Detroit and its Techno legacy

Take a look at this nice video on RA’s Real Scene section about Detroit, MI.

 

Detroit nowadays has a lot of unemployment problems and looks like an abandoned city: economy collapsed and buildings are falling apart, in 2013 Detroit filed the largest municipal bankruptcy case in U.S. history.

There was a time when Detroit was a florid huge automobile production centre (GM, Chrysler, and Ford)  and lots of people migrated to the city and the suburbs to work, black people especially. But what I want to talk about Detroit  is something more important: it’s called TECHNO.

Detroit is the city where techno was born from the mind and the fingers of some eclectic youngsters and their enthusiastic friends, it was the place where in the early 80s the Electrifying Mojo would use the airwaves to spread the new language, it was a place where you could go and dance your ass off in abandoned buildings or improvised clubs with a new dark and synthethic sound. This was not Chicago with its House funky beats, not even New York and its Disco shit. Detroit was cold, decaying, racially instable, poor, post industrial and dark.

Detroit music scene was always one step ahead of anywhere else. Not only because of Techno, it was also the place where a lot of Northern Soul music was produced, home for the Motown and for Thelma Records, Groove City Records, Ge Ge Records, D-Town, Carla Records and many many more.

The conjunction for the birth of techno may relies here: a strong northern soul/funk legacy fused with popular Chicago House mixed up with sci-fi and Futuristic imaginery, Acid House  and post industrial rage.

This is what I think made Detroit techno producers so unique: the ability to groove and to catch your soul.

 

 

there is a splendid documentary called High-Tech Soul to watch if you want to learn about the details of how everything came up togheter from the famous Belleville three (Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson) and how they needed to move to Europe (England) to legitimete themselves.

 

 

The list of Techno producers active in Detroit is long and includes names like Octave One, AUX88, Carl Cox, Drexciya, Eddie Fowlkes, Mike “Mad” Banks, Moodyman, Theo Parrish, Robert Hood, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, Kenny Larkin, Kevin Saunderson, Orlando Voorn.… do you get it? all the gotha of Techno is somehow related to Detroit.

 

I leave you with this masterpiece by Robert Hood, to me one of the best Detroiter technohead still around.

 

 

 

 

Filed under: detroit techno, documentaries, electronica, society, techno, techno music, Aux88, Belleville three, Carl Cox, detroit, Drexciya, Eddie Fowlkes, jeff mills, Juan Atkins, Kenny Larkin, Kevin Saunderson, Mike Banks, Orlando Voorn, Robert Hood, techno, Theo Parrish, Underground Resistance

We are Further Pushers and this is our debut.

Few months ago I met Simone, a local dj known as Cutter, a nice and distinguished guy with a cutting sense of humour I talked to many times at the glorious Glucose techno night in Rome.
We decided to get togheter producing some tracks and we quickly discovered we were a perfect match, we could produce music easily and we were really excited about what we produced.
Further Pushers were born!
We compiled a demo and contacted three labels we thought could be interested in. We got no reply and we decided to print the vinyls ourselves. FUCK YEAH!

We first mixed the three tracks we choose to release at Subsound Studio in Rome with the help of Luciano Lamanna a really talented and enthusiastic guy who was really impressed by our work. We mastered the tracks at Andrea Merlini’s studio (one of the best mastering technician in Rome and also part of the famous Minimal Rome crew) cause we decided to keep it local.
Everything went so fast and we were ready to send the files to the printing factory. We decided to print only 150 copies cause we didn’t know how actually the game worked so we kept it kinda low profile.
Then Luciano Lamanna got us into his label/collective called Love Blast and we were happy to be part of a local community with friends and skilled producers.

Now the vinyl is out and we are so fracking excited.
(the digital will be also released on the 14th on every major digital music stores)

Some technical info about the records.
We recorded the tracks jamming on our cheap synths and drum machines: we used a MC303 , a MC505, a MFB522, a Yamaha TG33, an drrum machine called Eko Ritmo20 and some pedals fx like the Ibanez Tube Screamer and the Memory Boy. Plus we used some field recordings.

The photo of the cover is from Fernanda Veron and the artwork is by Matteo Bruno

we set up a Facebook page were you can keep up with us and everything related to Further Pushers.

you can also join us on Souncloud.

thanks for reading and for joining us on this new adventure and please take your time to listen to the tracks.

Filed under: detroit techno, Further Pushers, GabeDM, synth, techno music, Andrea Merlini, Apeiron, Apeiron Dub Tool, detroit, detroit techno, Eko Ritmo20, Fernanda Veron, Further Pushers, Love Blast, Luciano Lamanna, Matteo Bruno, MC-303, MC-505, Medula Lab, MFB 522, Minimal Rome, Ritmo20, rome, Subsound Studio, techno

Meet Michael Ballus and his analogue artillery

I am pleased to introduce you a great producer called Michael Ballus.

His love for analogue instruments is enormous and in his bunker in Bad Driburg – it’s the real name, I myself thought it was Michael saying his town was “bad” but… it’s the city’s real name – close to Kassel in Germany, there Michael collects and plays many juicy analog machines.

Michael grew up with friends like Gabriel Ananda (Trapez), Alex Multhaupt (Karmarouge) and Graziano Avitabile (Platzhirsch Schallplatten) all of them transmitted to Michael the love for hardware and djing.

He produces only on hardware synths and boxes, bypassing completely any computer based sequencer or Vst instruments and Vst efx, because he says they sound cold.

I asked him what was his favourite piece of gears he owns and heanswered it’s the analog synth Deep Bass Nine and the 808 clone Mam Adx-1 .

Complementary to his analogue artillery Michael often uses his own field recordings of natural sound processed to get unique hats and snares – this tecnique is nowadys used by many producers as TommyFourSeven, Plastikman and myself (eheheh).

Actually he’s looking for a serious label to release his deep tracks and he’s also working on some new ambient music projects.

I really love Michael’s  webcam video in which he plays live his own tracks in the studio, YouTube is full of such videos, be sure to check them out so to get a taste of his incredibly elegant sound and analogue warmth.

Here’s a couple of links:

so far he released for Rumpfunk Records two deep and experimental lps full of techno, electronica and ambient: Waldgedicht EP (October 2008) and In Weiter Ferne which registers the label’s downloads record: 60.000!!! being Rumpfunk a netlabel you can freely download both of them 🙂

Last cool things about Michael, he’s an hardcore gamer, those fps games in which you roam around with a big gun in your hands trying to shoot enemies, actually his web clan is Homefront’s number one in the world . wow! – this is why you can see homefront’s big poster stuck on Michael studio wall.

Now let’s hit play and drown deeply with michael’s warm music.

Filed under: ambient music, art, detroit techno, electronica, live set, net label, techno music, Uncategorized, videoclip, 808, Alex Multhaupt, analog, analog instruments, analog synth, analogue instruments, Ballus, bloefeld, Deep Bass Nine, deep techno, detroit, detroit techno, gabriel ananda, Graziano Avitabile, hardware, homefront, In Weiter Ferne, Karmarouge, live set, Mam Adx-1, Michael ballus, Platzhirsch Schallplatten, Rumpfunk Records, techno, techno electronica, tommy foru seven, Trapez, vst instruments, Waldgedicht EP, waldorf, www youtube

Rare 90’s Detroit techno video

 

90’s video which features Terrence Parker, Mike Huckaby, Juan Atkins, Ritchie Hawtin, Derrick May (huge!), Kevin Saunderson, Carl Craig, Rolando, Jeff Woodward, Gary Koral, Theorem, Kraftwerk, DJ Dunebugg…

pure detroit techno : minimal, soulful and machine driven!

this is top quality music.

lots of interviews, videoclips, intersting footages and faces I  love and respect, and I am sure you do the same!

 

via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk

Filed under: art, detroit techno, documentaries, techno music, videoclip, Carl Craig, Derrick May, detroit, Gary Koral, Jeff Woodward, Jon Ozias, Josh Glazer, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Kraftwerk, Mike Huckaby, Ritchie Hawtin, Rolando, techno, Terrence Parker, Theorem