1.Prologue
In MUSIC & PARTIES #032, I wrote about progressive house—a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the U.K. in the 90s. In this article, I will cover the distinct brand of techno music that developed concurrently in Germany.
Any story about German electronic music must begin with Kraftwerk, the avant-garde electronic/synth-pop band that formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 and reached the peak of its popularity in the second half of the 70s. At the same time that Kraftwerk was developing its robot pop aesthetic, the Italian producer Giorgio Moroder was creating euro disco in Munich. Both Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder strongly influenced the Belleville Three—Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson—the founders of Detroit techno.
As the 80s progressed, techno and house music from the U.S. began to spread throughout Europe. Acid house would follow in the late 80s. The music would lead to the development of the rave scene and progressive house in the U.K. Meanwhile, in West Germany, a distinct techno sound began to develop in Frankfurt, fostered by the party animal of all party animals, DJ Sven Väth. After the Berlin Wall fell between 1989 and 1991, the German techno scene took root in Berlin, and dance floors came to symbolize the unification of West and East Germany.
The influence of German techno would spread to Japan, helping foster the local techno and house scene from the late 90s onwards.
2.Sven Väth: Germany’s Biggest Party Animal
Sven Väth was born in Frankfurt, West Germany in 1964. His mother and father had escaped separately from East Germany and met each other in a town near Frankfurt. They would often go out dancing, and in 1979 they opened their own English pub in Frankfurt, complete with a small dance floor. There the young Sven was introduced to a wide variety of music, from rock ‘n’ roll to pop and disco.
In the summer of 1980, the 16-year-old Sven decided to travel to Ibiza after hearing about the island paradise from locals in Frankfurt. He hitchiked to Barcelona and managed to make it to the island, where he was struck by culture shock at the sight of hippies smoking and dancing on the street. For three months, he slept on beach chairs and distributed flyers for local clubs in order to get by—and gain entry into the clubs. At Amnesia, he was moved to tears by the eclectic Balearic style of DJ Alfredo, and he decided that he wanted to become a DJ. After returning home, his mother noticed the fire growing within her son, and asked Sven to DJ at their pub. The gig became Sven’s first residency.
Around 1981-82, Sven became a resident DJ at a nightclub called the Dorian Gray that was considered the Studio 54 of Germany. The club was located beneath Frankfurt Airport, and its unique location meant that it was open practically 24 hours a day. Sven got into music production and formed the dance pop trio Off in 1985; the group would get their break with the single “Electric Salsa", which became a hit across Europe, selling over 1 million copies. Sven and the group started to tour Europe as pop sensations. After a series of follow-up singles and a second album, the group broke up in 1990.
Aside from his work as a pop star, Sven opened the dance club Omen in Frankfurt in 1988. At a time when the music scene was dominated by punk rock and new wave, Omen was one of the few clubs in Germany to focus on techno and house music. This was aided by the presence of an American base and American record stores in Frankfurt, which allowed Sven and his fellow DJs to obtain quality vinyl from overseas. Omen became one of the most renowned clubs in Germany, and famous DJs from around Germany and beyond were invited to take to the decks. Notable names included the Munich-based DJ Hell, as well as Jeff Mills and Richie Hawtin from North America. The
In addition to running the club, Sven also launched two techno labels: Eye Q in 1991, and Harthouse Records in 1992. Eye Q’s driving, minimal sound is often considered an early form of trance music for its hypnotic qualities; Harthouse Records was more about techno and experimental sounds. Sven himself released a couple of original albums of ambient-leaning trance music. The labels set themselves apart from other, more commercial labels by using live instrumentation played by professional musicians—as opposed to a DJ messing around with electronic devices. In the mid-to-late 90s, trance became increasingly melodic and commercial, and Sven would tire of the sound. In 1997, he left both labels.
In 1996, Sven was inspired to start a series of parties embodying the concept of metamorphosis (change, transformation) and change after seeing an avant-garde theater performance in Spain. The first Cocoon party featured DJ Hell and the English big beat/techno group Underworld. Sven toured the concept across Europe, but had to pour his life savings into the project as his determination to keep the party authentically underground had meant it had no corporate sponsors. Eventually, he could no longer afford to keep them going.
In 1999, he would revive Cocoon, this time as a booking agency to manage the young DJs and producers in his circle. Gradually, he began to hold Cocoon-themed events again, and launched a label, Cocoon Recordings. Cocoon became the launching pad for many of techno’s current stars, including Ricardo Villalobos, Dubfire, Roman Flügel, and Guy Gerber.
Ever since Sven hitchhiked to Ibiza in 1980, he had become an Ibiza regular, returning to the island every summer. Starting in 1999, he began throwing Cocoon parties on Mondays at Amnesia, providing crowds with a welcome alternative to the predominantly trance and commercial music-leaning offerings on the island at the time. Today Cocoon Ibiza is one of the party destination’s most highly respected parties, and at the end of every year, in November or December, Sven releases a mix compilation that looks back on Cocoon’s Ibiza season.
In 2004, Sven also opened Cocoon nightclub in Frankfurt, where he welcomed the biggest names in electronic music, from techno to trance. The club was intended to cater to Sven’s generation of clubgoers, and as such it boasted cutting-edge interior design, two restaurants run by a celebrity chef, and a lounge. Unfortunately, the concept was not a great match for the industrial city of Frankfurt, and the club closed its doors in 2012.
●Sven Väth Picks
3.The Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Rise of German Techno
While Sven Väth was leading the German techno and house scene from Frankfurt, punk rock and industrial music remained the favored music in Berlin. The catalysts for Berlin transforming into the techno capital of the world was the fall of the Berlin Wall between 1989 and 1991, and the Love Parade music festival, which started in 1989.
Love Parade started as a small political demonstration of about 150 people in downtown Berlin under the banner of “Peace, joy, and pancakes". It gradually grew over the years that followed, attracting revelers not only from throughout Germany but from around the world. Sven Väth himself first DJed at the event in 1990. During the event’s peak years between 1997 and 2000, it drew audiences of more than 1 million. DJs that took to the deck during the parade’s grand finale included the aforementioned DJ Hell, the techno giant Carl Cox as well as major trance DJs like Paul van Dyk, DJ Tiesto, and Armin van Buuren. The festival’s success led to a series of spin-off events held across Germany was well as in places like Paris, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, and San Francisco.
After the fall of the Berlin wall, abandoned buildings and spaces around the city became the stage for underground parties and raves. One of the scene’s most important clubs, Tresor, was opened in what used to be a bank vault. Tresor had to close down in 2005 because of local redevelopment, but it reopened in a decommissioned heat and energy plant in 2007. Another major club was Ostgut, which opened in 1998 in a railroad warehouse. It shut down in 2003 but reopened under the name Berghain the following year in an abandoned energy plant.
It was on these dance floors that the younger generations of West and East Germany would begin to come together. As the 90s progressed, police in the U.S. and U.K. began to crack down on illegal raves; meanwhile in Germany, cheap rent and easy-to-obtain artist visas turned Berlin into a hub for techno producers, DJs, clubbers, and ravers from around the world.
The aforementioned Tresor and Berghain would also start up their own labels—Tresor and Ostgut Ton, respectively. The labels released music from Detroit techno producers while also fostering a native German techno sound. Meanwhile, Jeff Mills and Richie Hawtin would bring minimal techno over from Detroit, inspiring many local DJs to adopt a more minimal sound.
One notable name from the scene is Ellen Allien, who worked as resident DJ for Berlin’s biggest nightclubs in the 90s, including Tresor, and also became a regular at Love Parade. In 1999, she launched her own label, called BPitch Control, which has launched the careers of artists like Paul Kalkbrenner, Apparat, and Modeselektor—names that have led the German techno scene since the 2000s.
Allien is also notable for being one of the first big female names in an industry that is largely dominated by male DJs and producers. One of her German contemporaries is the techno and house DJ Monika Kruse, who became a regular at Omen in the mid-90s and performed at events in the U.K. with the likes of Carl Cox. DJs like Allien and Kruse paved the way for a wave of female techno DJs that followed, including Anja Schneider, Nicole Moudaber, Nina Kraviz, Magda, and Amelie Lens.
The burgeoning techno scene in Berlin would spread across the country. In Cologne, producer Michael Mayer started a label called Kompakt, which took the German techno sound and warmed it up a bit with elements of trance and ambient music. Its roster includes techno artists like The Field and Gui Boratto.
●German Techno Picks
4.The Japanese Techno Scene of the 90s
The Detroit techno scene of the 80s onwards and the German techno scene of the 90s would have a big effect on the development of the Japanese techno scene.
One of the most important figures in Japanese techno is Ishino Takkyu, the musical mind behind the techno duo Denki Groove. Ishino grew up listening to electronic/synth-pop groups like YMO and Kraftwerk. While Denki Groove started out as a hip hop-leaning group with comical raps, acid house and German techno would inspire Ishino to take the group in a techno-leaning direction. Ishino is also popular in Japan as a solo DJ act, and he even performed in front of 1.5 million attendees at the 1998 Love Parade. The experience would lead Ishino to start Wire, a large-scale indoor techno rave that played an integral role in growing the Japanese techno scene in the 2000s.
The most internationally renowned Japanese techno DJ is Ken Ishii. Ishii was born in Sapporo in Hokkaido Prefecture and raised in Tokyo. After graduating from the Sociology department at Hitotsubashi University, he started working at Dentsu, Japan’s biggest advertising agency. However, he would ultimately decide to quit and become a professional DJ.
Ken Ishii’s sound combines Detroit techno with the experimental flair of YMO and a Japanese appreciation for beauty and detail. His 1993 debut LP, Garden On the Palm, was ranked #1 on U.K. music magazine NME’s techno chart. It subsequently received substantial airplay on Japanese radio, including on Denki Groove’s radio show. Ishii also composed the music for the opening ceremony of the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. In 2000, he appeared on the cover of Newsweek magazine as a global ambassador of modern Japanese culture. In 2004, he was named Best Techno DJ at the Ibiza DJ Awards.
Then there’s Kyoto-born, currently Berlin-based DJ/producer Tanaka Fumiya. He grew up playing in punk rock bands, dropped out of high school, and then found himself drawn to clubbing culture. He started DJing around Osaka in the early 90s, and started his own label, Torema Records, in 1993. In 94, he joined Denki Groove on tour as supporting DJ. In 95, he released what is considered one of the first major mix albums released by a Japanese DJ, titled I am not a DJ. In 2001, he released a single and album from German label Tresor. Whereas Ishino Takkyu is influenced by German techno and Ken Ishii is a student of Detroit techno, Tanaka is known as “the gang leader of Japanese minimal techno.”
Other notable techno names include the late Susumu Yokota, who released his debut album from Sven Väth’s label Harthouse Records and became the first Japanese performer to play on the Love Parade stage, and Sunahara Yoshinori, who was a member of Denki Groove between 1991 and 1999.
●Japanese Techno Picks
5.Epilogue
Love Parade, one of dance music’s biggest festivals, entered a slump after enjoying its peak years between 1997 and 2000. While the event had begun as a political demonstration, it had devolved into a commercial party. What’s more, bigger and bigger crowds caused issues such as a lack of bathrooms and garbage problems. In 2004 and 2005, the event was canceled due to lack of financial resources, and while it was held again in 2006, the city of Berlin refused to host it the following year. Starting in 2007 it was held in the Ruhr region. In 2010, overcrowding at the end of a 240-meter-long tunnel leading to the event resulted in 21 deaths and over 500 injuries, and in the aftermath the organizers announced that the event was permanently canceled.
Love Parade had launched with high ideals and a vision of love and peace, but over time it became commercialized, and ultimately ended in tragedy. More than anything, the Love Parade disaster reveals the danger—and ultimately, the limits—of an underground subculture being turned into a mainstream phenomenon.
In the late 60s, hippies and the proponents of psychedelic music believed that music had the power to change the world. That utopian vision achieved its peak at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. However, as the Vietnam War continued and devolved into a quagmire in the years that followed, the hippie dream started to dissipate like a cloud of marijuana smoke. In the decades that followed, peaceful hippie idealism became increasingly commercialized, and nowhere is that more evident than in mainstream rock and pop music.
Then there’s Live Aid in 1985, which was held to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Despite the benefit concert’s success, much of the funds it raised ended up going into the hands of the Ethiopian government rather than the people who most needed it. Today, films like Bohemian Rhapsody rake in profits at the box office, while few people—if any—care to assess the legacy of such humanitarian efforts to bring about change in the world. How could they, when Bohemian Rhapsody couldn’t even care to give proper attention to Freddie Mercury’s sexuality and his death as a result of AIDS?
No surprise, then, that progressive house, big beat, and German techno would also be increasingly commercialized from the 2000s onwards, with major record companies and promoters attempting to milk electronic dance music for all that it was worth. The EDM craze has swept the world with soulless, cookie-cutter music that is a pale imitation of its underground origins.
Ironically, the moment that underground music enters the mainstream, it loses all of its power to bring about change in society. It’s taken away from the hands of the artists and given over to executives and marketers. While music has the power to move individuals and create a feeling of oneness, perhaps it is fundamentally incapable of changing our society. In that sense, there is value to an underground scene remaining underground, affecting individual souls in its most pure form.
