Anyone heard or seen this documentary? Came out around 97-98 Below is a partial review of it (includes comments of another documentary as well)
__________ Universal Techno, directed by Dominique Deluze last year, covering the scenes in Europe, USA and Japan. The film started with Richard D James wandering in some eerie catacombs, explaining how it feels like home, and eventually almost looked like "Who's Who in Techno", featuring Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, Kenny Larkin, Jeff Mills, even Mike Banks (who only agreed to be interviewed with his face covered); from Europe (vastly overrated but for this feature essential, I guess) Sven Väth, Autechre (touring in Barcelona), Mark Bell of (and these days also all of) LFO, Steve Beckett of Warp Records; and from Japan, Ken Ishii. All in all, and what usually troubles all features of this kind, the documentary felt at times too patchy, giving artists only a chance to provide some memorable soundbites at their best (the scene with Derrick May and his visual designer giving a weird rap on the tenth planet of solar system was great!); with some interesting glimpes to the streets of Detroit (which looked at times like some post-apocalyptic war zone, really), Sheffield and Tokyo, and of course to some sublime-looking raves, parties (Jeff Mills in all-DJ action, mmm...), gigs and videos (Ken Ishii's 'Extra', LFO's 'Tied Up' and Autechre's 'Second Bad Vilbel'). And as usually, the omissions were almost as remarkable as what was featured there: where were for example Robert Hood, Carl Craig or Richie Hawtin; all jungle and trip hop (or hardcore) artists; or minimalists like Maurizio and Sähkö/Panasonic posse (I must be biased here...) -- but obviously it's totally impossible to cover all scene in merely an hour.
