Detroit - the myth

Alfons

Way of the future
three different views on the role and importance of detroit in techno:
http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/


The comments sections are interresting (if a bit anal...). While I like a lot of the music the purism and elitism around detroit is really some of the worst Ive ever come across! I don't understand why its so powerfull in the minds of a lot of people and why it matters so much. Whats the deal with 313?
 

Ory

warp drive
If we take Detroit techno to mean the combination of soul and machines/futurism, then yes, it was very important. But not many people seem to be doing that outside of Detroit, especially these days.

European forms/derivatives of techno would definitely have happened without Detroit. But, D-tech will always be there in the background, influencing those who know and care. They deserve respect for keeping at it while Europe was pumping out crap like big beat and supersaw-mega-trance.

Dance music as a whole needs to pull itself out of this hole of uninspired bullshit. I mean, fuck, any sense of funk has even been shunned out of house music in favour of farty basslines and stripped down, plodding nonsense.

Will Detroit be our saviour? Maybe not, but it'll always be there to remind us that soul has its rightful place in dance music. And that's why it's still relevant after 25 years.
 

petergunn

plywood violin
I though this was about the fact that Detroit is currently the Mecca Of Hip Hop right now. I guess I was wrong.

One.

oh simmer down and revel in the celtics victory...

l_b5119ce7c9efebabe9ff61811ba42488.jpg
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
in terms of techno detroit has continued to push new sounds that are subsequently copied/incorparated more mainsteam dance.

moodymann - daftpunk/cassius that french filtered house sound
trance - red planet more or less came up with what is generally termed as trance
minimal - robert hood
 

michael

Bring out the vacuum
If we take Detroit techno to mean the combination of soul and machines/futurism, then yes, it was very important. But not many people seem to be doing that outside of Detroit, especially these days.

Fair point, but I have to say someone like Jeff Mills or T-1000 never seemed much about "soul" in any way that I could pin down. I mean "soul" as a musical lineage, not as a nebulous descriptor like "warmth" or "feeling" or whatever.

I guess it's irrelevant though, it's about big picture stuff...
 

mms

sometimes
in terms of techno detroit has continued to push new sounds that are subsequently copied/incorparated more mainsteam dance.

moodymann - daftpunk/cassius that french filtered house sound
trance - red planet more or less came up with what is generally termed as trance
minimal - robert hood

and alot of electro, wonky electronic hip hop etc.
Detroit innovated a kind of africanised bright and fruity utopian electronic music and an industrialized electronic funk on the dystopian side. Someone like Jeff Mills has a machine tooled funk rather than a connection to soul imo.
I think if i'm to be honest the Detroit stuff is my favorite as i like music with a genuine sense of funk, there isn't as much good stuff as there was though.
 
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noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
If Detroit Techno is grounded in funk then why are so many of it's curators and fetishists such tight assed prissy motherfuckers?

General question to the room.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
^ see also: Hip-Hop ^

Not to mention the futurist/soul-of-the-machine rhetoric that surrounds techno is what tight arsed prissy curators thrive on.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
curators and fetishists such tight assed prissy motherfuckers?
.

because curators are tight arsed prissy motherfuckers! Curation is the definition of anal! Will to mastery, overdesire to look at things...It's how it is how it is.

What we need is loose curation.
 

bassnation

the abyss
three different views on the role and importance of detroit in techno:
http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/


The comments sections are interresting (if a bit anal...). While I like a lot of the music the purism and elitism around detroit is really some of the worst Ive ever come across! I don't understand why its so powerfull in the minds of a lot of people and why it matters so much. Whats the deal with 313?

yeah and everyone knows the uk rave mythos is much cooler anyway. fuck the purists! but it is kind of fun baiting them, and theres so much material. derrick may (hysterical self-aggranisement, appalling rate of production, patchy djing, obnoxious behaviour - alledgedly) - nuff said. URs preposterous over-serious galactic announcements, lost as some kind of church to the kick drum filled with hawtin clones and not nearly enough girls in fluffy bikinis. rich material indeed.
 
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bassnation

the abyss
European forms/derivatives of techno would definitely have happened without Detroit. But, D-tech will always be there in the background, influencing those who know and care. They deserve respect for keeping at it while Europe was pumping out crap like big beat and supersaw-mega-trance.

what a load of fucking nonsense. theres loads more to uk flavas than big beat, and detroit dropped the ball a long time ago, probably cos they started beleiving their own BS. and if you want real soul in US dance music you should look equally towards chicago (and if you open those floodgates, then why not philly and a million other places). thats the problem with this mythology, theres holes in it that you can drive an articulated lorry through. its just one small piece of the puzzle and i really don't accept that they are the root of everything good and great, sorry.

don't get me wrong, i love a lot of old detroit djs and records, but my heart is with the uk underground, always has been.
 
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noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
I went to see Yazoo last week in Brighton. The sound was fantastic, some of the best live sound I've ever heard, there was so much space you could swim in it.
And apparently VC has gone from being Mr. 'I've got every synth ever made' to just using a Macbook and a couple of keyboards.

Where was the gig, at The Dome?
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
And apparently VC has gone from being Mr. 'I've got every synth ever made' to just using a Macbook and a couple of keyboards.

Where was the gig, at The Dome?

At the Brighton Centre, horrible place. He'd resequenced all of the stuff, resisting the temptation to 'beef' any of it up and it just sounded pristine, amazing. Awful visuals.
They were my Joy Division though so I just stood there and cried.

Mind you (getting back on track although I think talking about Yazoo is on track, but...) alot of early techno does that for me as well. I find alot of Derrick May's stuff unbearably sad, and I miss that, I don't find that with minimal that I've heard. Beyond a point stuff gets too banging to be sad.
 

mms

sometimes
At the Brighton Centre, horrible place. He'd resequenced all of the stuff, resisting the temptation to 'beef' any of it up and it just sounded pristine, amazing. Awful visuals.
They were my Joy Division though so I just stood there and cried.

Mind you (getting back on track although I think talking about Yazoo is on track, but...) alot of early techno does that for me as well. I find alot of Derrick May's stuff unbearably sad, and I miss that, I don't find that with minimal that I've heard. Beyond a point stuff gets too banging to be sad.

the yazoo connection is yazoo's 'situation' is sampled in nude photo.
yep i'm listening to relics now, one thing that people forget is that it's ultra intricate and abstract and extremely rhythmic in a way that minimal is never. Some of the strings definitely sound like very sad, course there is all that trippy pitch bending which gives the music a weird smeary feel at times.
 
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