Minimal techno: Difference between revisions

Minimal techno, is a form of electronic dance music (EDM) that is considered a minimalist sub-genre of techno. It is characterized by a stripped-down^[1] aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition, and understated development. This apporach to dance music production generaly adheres to the motto less is more; a principle that has been previously utilised, to great effect, in architecture, design, visual art, and Western art music. The tradition of minimalist aesthethics in Western culture can be traced to the German Bauhaus movement (1919 to 1933). Minimal techno is thought to have been developed in the early 1990's by Detroit producer Robert Hood.^[2]

Related styles include Detroit techno, ambient techno, microhouse and tech house.

Many Minimal techno works feature consonant harmony, but most lack functional chord progression, sometimes to the point of seeming atonal. Melodies, when present, are usually short loops of one or two bars, and emphasis is put on creating layers of unique sounds. Musical development is achieved mostly by adding or removing instruments (sounds) on eight-bar phrase boundaries and adjusting sound effects. Music created under this genre can range from melodic harmonies with a prominent bass line, to glitchy, unstructured, disjointed sounds which are unified to create an organised new track.

Minimal techno tends to take on one of two styles, either a skeletalism or a massification. In skeletal techno only the core elements of the genre are included in the tracks; embellishments are used only for the sake of variation within the song. Massification is a type of minimalism in which many sounds are layered, but with little variation in sonic elements. Minimalism within techno has been the impetus for many genres such as Detroit Techno, Chicago House and Acid musicians to do more with less. Today its influences are not only found in clubs, but becoming more commonly heard in popular music. ^[3] Regardless of the style, "minimal Techno corkscrews into the very heart of repetition" so cerebrally as to often inspire descriptions like "spartan", "clinical", "mathematical", and "scientific."^[4]

Broadly speaking, minimal techno (as well as house) branches off into two categories, either skeletalism or massification. Skeletalism is defined as stripping away all embellishments--the inessential, "predictable" sounds used to produce techno--leaving the music devoid of traditional drum samples and instead replaced with "pared-down, white noise" like clicks, glitches and crackles which have been sequenced into 4/4 pulses. The sound of skeletalism can be heard in many of Richie Hawtin's productions, often which incorporate a bassy, dark and simplified sound.

Massification, on the other hand, incorporates more of a classical minimalist approach, featuring complex pulses and poly-rhythms. Massification is more readily explored in techno than that of Skeletalism, due in part to the dynamic resources available to produce the sound of massification. Techno artist Ricardo Villalobos is often regarded as a producer who utilizes massification while mixing techno, using only a few, select sounds to comprise a dense, highly rhythmic song.

Minimal techno, like most contemporary electronic dance music, has its roots in the landmark works of pioneers such as Kraftwerk and Detroit Techno's Derrick May and Juan Atkins, all of whom worked in a relatively pared-down style. Minimal techno focuses on "rhythm and repetition instead of melody and linear progression", much like classical minimalist music and the polyrhythmic African musical tradition that helped inspire it, a connection exemplified by Richie Hawtin's "Afrika".^[5] By 1994, according to critic Philip Sherburne, the term "minimal" was in use to describe "any stripped-down, Acidic derivative of classic Detroit style."^[6]

Los Angeles based writer Daniel Chamberlin, attributes the origin of minimal techno to the German producers Basic Channel and in doing so fails to credit the contributions of Robert Hood or mention the influence of Hood, and other members of Underground Resistance, on the Berlin techno scene of the early 1990's (the scene out of which Basic Channel emerged). Chamberlin draws parallels between the compositional techniques used by producers such as Richie Hawtin, Wolfgang Voigt, and Surgeon and that of American minimalist composer Steve Reich, in particular the pattern phasing system Reich employs in many of his works; the earlist being "Come Out". Chamberlin also sees the use of sine tone drones by minimalist composer La Monte Young and the repetitive patterns of Terry Riley's "In C." as other major influences^[7]

In his essay Digital Discipline: Minimalism in House and Techno writer Philip Sherburne also points to the possible influence of American minimalist composers on EDM, particularly minimal techno; yet, both Sherburne and Chamerlin largely understate the possible influence on EDM of ethnic music, such as that from Africa (and it's many Afro-American derivatives), Indonesia, and India. Sherburne does concede that the similarities may be accidental; he also notes that much of the music technology used in EDM has traditionally been designed to suit loop based compositional methods (therefore, it's hardly surprising that the results sound similar to Reich's early tape loop works).

One group who clearly had an awareness of American minimalism is the British act The Orb. Their 1990 production Little Fluffy Clouds features a a sample from Steve Reich's work Electric Counterpoint (1987). Further acknowledgement of Steve Reich's possible influence on EDM came with the release in 1999 of the Reich Remixed tribute album which featured reinterpretations by artists such as DJ Spooky, Mantronik, Ken Ishii, and Coldcut, among others. In listening to this album and works by Reich, such as that sampled by the Orb it is difficult to see any direct relationship with the minimal techno productions Robert Hood describes: "a basic stripped down, raw sound. Just drums, basslines and funky grooves and only what's essential. Only what is essential to make people move. I started to look at it as a science, the art of making people move their butts, speaking to their heart, mind and soul. It's a heart-felt rhythmic techno sound".

In recent years, the genre has taken great influence from, to the point of merging with the microhouse genre. It has also fragmented into a great number of difficult to categorize subgenres, equally claimed by the minimal techno and microhouse tags.

Minimal techno has found mainstream club popularity since 2004 in such places as Germany, France, South Africa, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Ireland and the UK with DJs from a wide variety of genres incorporating differing elements of its tones, the famed after-hours club DC10 in Ibiza being one exponent of the genre.

By the second half of 2006, the term 'minimal' had in many ways become contradictory, as it serves as a denominator for the tech house sounds of the moment, many of which should rather be coined as 'maximal' in terms of their sonic content, in contrast to the original stripped down, i.e. minimalist electronic genre.^{[citation needed]}

For the newer minimal techno listeners in northern europe, many of whom have learnt of minimal techno through clubbing, the russian internet radiostation Deepmix has become a popular source of minimal techno.

Notable artists and labels include Daniel Bell, Ben D, Richie Hawtin (a.k.a. Plastikman), Ricardo Villalobos, Luca Bacchetti, Mika Vainio, Maurizio (Basic Channel), Jeff Mills, Steve Bug, Luciano (Lucien Nicolet), Robert Hood, Troy Pierce (a.k.a. Louderbach), Sleeparchive (Roger Semsroth), Sutekh (Seth Horvitz) Minimal: Impossible (Tom O'Hara), Dj Ivanoff, Raresh (Romania), Trentemøller (Denmark). Some record labels specializing in minimal techno are 90wattsrecords, M nus, Underline, Foundsound, Sähkö Recordings, Force Inc, Kompakt, Trapez, Tenax Recordings, Cadenza, Poker Flat Recordings, Wagon Repair, Marco Carola, Revolver Canada, Minimouse Records

• Minimalmusic.org Microhouse Minimal IDM Xperimental Ambient Large collection of minimal techno DJ mixes, and Releases from Netlabels and Commercial Records Labels.
• minimal techno podcast - Large collection of minimal techno DJ mixes.
• mnml.nl - international minimal house/techno-oriented website and forum.
• techno minimal community - big collection of techno minimal mixes, playlists, intwrweiw and other stuff.
• minimal techno forum - leading web forum dedicated to minimalx