techno
Detroit: Techno City, Institute of Contemporary ArtsWednesday, 27 July 2016![]() Detroit techno music is important. Any student of the club music of the modern age knows this. The sound that fermented among the majority black population of the decaying industrial city in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as disco's last remnants... Read more... |
CD: Black Merlin – Hipnotik TradisiMonday, 18 July 2016![]() Dance music has, for millions of people, become synonymous with the very worst that the human race has to offer. Preening, vain, beach-body bumholes dancing like everyone’s watching, while keeping half an eye on their camera, making sure than the... Read more... |
The KVB, Ramsgate Music HallSaturday, 16 April 2016![]() Without wishing to repeat myself, small venues almost always work best. The intimacy they offer heightens emotion and increases impact while breaking down the barrier between artist and audience. There's a mathematical consideration, too – fewer... Read more... |
CD: Orlando Voorn - In My WorldMonday, 21 March 2016![]() Once upon a time, techno was the future, and Orlando Voorn was right at the heart of building that future. The Dutchman was in early on the late-1980s wave of Detroit electronic production – in which small groups of black Americans surrounded by... Read more... |
CD: Underworld – Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining FutureWednesday, 16 March 2016![]() After the release of 2006’s Barking, it was difficult to know what to make of Underworld. A couple of decent songs aside, collaboration seemed to have stripped away identity, leaving us with sketches on which a host of different producers had... Read more... |
CD: Syracuse - Liquid Silver DreamMonday, 02 November 2015![]() There's a current running through the underground club / electronic music of the 2010s that cares not a jot for progress – but neither is it retro as such. It's been called “outsider house”, which is a pretty lame name for stuff that is often... Read more... |
Herbert & Kode 9, Abbey Road StudiosThursday, 22 October 2015![]() There's a new kind of forum for electronic musicians. Certainly not a rave, and not just a recital to earnest nerds, built on a kind of patronage, but a long way removed from a standard corporate gig where you're just providing the interchangeable... Read more... |
CD: Livity Sound - Livity SoundWednesday, 20 November 2013![]() The past year or two have seen a staggering return to popularity of house and techno music in the UK. For the first time since the mid-1990s, records which have grown steadily through club play over many months are breaking through into the charts... Read more... |
10 Questions for DJ/Producer Richie HawtinMonday, 04 November 2013![]() Richie Hawtin (b 1970) is no stranger to the art world, nor to working on a monumental scale. The British-born Canadian techno producer/DJ did, after all, collaborate with Jeff Koons, Jean-Luc Godard, LaMonte Young and Anish Kapoor for the French... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Amsterdam: Club Culture OverdoseSunday, 27 October 2013![]() The thought of attending a dance music conference in Amsterdam frankly gave me the creeping horrors. I'd never been to Amsterdam Dance Event before, and the combination of DJ egos, business hustling and relentless partying through hundreds of club... Read more... |
CD: Maya Jane Coles - ComfortMonday, 01 July 2013![]() The part-Japanese Brit Maya Jane Coles displays elaborate asymmetric hair, interesting piercings and enormous tattoos in her moody photoshoots, makes sounds that are uniformly smooth and high-gloss, and has a sonic palette that takes in populist... Read more... |
CD: Alison Moyet - the minutesWednesday, 01 May 2013![]() Alison Moyet is not just one of the great voices in pop, she's one of the most likeable figures. A brilliantly no-nonsense character, she consistently skewers music industry pomposity, laughs in the face of the expectations the world has of female... Read more... |
