I can tell you that Adam Beyer and Drumcode still sound like that today, they've really nailed that "far duller than it sounds…

Nice man. I've only managed to see Landstrumm twice, cuz of being on this side of the pond. Once in the early 2000s he DJ'd along with DJ Hell at a local club, and actually he was quite competent on the vinyl (more than Hell was) and he played a lot of Chicago and Detroit classics. It was a good night if I recall. The other time was actually very recent (2019), someone I know locally knows him personally and brought…

I also saw him as Crystal Distortion back in the mid-00s at Uglyfunk and as himself in the early 10s, so that's only one more time than you :)

I'm a big fan of Detroit ghetto-tech like DJ Godfather, and have a similar problem of it only existing on the other side of the Atlantic... The weekender I mentioned has had at least one of the top DJs over every other year or so over the last decade which is amazing, because otherwise I've been out to see it played three times in the past two decades, so I feel your pain :)

Re: History of Techno

#229

Post by olivermarks »

missed out here are Morgan Khan's seminal 'streetsounds' techno vinyl compilations which were very successful in the the UK. I was hanging out with Herbie Laidly and the Mastermind Roadshow in the mid eighties, they mixed a lot of that vinyl which brought Techno/electro to a much broader audience.

https://www.discogs.com/label/906-Street-Sounds

https://youtu.be/QWuAdxoiVPA

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