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Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 00:18:09 -0700
From: Praised and Perused <mr808@teleport.com>
Subject: The Holy Trinity of Detroit Techno
Ok kids, today I FINALLY ran across a copy of the Mar/Apr '89 Music
Technology magazine, the one with Juan Atkins (and Baby Ford, Matt Black,
and others) on the cover, the one that got destroyed when my basement
flooded, and the first place I heard about Techno. In appreciation of my
lucky find, I've typed in the text for everybody. Enjoy!
TECHNO
THE SCENE: DETROIT, murder capital of the USA, an industrial city left
behind in a post-industrial society. A recent New York Times article
vividly refers to urban landscapes "marred by vacant factories, warehouse
and great open spaces where such buildings once stood." Despite drastic
cuts in services the city was virtually bankrupt, and its mayor decalred,
"We are at the edge of an abyss."
Welcome to the world of Techno music, a world peopled by dreamers caught up
in the despair of everyday Detroit life, yet glimpsing a brand new future
in which technology functions as savior rather than destroyer. They've
read Alvin Toffler's 'The Third Wave' and realized that they're riding it.
Three of those riders are Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson.
They represent a new generation of musicians who claim direct descendancy
not from Motown, but from the music of Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode and Gary
Numan.
"It seemed like music of the future to me, " recalls Saunderson.
"Kraftwerk had this really clean, computerized, futuristic sound. Their
music had a good groove, but at the same time it was deep and you could sit
back and listen to it."
The biggest music in Detroit during the trio's formative years was
Parliament/Funkadelic, and it was a shared liking for the Mothership
Connection which first brought together the youthful Saunderson, Atkins,
and May at Belleville High School in West Detroit. It was May who likened
Techno to "George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator with only a
sequencer to keep them company."
Atkins first came to prominence in Cybotron, an early '80s techno/electro
group which achieved some success but was eventually split by conflicting
musical directions. Since then he has worked as Model 500 (choosing the
name because he "wnated to use something that repudiated an ethnic
designation"), releasing on his own Metroplex label polished, minimallist,
hi-tech dance-music gems with titles like 'Future', ' Time Space Transmat',
and 'Interference'. "My concept was that the Kraftwerks, Telexes and Devos
were good but they weren't funky. I felt that if I could take that type of
music and add a funky element to it then it would be a smash."
Although worshiped, early technopop was never viewed as an end in itself.
Derrick May states, "English bands ten years ago hardly knew what they were
doing. They left us waiting. Somebody like Gary Numan started something
he never concluded." Saunderson identifies a significant difference
between the music of the early '80s groups and that of Techno musicians:
"Techno has a better groove as far as the bass end goes, and it has a much
rawer sound. In fact, the bass end tends to make people associate Techno
with House music, but really the two are very different."
Like many of today's most influential dance music producers and artists,
all three bagan their musical careers as DJs - in Saunderson's case on
college redio and in the underground clubs of Detroit. He still plays the
clubs, currently spinning a mix of Techno, House and Acid on Friday nights
at Detroit's hottest underground club, The Music Institute, alongside
Derrick May.
When Saunderson took the decision to start creating his own music instead
of playing other people's ("I was always wanting to add things to other
people's music, and I felt I had a good feeling for what people liked to
hear"), the number one priority was to set up his own studio. His mother
helped him out financially, while Juan Atkins advised on equipment.
Saunderson started out with a Yamaha DX100, Roland Juno 106, Fostex
eight-channel mixer, Tascam eight-track recorder, several reverbs, and
giant speakers that could handle 800 Watts each - all set up in a
two-bedroom apartment. Hardly surprising was that he had to move four
times in the first year.
"I tried to be courteous to people", he maintains, "but...I have to play my
music loud. That's the only way I can get a feeling for what I'm doing."
Examples of Saunderson's work includes "The Sound" and "Bounce Your Body To
The Box" - stripped-down bass'n'drum workouts which attempt to dissolve
music into pure frequency and rhythm. Saunderson creates a spacious
rhythmic backdrop through a judicious use of reverb and a careful
combination of splashy, clicky percussive sounds which float in and out of
the mix. Rich, booming bass sounds operate at virtually subsonic levels,
strange synth sounds burble away, and any hint of a vocal line is reduced
to a disjointed rototic incantation - all over a pounding, insistent
bass-drum beat. The effect is hypnotic and compulsive.
Saunderson's instrument arsenal now takes in a Roland S550, Casio CZ5000,
Roland JX8P, Korg Poly 800, Roland TB303 Bassline and Ensoniq Mirage.
Drum-machine chores are taken care of by Roland's TR909, 808 and 727
together with an Alesis HR16 ("one of the cleanest drum machines I've ever
heard") and his own sampled sounds.
"I like to use a combination of 909 and HR16 hi-hats, together with the 808
bass drum or sometimes the bass on the 909", he explains. "Those drum
machines have a real good feel, both together and on their own".
Atkins shares Saunderson's love for the old Roland machines: "I still use
the 808 and 909. The 808 has a real techno feel. Everything on that drum
machine has an electronic feel - it's not like digitally-sampled real
drums".
Saunderson refuses to use sampled drum-machine sounds in place of the
genuine article: "Sampling changes the sounds in some way. I'll go into a
studio and they'll say, 'We have the 808 right here, sampled on disk', but
I won't use those samples 'cos somehow the results just don't have the same
feel".
Instead he prefers an offbeat approach to obtaining percussive sounds which
is in tune with the creative spirit of sampling - for instance, sampling a
handclap or a piece of paper being crumpled, and playing around with the
tuning to see what sort of results he can get. Extracts from old records
don't find their way into Saunderson's sampler.
"What's going to be the music of the future if people keep sampling all
this stuff from the past?" he argues. "I figure that the people who're
gonna be real successful are those who keep looking ahead, who're going to
set the trend. Forget what's happened in the past. It was good, but let's
move on".
Atkin's Model 500 tracks are characterized by a clean sound and a
contrapuntal interplay of musical lines - or "layered sequences". It's an
approach which he explains as the major influence of Kraftwerk on his
music. How, then, does he set about putting together a track?
"On 'Interference' I started with the bassline, cause the bassline is to me
the most important thing in a dance record. Even the drums become
secondary to a good bassline. I worked everything else around that. A lot
of times I let my basslines carry the melody. You'll hear that the little
tweaks and bits people can listen to are in the bassline".
Like Saunderson, Atkins is not interested in sampling old records. He
prefers to devote himself to the delights of synthesis, and in particular
to "one" synth: "The Pro One is my heart. I'll use that Pro One until it
falls apart, and then I'll probably still use it if it makes any sounds".
"These new synthesizers now, I think they're scaling them more to interface
with the consumer. Synthesizers used to be synthesizers that a synthesist
could play. Now manufacturers are going for presets and they make it
really hard to get beyond those preset to program your own sounds."
Techno strives to bring the future to present-day feet and ears. "I make
my records in the hope that people will go and buy them to listen to as
well as to dance to", Saunderson explains. "A good dance track is going to
grab your attention, but on top of that I want something that's interesting
and different enough to make you take notice of it. It should be totally
different from anything else that's happening, but not so different that
it's beyond people so that you end up not interfacing with them. Be right
on the edge without going over".
"The music is not for everybody. It's for certain people that want a
little twist".
Atkins echoes the sentiment: "I want whatever I do to stand out, but not be
so far above that people won't relate to it. It doesn't really make sense
to do music that people will get into in ten years or so. I just want to
be involved with things that are going to be interesting enough to set
trends or standards".