Techno Music

Consider, for example, in Germany, the incantations of ‘Super’ (1973), composed by Neu!, or the eurhythmy of Harmonia’s ‘Veterano’ (1974)—two artists whose style of krautrock has sometimes been described as ‘motorik’—or the interweaving of guitar loops in ‘Echo Waves’ (1975) by Manuel Göttsching (followed in 1984 by his more famous ‘E2-E4’). Among their fellow Germans, one can also mention the hypnotic twenty-two minutes of Kraftwerk’s ‘Autobahn’ (1974) or the variations of ‘Zug’ (1978) by Conrad Schnitzler. The latter evokes, of course, the same railway theme that Kraftwerk used one year earlier in their legendary ‘Trans Europe Express’.

At the beginning of the 1980s, in the clubs, the rhythms and tones of disco, freed from the ornaments of strings and horns that had made the genre so popular in its golden age, became more powerful, synth-based and incisive with the resolutely gay-friendly sub-genre of Hi-NRG, dominated by a handful of British and American producers: Patrick Cowley, Bobby Orlando, Harvey Fuqua, Denis LePage and Ian Levine.

Italo-disco testifies to a similar evolution. Indeed, in a dynamic at once pop and dance—but even more minimalist—it places synth and drum machine melodies upfront. This short-lived Italian sub-genre, just like the big pop and synth hits of the eighties in Britain, would come to have a considerable influence on the future musicians of Detroit techno who, adolescent at the time, would discover it during private parties and would find it both exotic and futuristic.

Electro is characterized by minimalist synth chords, the practice of scratching, the use of the vocoder, but even more by the incisive sounds of its synthetic percussion and its syncopated drum machine rhythms over which, sometimes, rappers lay down their flow. The genre draws its essence from the rhythmic élan of funk (to which it gives a radical, futurist turn) and from the sonic innovations of Kraftwerk (many of whose melodies and programmed rhythms—from, for example, ‘Trans Europe Express’, ‘Numbers’ or ‘Tour de France’—have been taken up by Black American musicians).

In the wake of this handful of innovative artists, British music entered the first half of the eighties in the guise of synth-pop, thanks to the advent of new, affordable synthesizers from Japan. Of the musicians who produced the greatest hits of the decade, Depeche Mode and New Order are among those who best caught the spirit of the times and embodied its immediate future. In 1981, with the release of Speak & Spell and its notable songs—‘New Life’, ‘Photographic’, ‘Nodisco’, ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’—Depeche Mode transformed the dark tones of post-punk into bright, mechanical pop. In 1983, New Order released their singles ‘Blue Monday’ and ‘Confusion’ (to which one can add the Australian group Severed Heads’ ‘Dead Eyes Opened’), songs which largely abandon verse-chorus structure in favour of exploring continuous form and systematic pulse, close to the future dance music of the nineties.

The last progeny of the post-punk movement and the final sub-genre to develop before house music and techno rose to dominance in the nineties, EBM (Electronic Body Music), married the melodies and percussion of synth-pop to the abrasive sonorities of industrial music. Inspired by the latter’s themes and transgressions as well as by the nihilism of punk, the genre drew its initial impetus from Geography (1982), the first album of the Belgian group Front 242, and from the martial rhythms of the single ‘Los Niños del Parque’ (1981) by the Berlin group Liaisons Dangereuses. It was until 1986, however, that the genre really began to develop, notably in Belgium, the U.K. and North America, thanks to groups such as Nitzer Ebb, A Split Second, Skinny Puppy, Front Line Assembly and—still going strong—Front 242. The latter’s influence on the future strands of electronic music was once again evident, for example on groups like Code Industry and Final Cut (DJ Jeff Mills’ first group) in Detroit.

Finally, to explain the essence of techno, one could say that it effected a synthesis of the music, themes and composition techniques of the seventies and eighties. Thanks to the development of electronic music-making devices and, a little later, the software that increased their possibilities, the techno DJs and producers brought together a sense of the ethereal atmosphere and melodies of the seventies, the industrial and technological imaginative world characteristic of the eighties, and the percussive techniques derived from disco (in particular the 4/4 beat, the bass drum, the sampled or synthesized claps and the hi-hats).

Now there’s an acid bounce to the synth wash, an offbeat to the kick pattern. Feel it! Your arms become a shining glory of omni-dimensional moves, your pelvis a pivot for your legs and torso. Look! Red light pierces the green, the serpent enters Eden: Your hair concealing your eyes, your racerback revealing your flesh, you bite the apple and give me knowledge. Marietta, this is the pattern of repetition, this is the eternal return: This is our asylum.

Now varying loops are making polyrhythms, a fabric of synths punctuated by bass and drums. As soon as you find a point of orientation, your body becomes a dynamo. Feel it! Dissolving the temporal in the eternal, you expand your being in a choreography of grace. Look! Orange light pierces the blue, the emblem of lust enters the absolute: Your hair—generous, dark, mysterious—is loose and impulsive. Marietta, as you cradle your flame, I safeguard your obscurity: You are inexhaustible, and everything is mine to learn.