WOEBOT

29 Detroit Techno 12"s.

This started out innocently enough. That's to say with me combing through my racks for 10 Detroit choons. Then it got out of hand. The mission was to dig up the obscurer records. Not Strings of Life, but slightly less well-known classics. It turned out to be easier than I'd first thought. There were SO many awesome records which came out of Detroit. In the end I just though fuck it. Don't ration like a tinker, bosh it out. GO MAD! So if you're used to reading tidy digestable wee posts from me, apologies.

Detroit now has a slightly tarnished reputation. When I started buying these records it was often a word-of-mouth affair. Hushed tones and all that. Or taking chances, following hunches and trusting one's own ears. Then quite quickly the history was assembled, and as soon as that happens, well people walk away, cock a snook. Or they have a knock. Ascribe things to it which are easily targeted at an edifice. Reynolds, god bless him, had lots of fun for ages puncturing the myths that had accrued around Detroit Techno. I have a sneaking suspicion that he has a fondness for it, references seem to be creeping back in to it in his writing via The Mover (Suburban Knight "Art of Stalking") and 4Hero (well documented Detroit link-up). Did you witness the roasting he got at the hands of Kirk Degiorgio, which quickly revolved around differing perspectives of "The True History of Detroit", go back to his first blog entry. Kirk (with friends like these Detroit doesn't need enemies) made a big play of insider chat that he had heard in Detroit. That Mayday only said he liked Frankie Goes to Hollywood to get a record deal. That they infinitely preferred George Clinton to Cabaret Voltaire. I'm tempted to think that they told Degiorgio what he wanted to hear. All this "Detroit-Techno-is-a-tradition-emerging-from-Jazz-Funk" is nonsense (er that's about 3 Blue Note records, Herbie Hancock's "Nobu" and "Sextant" and Bernie Worrell and Julian Priester's synth work) as opposed to the more balanced view that it's largely an extension of the line that runs from "The Model" to "Planet Rock". For crying our loud! That Detroit took to Visage and The Flock of Seagulls, as opposed to swallowing the standard tradition was what made it interesting. Kirk seems oblivious to the fact that the Detroit crew find him charismatic BECAUSE he's a white european, he seems to factor out himself in the whole situation, like it's plain to see that as an honorary black man he fits with this crew.

While I was backing Reynolds over the Degiorgio tiff, Simon did singlehandedly knife Detroit in the back. The general critical consensus swung towards Ardkore as the tradition to watch as a consequnce. Bravo Reynolds, that's clout! It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it. You'd even read Mayday in interviews going: "For fucks sake! The Music Institute was just a club! All this stuff is boring ancient history. Detroit, GET OVER IT!" You'd be hard pushed to fight a case for Detroit-influenced music, essentially because what has spun out of Detroit has been too reverential, and I'm talking here about the whole Luke Slater, Neuropolitique, Degiorgio, B12, Speedy J and Stefan Robbers thing as well as the Wax Doctor, Alex Reese late Moving Shadow thing. There's been too much reduction, not enough addition. The best music which followed the Motor City's lead, The Black Dog, Basic Channel, The Mover has added to it, or has just not taken THAT much on board. It's hardly Detroit's fault is it? It doesn't negate something's value if it's progeny is considerably less worthwhile does it! However, when it comes to Reynolds' critique of Detroit (as opposed to it's effect), I put the book down and look puzzled. Are we really talking about the same thing? Detroit Techno gets labelled delicate, as sporting water-colour synths, is described as being all perfect sleek shiny surfaces, as being devoid of excitement. It just doesn't match what I've heard.

The "other" book on Detroit was Kodwo Eshun's "More Brilliant than the Sun". Which is, of course, perfection incarnate. I guess it's fairer to say that it's an Underground Resistance book. And, despite sound rejoinders like "Dusseldorf was Detroit's Mississippi Delta" it's largely Afro-Astro-Centric, taking Greg Tate's cyber-negritude and amplifying it. I don't have a problem with Kodwo's reading at all. It's supremely imaginative, it's just that it's so polemical it's spotless. So beautifully breathlessly concieved it doesn't take in all Detroit's messy undercurrents. Kodwo doesn't get bogged down in the whole socio-cultural currents tedium either, he leapfrogs between the nodes, Buckminster Fuller to Nick Land. Thats FINE he clearly didn't set out to write a history of Detroit (you know, how boring!), it's just that Detroit's PR problem has become that it's too fantastical, too glacial and too lofty, when truth be told, when the chips are down, its rough-as-fuck BUST-YO-ASS dance music.

So why am I presenting these trax for your attention? Firstly, naturellement, to show off what a trendy young chappy I am, how cognisant and eagle-eyed I am (raises forfinger to chin, raises eyebrows, purses lips). Secondly, and of course less importantly, to try and open up the canon a bit. Make things a bit messier. Devolve attention away from the "classic" records of the Belleville 3 (though they get a look-in of course). Thirdly, there is a MAJOR secret agenda, which will become clearer to readers of my ongoing waffle later this year. On a more pastoral note there are two very good compilations out on Planet E at the moment, Double EP-style, called Detroit Techno Classics (or something) which I can recommend highly. I'm not going to offer this lot up as mp3s, not because I want to underscore the myth, but because in this case it'd be too like ripping off the artists.

1. Dan Curtin: 3rd From The Sun EP.
On Sinewave records. One of those blink and you miss them imprints that also put out a John Beltran 12". This is before Curtin got to make those LPs. If The Belleville 3 were "The First Wave of Techno" and UR and +8 et al were the Second, this along with the Red Planet things is the Third. My attention waned at this point. After this there were KHand, Plastikman, Flexitone things like that and I lost interest. The stand-out track here is "3rd from the Sun" itself: a bubbling 303, infolding drums, super-fast crunching microbreaks and forbidden planet tonalities. Wicked tune.

2. Blake Baxter: When a Thought Becomes You.
There are a few great non-UR records on the UR label. That Suburban Knight one is good. Shoot me down but I'm not THAT big a fan of UR. Some records excepted. This is ace. Blake's "Sexuality" is the bomb, not included in this list because everyone knows it (?). That is one VERY raw tune. Prima facie evidence of Detroit corpulence. Sounds like a miner in a giant baked-bean tin. This is Baxter in Jamie Principle sexual-whispers mode. Just like the stuff K.Alexei perfected on "All for Lee-Sah". A nursery harmony. Electro-paen to his broken heart. Floppy plastic drums. Curdling acid fill gives way to modulating bassic melody. Baxter reclining pensive-prostrate in lovers dreadlocks.

3. Dan Curtin: Space EP.
Metamorphic was Dan Curtin's own label. He put out other peoples stuff too. I know 4Hero loved this record, they licensed some stuff for the Deeper Shade of Techno compilation they put out on Reinforced. Damn I wish I'd bought that. It's too easy to be sniffy about comps. As Kodwo says they're one of the artforms of the 21st century. I've actually got another Detroit feature up my sleeve, 10 great Techno compilations, I'll get round to that sometime. It's easy to tell why Dego and Marc liked this though....breakbeats! On the epic "Envision" congas do battle with too-precise martial drumfills. Colliding multi-tiered breakbeats build impossible t-t-tension. Sinewave drones pair and part. At the end it all gives way to a 33-pitched pile-up, tribes on mars kind of vibe.

4. States of Mind: Elements of Tone.
This was the first release on +8. Richie and Jon were chuffed to bits when Derrick May picked it up. It's almost too quaint. At the start you think "Oh No!" zimmer-techno. Then, however, gourgeous vocal synths soar and a cute push-me-pull-you bassline joins the fray before, arching above the mesh, the most seductive subdued almost inaudible bleep-hook. You sit out the middle eighth early-warp-style break just dying for that refrain. Oooh! As sexy as "We are the Music Makers". The best of these Detroit tracks are just working out their own inner logic.

5. Neal Howard: To be or not to be? (Mayday Mix)
Future sound was a Chicago label. There's plenty of to-ing and fro-ing between the Chicago scene at this point and Detroit. Actually it's a wonder there wasn't more. On reflection there was almost a mutual-appreciation thing going on, rather than anything more solid. This is a first-wave record. Rephlex did a Future Sound compilation. This was a big tune so you can see all the Future Sound Chicago players got to turn their hand to a mix, Terry Baldwin, Bad Boy Bill etc. Mayday's mix is the peach, lopsided and organic sounding with an improbable flowing bleep riff spilling out of the grooves. Think this music is all serious? Well check the super-silly fairground bassline as it wheels around and rolls up the sides. Kevin Saunderson's "Perpetual Motion" also worth a look-in.

6. F.U.S.E: Approach and Identify.
I never did dug Richie Hawtin's later stuff. Jon Aquaviva was a former Disco DJ and he brought loads of flavour and colour to their music. I interviewed them once and Richie sat there clammed up like an insect, "observing me", while Jon rabbited on garrously. You can see where the whole minimalist Plastikman project came from, there's an almost uneven fit between the rushier aspect of this and it's "Futuristic Underground Sonic Experiments" intent.
"Approach and Identify" is a GREAT track, impossibly bassy with BLEEPS floating severed. "Phase I" on the flipside also has it's adherents, nicely chopped up vocal hook. If I was being unkind (here goes), while lovely, this and the States of Mind record date like nothing else i'm putting together here.

7. M-D-EMM: Get Acidic.
Good gosh! Early obscure-ish Transmat action. Features the skills of later Striktly Underground boss, Junglist Londoner Mark Ryder. So in fact absolutely nothing to do with Detroit Techno. This is heathen! It takes a laid-back and arsey angle on (Chicago) Acid. Rough squelches compete to out-demonise one another. This rolls along like Ardkore. I love the "Acid House" whispers, nuff flavour! And those Throbbing-Gristle-spirited whooshes. I'd say play it at my funeral but you'd never know where I'd end up.

8. Paperclip People: Oscillator.
Wha! Who says Detroit is all spick and span synths. For a while Carl Craig was using nothing but breakbeats, as on this banging disco monster. Absolutely rocking! I guess this is the secret sister to "The Climax", which as any spod knows is the record-collectors Detroit Techno Holy Grail. Don't have a copy myself, only the re-issue. The esteemed Dr. Lloyd Beryl owns a copy and my friend Gwen did too. Gwen sold his to James Lavelle for top dollar. And who says Detroit can't and do cheesy and norty sampling like Ardkore can? This is Snap's "I've got the Power" looped up and filtered to distraction. Yeah! And on that Piece record on Planet E he samples Duran Duran's "The Rephlex". Simon LeBon snatched by multi-dimensional monsters. Oooooh!

9. Octave One: I Believe.
Another bit of rare Transmat. One mix of this made it on to the 10 records "Techno 2" compilation, notable for featuring Psyche's "The Elements", which didn't get a conventional release elsewhere (at the time). However it's Magic Juan's mix which is the one you want, not the original. Think Timbaland. It's got a rolling synthsoul bassline, backwards-bossa percussion, and moaning laydee. What basslines these records have! Ardkore's basslines are almost uniformly weedy, despite it's much vaunted connections to Jamaica. It's only post, or during, Darkcore, under the auspicies of an investigation into sonic possibilities that they sort out the lower end. Just in time for the Dred invasion. Damn it's corny, and Damn it's an under-rated virtue, but all these records are so well-produced. Yeah we know the logical conclusion is Deep Dish, but this lot didn't have million pound synthesisers and pro-tools rigs the size of appartments, they just used fairly limited kit elegantly and stylishly. Bringing to mind Holger Czukay's PERFECT four-track recordings of Can. It takes genius to exploit minimal resources. You wouldn't buy a picture you couldn't see would you!

10. Carl Craig: Suspiria.
How the heck Craig wring that plangeant other-wordly sound he got on the Retroactive records from the same machines as everyone else? Retroactive, in case you didn't know is the champion of all Detroit labels. More distinctive than the recognised market-leading brand Transmat/Fragile. There's a looseness and roughness to the Retroactive sound. No edge is sharp. Every texture oscillates and pixelates. Suspiria is octopine many limbed, almost ungainly, but intentionally so. The 21st century ballad of "Wrap me in its arms" on the other side is one of my personal faves. When Sarah Gregory's gaussian blurred vocal stretchs over the dubbed out bass and percussion bridge I struggle to regain composure. That glinting 2 finger refrain. Those vocals utterly unmannered, depressed and exquisite. Not a quiet storm cliche in sight.

11. Carl Craig: Wonders of Wishing.
On another of those blink and you'd miss it labels Eclipse. This got factored into DJ Rap's limpid Journeys By DJ set at the time when Fabio was spinning Innerzone Orchestra's "Bug in the Bassbin" at 45. I heard him do that and it sounded shit. This is nice, it has a lagoon-ous intro then a glitched-out vocal hook which swerves around pitchwise. The bass and drums play catch up.

12. Psyche: A.R.T. EP3
From all my slagging off of Kirk deGiorgio you'd think I wouldn't appreciate his contibutions. Well no. The first batch of records on ART, right up to Elegy's "Tone Poem", were great UK Techno. He also did the world an unrepayable favour by putting this out. Every track of which is stunning, from insane uptight dream disco bebop of "Chicken Noodle Soup" to the come-down bliss "How the West was one." As for the ambient mix of "Neurotic Behaviour", the remix of which came out on the earlier Transmat Psyche EP, well words can't do it justice. Portentous yes! But also unbelievably powerful. Check that swaggering propulsive mid-range weft. I'd say wobble but Finney'd slap a writ on me. Records with this "weight" you just don't hear these days.

13. Suburban Knight: The Groove.
The precursor to his genre-defining classic "The Art of Stalking" (God striking matches) this is more fun if less thrilling. Essentially a step on from Raze's "Jack the groove" I adore it's "Ooh that's Hot" and "House Groove makes you move" snatches. On reflection the moment all those "Yer bad sister" hiccoughs got cleaned out of the Think break then Jungle was nearly dead. Compare the original of Dillinja's "Deep and Deadly Subs" with the remix. Ou est la fromage?. Once again, to return to the matter in hand, check that PREPOSTEROUS bassline, the whole track rides it like an Indian family on top of a train.

14. Sueno Latino: Sueno Latino (Mayday mix)
The King of Treble! From that time circa Rhythim is Rhythim's "The Beginning" (the end surely?) when Derrick was just stupidly overwhelmingly brilliant. ABLAZE! When artists reach effervesant combustion, you've just got to sit back and admire them. They're somehow able to make the simplest uncluttered gestures. Wow! Obviously a key part to the whole E2-E4 micro-history, this is it's apogee. By a long margin. I actually played this to Mr. Reynolds when he came round to my house in (was it?) 1998. He LOVED it! Angels frolicing in the jetstream. I Weep.

15. Kosmic Messenger: Soundscape.
Again on Eclipse. Stacey Pullen was great. His "Ritual Beating System" EP on Fragile is really good. Particularly "Wave the Rave Goodbye" off that. This is another bassline-led tune with trilling bleep riff. I heard Mr.C. play this at a free Rave I went to in Yorkshire in 1993. Mr.C, despite being the incarnation of the super-dodgy "Ebeneezer Goode", always used to play really "purist" Techno. After his set (6 A.M.), me ducking out to my mashed-up car parked in the field to roll joint after joint, I gave him a tape of Krautrock in thanks for the party. Harmonia's first on one side and Popol Vuh's "Seligpreisung" on the other. And he just sneered at me. You know thanks would have been nice. What a twat! If you're reading this Mr.C fak off!

16. Psyance: Motion.
Amazing tune on +8. Clickety-fingers intro then pneumatic bassline drops. Stick out your boom! Ron Allen went Techno-Soul eventually if my shot-to-pieces excuse for a mind serves me right. "EQ" on the flip also brilliant. You don't see these +8 tracks around like you used to.

17. Open House: Seven Day Weekend.
On Nu Groove, the very definition of a New York Label. There is a bit of a NYC/Detroit cross-over. Mark Kinchen and Area 10 records etc. A nice little tune, elegant bassline, and racing cymbals. Can't hold a candle to "Aquatic" though.

18. Reese: Just want another chance.
Kevin's "dark" alter-ego. Incognito also put out Blake Baxter's "Sexuality". Hardly an obscure record, though unlike the Metroplex/KMS/Transmat nexus, which has serviced it's back catalogue extremely well, you can't get the Incognito stuff. For a while it seemed the shops had so many Transmat records they couldn't give 'em away. Still that's no bad thing. That bassline. Hear it in "Deep Deadly Subs" AND Groove Chronicles' "Stone Cold". You can't fault it. A stacatto castanet intro then it OOZES.

19. Reese: Funky Funky Funk.
In which everything, drums and all, is rendered as a stab. This seethes and boils. Alarms shrill and whorl. My copy is not the Fragile release but the Network one. Green and plays inside to the out. In fact I like all the non-authentic issues I have of this stuff, they're more genuine. The original imports of these were so rare about 10 people got them. Though if you get to see the original labels of this Detroit stuff leap at the opportunity. I only have one early original of Rhythim is Rhythim's "Beyond the Dance". It's a quaint handmade-looking drawing of a geometric head with shades on. The one of Carl Craig's "Galaxy" I've seen is exquisite. The temptation with those graphics was to make them sleeker and more corporate, but the originals cottage-industry look undercut the blazenly futuristic sound within very nicely.

20. Octave One: Octivation EP.
On 430 West. I like the track "Nicolette". I wonder if this has anything to do with the SUAD chanteuse. Clean popping bassline, cloudy riffs and swings around a 7-part bleep. Nice!

21. MK: Feel the Fire.
Gwen told me he used to play this in the morning. They'd get up in their freezing flat turn on the 3-bar electric heater slip this on and dance around like loonies. Geddit? I used to play this out ALOT. You could guarantee people would go mental to it. Another nail in the coffin of the "Detroit music is Wimpy" myth. A Black Box sample dancing on a cymbal loop. MOTOR disco bass. That riff becoming insistent. Vocal immediately snaps into full focus before flipping back in rough contrast. Also great here is "Never on a Sunday". A bleeptastic finger-snapping take on Mayday's "Illusion."

22. Underground Resistance: Sonic EP.
Unnaccountably missing from Kodwo's book, presumably factored into the "Revolution for Change" LP, as a stand-alone EP it excels. On a good day my favourite Techno record ever. I'm at the bar talking to my bird. "Orbit" comes on the PA and I start to sweat, my face begins to contort involuntarily. Those spooked-out effortlesly sinister chattering FX give way to a rolling bassline (no more than a sinking and rising pitch) Now I'm stripped to the waist on the dancefloor with a Vicks inhaler in each nostril. Halfway through the track and I'm rubbing myself with a prime cut of beef. Hunt this record down! "Predator" is also out of this world, nay EVEN better!

23. Kenny Larkin: Metropolis.
Kenny was a stand-up comedian on the side. Ha ha. Always struck me as a shame that he failed to deliver beyond the early tracks he did. His one on the first Artificial Intelligence compilation (great music, BORINNGG concept) was also ace. That LP he did for Warp was dreary. "Metropolis" is built on a distorting bass pattern. Actually it sounds very like Wiley's stuff, same eyeball-vein thrombosis effect. "Colony" is a natty bit of Forth World posturing.

24. Reese: Forcefield.
Reese here almost as hot as on "Just want another Chance". Lots of stabs. Repeat after me in Darth Vader styled voice: "Force...Field". AGAIN a bassline track.

25. Constant Ritual: Hardway to Come.
Jeez I'm a saddo. This was a Promo which accompanied the second Network Techno Compilation. Nice wider grooves and fatter production than on the elpee. But Look! I've painted over the label so as to disguise from my brother the fact that I've nicked it off him. Seriously I will not be thanking anyone who tells him! Vice's Jay Denham in ambient mode. All micro tension. Can I say Micro here Phil? Is that OK? Pivoting on one of those characteristic 2 finger bleep riffs. Steamy shunting drums. I played this to my Dad once. He thought it was boring. It's ace!

26. Kenny Larkin: Biotic.
Another bit of Promo action. Makes one soberly reflect on all the great music we mortals never get to hear, which circulates on dub-plaes and white labels. THAT's the real story of Detroit. This is sooo Aquatic, and actually mixes up a treat with that track. Possibly a little before Drexciya, so aqua-pioneering. Drexciya I'd class as Fourth Wave and I've never really dug them, a bit too austere. Not clubby enough for old hotpants here. I do have "Deep Sea Dweller" which is nice, especially "Sea Snake" off that.

27. Morgan Geist: Quadri-Locular.
Which came up in conversation with Dan Setzer, Morgan's buddy, the other day. Yeah he's no spring chicken. I had this for nearly ten years before he scored big-time with Metro Area, which I also rate, particularly the third EP. He's been doing the same shit for years too it appears. "Spillway" off this is beautiful digital disco. Strange! Like Ramsey & Fen's "Love Bug" it's got queer 1930s Charleston overtones.

28. Art Vader EP.
I'm not sure if this is a bootleg. It's got "Tell Alexei" by K.Alexei Shelby, one of his characteristic "moan" tracks: "Tell Alexei how much you love him", nice Steve Poindexter-esque whistles and shekere. That figues K.Alexei was from Chicago too. Art Vader EP also features Mayday's "Wiggin" without the steel drums that spice it up on the "Innovator" Network 6-tracker, which I aint seen on Transmat.

29. Open House: Aquatic.
Another monster Retoactive tune. Somebody PLEASE do a proper reissue of this stuff! Lovely sleeve drawing by Alan Oldham (see Pedro bell and Limonious). Whales innit.

Well that was fun if a little exhausting. Now I know how Marcello feels! Anyway do you get the point? That's to say there is alot more heterogeneity to the music of Detroit than is given justice to in the current critical climate. Detroit-vs-Ardkore. It's not a competition!

Posted by Woebot at July 23, 2003 10:41 PM