Techno - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

History

Origins

In November 1974, leaves to the USA one 45 turns which receives one big hit, it will be at the origin of Kraftwerk (group of two German musicians). The album and the title name Autobahn (originally some 22 minutes duration, shortened for the market needs). This title comprises unquestionably already all the musical elements present in the techno of today.

Well later, the music techno will develop close to Strait (state of Michigan) by a group of American schoolboys, “The Belleville Three”. These three friends of secondary school, Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, which exchanged cassettes of mix, will become apprentice-musicians and find their inspiration in a radio program with one 5 hours duration the eclectic programming, “Midnight Funk Association”. This night send-out was diffused on several radios of Strait by DJ Charles " The Electrifying Mojo" Johnson, of 1977 until the middle of the years 1980. It diffused the electronic music of Giorgio Moroder, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and well of others.

Conceived like a music to have fun the festival, played during daily radio programs or of rather confidential festivals in secondary clubs of schools of Strait, it was spread thereafter to become a world phenomenon. Initially, it was proposed by these clubs which - while adapting to the tastes of the public in the organization of their evenings and by selecting Disc-jockey (DJ) which played an innovating and eclectic music - could offer an environment favorable to the development of the local scene of this music of dance. As these clubs gained in popularity, of the groups of DJ started to gather and to propose their talent of mixor and them Sound system (under names like Direct Drive and Audio Mix) so as to bring an audience always growing to listen to their music. Places as varied as from the church halls, closed down warehouses, offices and auditoriums of Y.M.C.A. were the gathering places of a crowd of young people which saw being born this musical genre.

This music attracted crowd soon and could grant its clean Nightclub, the Music Institute in the downtown area of Strait (founded inter alia by Derrick May). Even if it were not of a great longevity, the nightclub were of international repute thanks to the mix of its DJ (during a whole night) and with its bar serving only of the juices and the smart-drink (no alcohol). Quickly, the music techno was perceived by its founders (and the producers which started to be interested in it) like the crystallization of a certain fear of the future post-industrialist and of an anger vis-a-vis the growing insecurity whom it generated.

The music producers used the term “techno” in a way generalized as from 1984 (with for example the album Techno City of Cybotron). Sporadic references to a " techno-pop" , although badly defined, could be found in the musical press about the middle of the years 1980. But it is only with the exit of compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound Of Strait on the Virgin label in 1988 that the word started to have the official direction that one knows to him today. However, one could also allocate the credit of the " term; techno" with a DJ and owner of German store of discs, DJ Talla 2XLC, which already used it in its store in 1982 to indicate a musical genre. Its musical group, Moskwa TV (of), belonged to the groups presented by the emission Midnight Funk Association (referred to above).

Retroactively, of works such as the piece " Shari Vari" of Number Of Names (1981) has, the first works of Cybotron (1981), the piece " I Love" feel; of Gave Summer and Giorgio Moroder (1977) and the dancing pieces of the repertory of Kraftwerk (between 1977 and 1983), were qualified of techno. These pieces of disco music-electro shared with the techno their intrinsic use the rhythmic electronic ones and their popularity on the tracks of dance.

In the years which followed the exit of compilation Techno! The New Dance Sound Off Strait (referred to above), this music was described by the press of music Dance like during house of Strait, with the sound plus high-tech and more mechanics. Because, as a whole, the music techno was based on the same structures as the music house emanating at the same time of Chicago and New York, although this one was more Soul , minimal and of a style more " post-disco". The music producers of the time, in particular May Derrick and Kevin Saunderson, acknowledge to be fascinated by the scene of Chicago and to be influenced by the house in particular. This influence is particularly obvious with the pieces of the first compilation, just as in several of the compositions and the remixes which they produced between 1988 and 1992. For example, the piece with success " Strings Off Life" of May Derrick (left under the pseudonym Rhythim Is Rhythim) is regarded as traditional at the same time music house and music techno. One can as think as the music house was subject to influences of the music techno.

Discriminations

It is it should be noted that at that time, and for a long time, the music techno was marginalized by holding of the American mass culture, partly because of the fact that several of its musicians and its producers were black. The historical similarities of the current techno, jazz and rock' roll from a racial point of view were often discussed by the amateurs and the musicians. In England and France, the music techno will undergo also unquestionable a marginalisation during a few years, the music techno there being often associated with a certain delinquency. That will have as a consequence the appearance of a fringe " dure" phenomenon techno (often then written " tekno") in the " Free party ". The music techno somewhat revolutionized the world of the music by its free and anti-commercial side. Jeff Mills always refused to sign on a major, and one of the labels American worships is called precisely Underground Resistance. Certains DJ wished to make fall the " star-system" musical while playing hidden of their audience. Daft Punk a long time preserved this spirit while not wishing to appear in their videos clip.

Evolution of the musical phenomenon

In Europe

In Europe, the techno kind will take off at the end of the years 1980.

In France, the kind will gain initially the nightclubs of Paris, while starting with the Boy, the Queen, the Rex, Pulp and the Scorpion. Rex will be the first “general headquarter” of DJ such as Laurent Garnier and Scan X. In area, the nightclub Anfer with Dijon also took part on arrival of the techno in France.

In Germany, the Treasury of Berlin sees the beginnings of the DJ Ellen Allien and Coocoon Club with Frankfurt will be created and held by the DJ Sven Vath. Berlin will be first to create Love Parade (a diffusing procession of tanks of the music techno which gathers hundreds of thousands of people in the streets), followed a few years later by Paris.

In England, Fabric with London founded by Keith Reilly and Cameron Leslie opened in 1999.

Musicologic description

The evolution of a piece techno is not done so much by the melody but by the slip of the sounds, rhythmic and by a cyclic variation of the rhythmic pulsation.

The techno is characterized by its abundance from percussions, synthetic sounds and effects carried out in studio (" sounds concrets"), on rhythmic regular (4/4) generally going from 130 to 140 beats per minute. Certain compositions give a strong place to the melody and the low line of , but they are not essential components of the music techno, as it is the case for others Musique of dance. It is frequent to meet pieces techno entirely omitting them. The music techno is particularly adapted to the disc-jockeying , in that which it mainly instrumental and is produced at ends of incorporation uninterrupted in a musical part including/understanding various compositions intermingled during long synchronized sequences. Even if other musics of dance could have been described in these terms, it remains that the music techno has a distinct sound which makes that it can be very easily recognized by its amateurs.

The Studio of recording and the Home-studio used by the type-setters of music techno can be made up of only one computer (what is increasingly current nowadays) or of several keyboards, Synthétiseur S, sampler S, processors of effects and Console of mixing, the whole being interrelated. If the majority of the musicians techno use a large variety of equipment and excellent to produce sonorities and the rhythmic ones ever heard, they seem that they rather often remain in borders stylistics established by contemporaries, which has as a consequence the appearance of an abundance of sub-genera (see the Liste of kinds of electronic music).

There are several manners of making music techno, but it is typical to use a technique of composition derived from the electronic instrumentation, in particular of the sequencers. Even if one can say that this technique takes its sources in the musical Structure Western (if one speaks about scales, rhythmic, metric and more generally about the part played by each instrument), one can say that it is distinguished from the traditional approaches of composition, such as the support of the marking system, the tonal system and the melody or the creation of accompaniments for voice. Some of the most outstanding pieces techno can be summarized in a clever use of the Boite at rates/rhythms, in interaction with various types of reverberation and filters of frequencies, mixed of such kind that one does not know any more where the stamp of the instrument finishes and where the various effects start.

In the place of the traditional techniques of composition, the musician techno (moreover often also producing) uses the electronic studio like only one large and very complex musical instrument: an orchestra of inter-connected machines, of which each one can produce at the same time familiar or extraterrestrial stamps. Initially, each machine was used to produce the repetitive and continuous sound reasons which it produces basiquement, according to the capacities and the limits of the first sequencers. Instead of reproducing arrangements which one can carry out with interpreters, the musician techno is free to set up unreal sound combinations. However, a great number of musicians are baited to produce a realistic/unrealistic balance arrangements and stamps, facilitating the dance and listening, rather than a demonstration of all the extremes made possible by its machines.

Once the musician worked this pallet of textures, it starts again work while concentrating this time not on the development of new textures but on arrangements of those. Dependently in the way in which they are connected, they can influence the ones the others, progressively of the constitution of the sound layers (for example, be syncopated, then in rhythmic harmony) and all this can be collected by the musician on the console of mixing. It does that using the console of mixing and the sequencer, while bringing back to the foreground or while moving away from the various sound layers, playing with the effects to make them more or less hypnotic or to create more or less propelling combinations. The result is a déconstructive handling of the sound, having as much to some extent with Claude Debussy and the futuristic Luigi Russolo that in Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream.

The electronic instruments allow an approach different from the composition which does not rest solely any more on one expression " simple" harmony but a progression in the grain, resonance, the filtering of the sounds which will evolve/move throughout the pieces.

Derrick May was often quoted to have compared the music techno with " George Clinton and Kraftwerk wedged in a ascenseur" …

Kinds and sub-genera

For a more complete list, to see the list of the kinds of the music techno.

Towards the end of the year 1980, several sub-genera of music techno are born.

The music techno hardcore is a style intensified by a faster tempo (of 160 B.P.M. and more) and a use of rates/rhythms and samples to industrial sonorities and atonal, and finally of distortions.

The music techno Ambient is produced at the origin by artists such as The Orb and Aphex Twin, starting from music Dub and ambient (not techno). It will have then an influence on the kind techno minimal and on what will be the fringe experimental and not-dancing of the music techno, the Intelligent dance music.

The music techno acid (influenced by the Acid house for the massive use of the Roland TB-303 in the base line and the melody) knew a resurgence of popularity towards the end of the year 1980. Thereafter, the Acid trance, disappeared today, was inspired then by these sounds " acides" , as well as the very present psychedelic scene Trance (Psytrance or Trance-Goa) which perdure.

A new sub-genus called techno-house (or tech-house) will become prominent towards the end of the the Nineties and will be a combination of the basic structure of the house mixed with elements techno, such as the rhythmic short ones with distortion, of smaller cymbals charleston, a stamp presenting more noise and lines of synthetizers to the more synthetic sounds or sonorities " acides".

Later, at the end of the years 1990 and at the beginning of the Years 2000, of the French and German musicians make emerge a music directly inspired of the music techno of the beginnings, but made more accessible and more melody. Mix electro, Electronic body music, New wave, House, and Disco music-Funk. The ramifications of this music and the labels multiply. Several artists officiate under these standards: Miss Kittin, DJ Hell, Ellen Allien, David Caretta, Josh Wink, Jori Hulkonnen, Dima/Vitalic, Terence Fixmer, Alter Ego, Oxia, Paul Kalkbrenner, John Lord Fonda,…

Currents minimalists settle, called Minimal techno and " microphone house": the label Kompakt and the artists Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Isolee, Superpitcher, Ada, Claro Intelecto,… One finds also the Deep minimal house and the Progressive house with: James Holden, Petter, Nathan Fake, Extrawelt and the label To border Community.

Emblematic compilations

Techno! The New Dance Sound off Strait! (Ten Ltd Records. /1988)
Pionners Off the Hypnotic Groove (Warp Records /1991)
Techno Turnip Party (Dino Music then Fairway records /1992-1994)
Techno Nations - has off History Techno (Kickin Records /1996)
Juan Atkins: Mastermix (Kickin Records /1999)
LFO: BASIC Flannel (The M-People Years) (Warp Records /2003)
Laurent Garnier & Carl Craig: The Kings Off Techno (Rapster Records /2006)

Festivals

See the category: Festival of electronic music.

Astropolis
City Parade
Kozzmozz
Dance Valley
Defqon 1
Electromind
Fête of the witch
I Coils off Techno
Masters Hardcore
Mysteryland
Nature One
Nördik Impakt
Sound Nuits
Project Hardcore
Q-bases
Qlimax '
Sensation (ID&T)
Sonar
Techno parades
Tomorrowland
Hadra Trance Festival => http://www.hadra.net
Full Moon Festival => http://www.fullmoon-festival.com/

Notes and references of the article

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