"Techno City" was 1984. The term was in use long before Neil Rushton used it as a marketing hook, but it was a different kind of descriptive than "house." Techno tends to be more instrumental, and the vocals are often consciously machine-like (Kraftwerk and Model 500 certainly share that approach). House is more vocal-based, with origins in soul, disco and the African American church. So in house you get a lot of proclaiming: "I am the creator/and this is my house music . . ." Techno, like bebop jazz, tends to take a more roundabout way to self-description.
These are pretty fuzzy categories -- you have a lot of house that is very machinelike (certainly that's the whole point of acid house), and some techno with vocals, but after listening and playing a whole lot of both for a dozen years, I have a pretty clear idea in my own mind where the boundaries are. Although you can argue in particular cases whether a track is "house" or "techno," and some seem to deliberately blend both (Octave One's "I Believe" is a good example). >From a wider angle, house and techno are really part of the same musical continuum. They are not musically antagonistic and I always like to hear a blend of both as opposed to just house or just techno. This goes back all the way to the beginning 20 years ago in their co-development in Detroit and Chicago. fred fred
