In a message dated 8/14/00 8:15:43 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< List some of the great Detroit techno artists' albums and you'll
likely see
Landcruising, Silent Phase, both Nighttime Worlds, The Collective, and the
list goes on (hard to cite the ones that grace my collection now b/c
they're
all packed up). Then there are other albums like Neil Olivera's Detroit
Escalator Company - Soundtrack 313 that couldn't possibly fit better into
the Detroit state of mind, if not including a single uptempo track. The
narrow definition of techno doesn't do justice to the distiction between
"ambience" and downtempo Detroit which properly occupy different spheres
by
and large. Claude Young's Multiplicity of Zeros and Ones could as easilly
be
classified as "ambient" by someone who doesn't listen to a lot of Detroit
as
the trance guy at the local club referring to Basic Channel as trance.
Seems to me the term "great" is being tossed about
somewhat carelessly here. Stacey Pullen, Octave One,
Claude Young and Robert Hood have had their moments
(in fact Claude has his excellent "DJ Kicks", which isn't
really an original album, and Robert Hood has the good,
if too close to formulaic, "Minimal Nation"), but I would
make objections to them being placed in the class of Carl
Craig, one of the best Detroit techno producers. Carl has
had, over his career, both a depth and bredth of vision
unrivaled in his native city or anywhere else on the techno
landscape. It took him a few tries to get out of Derrick
May's shadow, at least in a production sense, but he has
done it, and deserves respect as being an innovator, an
elevator and one of techno's best ambassadors. I realize
that Detroit producers seem all about unity, and brotherhood
prohibits decent criticism, so I'm speaking as someone from
the East Coast who just likes good music. I think Carl Craig exists
in a Detroit stratosphere with just May and Banks, and their only equals
that I have heard are people like Basic Channel, Global Communication,
and B12. So when we refer to "great" albums, let's talk about
techno's absolute best, rather than above-average efforts, because
in the long run, can an above-average efforts mean anything in
two, three, five, or ten years? I guess that's a personal decision....
Meanwhile detractors will claim Detroit has fallen off. Albums take more
focus, time and God knows they seem to take longer to actually hit the
shelf
than the 12 inches do. So if maturing and mature Detroit artists take the
time to focus on an album and reduce their other output in the meantime,
not
only does it decrease the number of "techno" tracks on the end product
while
they flex their breadth of taste, it decreases the output and the number
of
releases DJs are likely to pick up. >>
There's no point though, I think, in claiming Detroit has fallen
off, because it has always had rough patches, and there
have always been only a handful of truly exceptional
producers working. The reason people who don't choose
to look into the past to assess the present find the
current Detroit "fallen off" is because there isn't a flood
of records coming from the scene anymore, and the
Detroit sound isn't new. However, the Three Chairs
(Theo, KDJ, and Rick Wilhite) all are doing some very
interesting work in tech-house, and while that may not
be "new", it is certainly unique and is helping to advance the
platform. I'd say those three are about as good as anyone
in Detroit's past. Carl and Mike are still working, and still
have their moments of sheer brilliance, and DJ Rolando
of course had the sensational "Jaguar" and a great mix disc.
I think it's good there isn't a deluge of mediocre discs flooding
out like there used to be: saves vinyl for rock stars' pants.
As for decreasing the output to DJ's....techno
producers made hundreds of cool tracks with just some basic
electronic machines in the old days; the guitar has six strings and
two dozen frets, people have been doing things with that for a
whole century. If DJ's can't make magic with thousands and
thousands of tracks, what are we supposed to think of them?
If Mills really did say something similar to he's being working with
a few hundred records for ten years, I think he is right on. It's
very easy for lackluster DJ's (and there are loads of them) to
just complain about what they don't have. The DJ medium's
capacity has hardly been explored.
Anyway, it is the UK techno scene which has fallen off, not Detroit.
But we'll talk about that another time.
Matt
