What constitutes "techno?"

[derby378]

After seeing some comments on another thread, I had to start this one. It's my understanding that techno has morphed into a whole bunch of different genres and flavors, as listed below:

HOUSE - The original Detroit roots (Richie Hawtin, for starters)
JUNGLE/DRUM AND BASS - Dilinja, Roni Size, Distorted Minds, etc.
AMBIENT - Chill-out atmospherics from FSOL and "microscopic" stuff from Frank Bretschneider and Taylor Deupree
TRANCE - What most of us associate with techno; Chemical Brothers and William Orbit are good at this stuff
HARDCORE - Evolved from trance; includes traditional hardcore (Lenny Dee), gabber (Delta 9, Euromasters), and speedcore (DOA, Tocsin)
INTELLIGENT - Small but mighty genre that includes Kenny Larkin
BREAKCORE - Relatively new genre that mixes drum and bass, gabber, intelligent, and Negativland-style noise

I'm sure I'm leaving out some, but it's past my bedtime. Educate me further, please!

[Heyo]

1. You've got it somewhat right...

.. but trance is not Chemical brothers....

Trance is always what one would call a straight-beat.. which is an even drum beat.. like "boom.. boom... boom.. boom... boom" evenly spaced) Keep in mind though not all straight beat is Trance.. some of it it house, too.. house is always straight-beat

Chemical brothers is pretty much all breaks..

Breaks are like.. I guess sped up hip-hop type beats is the best way I could describe it...

A perfect example of "breaks" would be the group Koma and Bones.. (they are my favorite.. I suggest, if you have any interest in electronic music, you fire up your favorite file sharing program and search for some Koma and Bones.. also Hybrid, BT, Terminalhead

Jungle is a much faster BPM, sometimes about 170-180 BPM.. and has a very distinc sound.. hard to describe, but very bassy.. Jungle and Drum'n'Bass are pretty much the same..

Hardcore is lame ass whack CRAP. (IMHO)

Let me know if you want some good reccomendations.. I used to be a DJ, and I sput techno at local raves.. (WAY back in the day)

Heyo

[derby378]

2. Them's the breaks

You got a point about Chemical Brothers - my first experience with them was with what sounded like trance-oriented breaks. Prescription Beats is a relatively obscure B-side of theirs, I think, but one of my all-time favorites.

Drum and Bass: I used to listen to SoundCoRE out of the UK every Monday afternoon until Air America went on-line (now I catch the archived shows). Wonderful, wonderful place to listen to DnB. You can catch them in the States from 2p-4p CDT on BassDrive.

Hardcore: I can't help it - I love my hardcore. But it has to be done with a little TLC. Cranking out a gabber track by laying down a 909 kick at 200 bpm and looping your own shouted obscenities just won't do it for me. I enjoy a lot of the stuff from the Industrial Fucking Strength series. Also, Hellsau and Ultraviolence produced a brilliant speedcore remix of the latter's Strangled.

BTW, I see a lot of "Ibiza" discs, but I've never heard any of that stuff. Is Ibiza a genre unto itself, or is it just a catchword for bachelor-pad ambient/chill Submarine-style beats?

[dolo amber]

7. Ooooh, "Smoke Machine"

I love that song. :D

[RandomKoolzip]

3. If it's metronomic tinkertoy music.....

and you can imagine some overgrown infant sucking on a glow in the dark pacifier and wearing incredibly baggy pants whilst dancing to it, it's probably techno (or jungle or downtempo or trip hop or drum and bass or the artist formerly known as techno or whatever the hell the music press is calling it this week.)

[derby378]

4. NO CLUB KIDS!!

We're talking techno, not the goofballs searching for that infinite K-hole to fall into.

The hardest drug I ever took was Ritalin - and then only with a doctor's prescription. :eyes:

[jpgray]

5. Uhn-tss (repeated many times)?

[RandomKoolzip]

9. LOL!

If you can imagine hearing it when you pass through Old Navy's doors....it's probably techno.

[Heyo]

10. HAHAHAHAHA..

That is too funny because it's so damned accurate... uhn-tss uhn-tss uhn-tss....

hehehehe

Heyo

[Beware the Beast Man]

6. Problem with electronic music

Is that all the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-genres turn me away. And I compose music with electronic elements, too.

[Dukkha]

8. me too

I simply refer to it all as Electronica. I've never seen a group of people more obsessed with not being pigeonholed into a title. to the inexperienced listener it all sounds the same anyway.

Rave: that's a long song!

b.t.w. I write ambient music

[barackmyworld]

11. you forgot my favorite techno!

and that is euro and vocal techno. The stuff that is basically pop music, but with harder electronic beats.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

12. I wouldn't call the Chemicals trance, they sadly are big-beat.

There's always Handbag, the worst genre ever. As far as intelligent goes, that would revolve around Leftfield, Underworld etc.