DETROIT TECHNO
Before we begin, i'd like you to detach yourself from your eurocentric vision of techno. Growing up, I hated techno cause the only techno people would show me was european industrial techno, borderline core.
We'll essentially be focusing on Detroit for this section, starting off with minimal 90s techno, and then visiting a lesser-known form of techno: the implementation of locked grooves.
We'll essentially be focusing on Detroit for this section, starting off with minimal 90s techno, and then visiting a lesser-known form of techno: the implementation of locked grooves.
Minimal 90s Detroit Techno
My favorite techno mix, if not my favorite mix of all time. This is the only mix where i've seen the techniques used get dissected in the comment section of a music board. Jeff Mills uses 3 turntables and simultaneously mixes 3 tracks, using the elements of one track to compliment the other, plays around with a ton of different EQ, fader and leveling techniques. On top of all that, he compliments the mix with his own TR-909 Drum Machine, adding drum layers to the tracks he feels lack the potential they could have. All while staying in beat. I especially love the moments where the tracks playing start diverging from their bpm, which results in him playing around with their speed til the beatmatching is right again, ultimately leading to subtle pitch changes at certain moments. The cassette mastering (that can be heard with the drums phasing in the stereo channel on “The Extremist (Retro Mix)”), crowd noises at exciting moments, mistakes which solve themselves, are what truly make this mix a one of a kind work of art.
LOCKED GROOVES
LOCKED GROOVES
When playing a vinyl, there's a certain part of a song you can hear loop around at the end the vinyl, if you play it all the way to the end. I remember being out in Paris in a pop-up shop with my friends in the winter. They had My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy playing on Vinyl in the shop and at one point, towards the end, one of the tracks has the same 3 second increment looping all the way til the end. I remembered reading about Jeff Mills' Locked Groove techno the day before, confused by what exactly he meant since I didn’t own a vinyl player of my own. It all became very clear to me at that moment:
Pretty early into his techno-career, Jeff realized that the space at the end of a vinyl could be utilized, instead of being wasted. It was at that moment he realized he could make music that can fill up that space, or something like that idk. Basically he made short techno loops, synth loops, and other kind of musical motifs that would repeat until the end of a vinyl.
Here's an example you can also hear him play around with on the Liquid Room mix (around the 44:00 timestamp):
He would then revisit those loops and create entire tracks from them. It was this repetitive style of techno that I personally feel birthed his Purpose Maker series: a series of sample-heavy techno eps with african drum rythms. Allow me to introduce you to this beautiful form of techno that has seemingly been lost to the explosion of internet in the early 2000s:
The pad line along with the vocal loop that sees its birth around the 2:10 mark is one of my favorite musical moments, I truly feel like that was such a unique form of electronic music, complimenting a hectic drum loop with a blissful synth pad.