Techno: love it or leave it?

Post Reply New Topic

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDnQCBFWhGA[/youtube]

This thread wouldn't be complete without the grandaddys of industrial, Skinny Puppy.
One of my all time favorite bands.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCSxzNMvK5w[/youtube]

For me, I like many types of Electronica but mostly house / prog house, trance / prog trance and breaks / prog breaks. Also some DnB especially of the ambient sort.

Some of my better liked tracks....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z7blvovn2U[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBXR3L9ZgBA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtJJkKQ5yEw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx1CAahZuBs[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znX1YZ5btPc[/youtube]

^^ I'm loving that "Actress" track. I just topped my gaming high score with it
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmzPRwfj0Ug[/youtube]

dub techno is definitely some of the smoother listening.

Martin Schulte is also pretty good albeit he's out in the really deep end:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVcDCT5xPRw[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlzdq6p5erE[/youtube]

Im really into what you called glitch hop. In reality its just instrumental hip hop. Artists like Flying Lotus J Dilla Daedalus Dimlite Misel Quitno et al all produce a variant of hip hop which is divorced from the cultural trappings for the most part. Its a form of postmodern art in which hip hop is deconstructed leaving only the beat (which has that delightful bounce!) some rhythmic motifs (see the J Dilla dotted rhythm 2 1 3 3 2 3 2 1 3 3 where 3 represents a dotted crotchet) a mere handful of timbral elements (ocassional use of dinstinctive leads heard in detroit form) and some turntablism. Otherwise Flying Lotus really has very little to do with genre conventions. The "glitch hop" artist tends to borrow musical elements form every genre particularly jazz and techno (the actual genre haha)

Reading this thread I was just about to open a new window and grab this link myself. How can any electronica thread not give a nod to the guys that not only invented the genre' but also most of the techniques and equipment to make it.

Schaeffer Ligeti Dissevelt et al invented electronic music. Back in the 1930's they were the first to experiment with turntablism sampling and synthesis. Kraftwerk invented the "dance music" strain I suppose but "pure electronic".. no

While synthesizer and electronic based music is much older than the 80's.
Karlheinz Stockhausen, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Giorgio Moroder etc.

The term "Techno Music" itself started in the early 1980's in Detroit U.S.A.

The Original TECHNO: Juan Atkins, Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gElNoedRj5Q[/youtube]

I like:

synthpop because it reminds me of my parents' vinyl records that I heard as an infant (2 Tone ska has the same effect)

chiptunes because it reminds me of the first computer games I ever played

a lot of actual computer game soundtracks, come to think of it

crappy Eurodance because it reminds me of my later childhood (I admit it is terrible music, but nothing lifts your spirits when you're in a drunken depression at 2:30am in a creepy gay bar than hearing that woman sing 'This is the rhythm of the night! The niiiiiight, oh yeah' like an angel spreading ethereal light over the hell that is sometimes Canal Street But then I'm the kind of freak who likes to hear the Pokemon theme tune be played in a rock club.)

some modern house music/IDM - don't listen to it much but there are bits that I really like

Whatever Kraftwerk are (can you be krautrock if you don't actually rock?)
And on the German theme, do Rammstein count? Tanzmetal?

There is a lot of electronic music I want to check out, but I don't have the motivation to listen to a lot of the time. My ears can be lazy and they crave guitars. There are some things that would probably do my intellect some good (like ambient) but I like structured SONGS. My ears are like children in that they like and need to hear structure, but they also like repetition, so some dance music appeals to me for that reason. I like more minimalistic stuff basically, and I don't care if it sounds dated. Actually, I sort of prefer it to sound dated. I don't listen to music because it sounds cutting edge; I listen to it for more primitive reasons. So dubstep and d n b are not for me. I'm sure they are good at a rave but they leave me cold.

I would probably like trance if I bothered with it.
I would probably like industrial if I bothered with it.

I was glad to meet him at his concert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Atkins

[1985] Juan Atkins - Techno Music
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uGDba2bJa0[/youtube]

I love electronic music, though it somewhat annoys me when people say that trance, EBM, etc, are genres of "techno". They're not, they're subgenres of electronic dance music, and techno happens to be one of those subgenres. Basically though, techno is a form of EDM, but other forms of EDM aren't forms of techno.

Now if you're wondering which one is my favorite, I would definitely say industrial, along with its various deriveratives like EBM. I'm also fairly into 70s/80s synthpop (mainly stuff like Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode), and I like trance as well.

My least favorite subgenre of EDM is dubstep, since it's everywhere, everyone seems to be obsessed with it, and a lot of it is just really really dumb. Actually, scratch that; dubstep is only my second least favorite, as I do admittedly enjoy a few songs in the genre. My TRUE least favorite is dance pop, which I actually hate with a burning passion. It may seem odd since I already mentioned that I like synthpop, but the thing is, you simply can't confuse Kraftwerk with Lady Gaga. They may share a few elements, but one is on a waaaaaaaaaay higher level than another.

I am not in an certain genre, my favoites are quite similar when it comes to rock/metal music: Broad melodies and intense "instruments". So if I am able to hear everything in the song, at the first time listening, its boring. But if you can hear a certain song again and again, and even at the tenth time hearing, you find something new, so its more like a symphony, i mostly like it. While if its only one main melody, with an "bam-bam-bam" bass behind its, its boring for me.

As examples I´d refer to RMB, Westbam, The Prodigy, as well as the old 90ies stuff from Moby.