Taking Sides: Techno vs. House

Seriously though, there's heaps of house that fits the non-diva, non-songful, ultra-psychotic bill. In particular, ninety percent of acid house, and a lot of the tougher end of mid-nineties Chicago house (Green Velvet and the Relief artists, DJ Rush, a lot of the stuff on Felix Da Housecat's Radikal Fear label). I'll try to think of more later.

funny, i remember jan jelinek (or someone...i can't keep anyone straight any more) saying something roughly similar, that he felt a certain pathos bubbling underneath deep house, etc. that it induced "pathetic feelings" (please note that "pathetic" was probably owing to english as a s.l.)

it's a chicken or egg argument, innit?

but let's not forget that the house crew (not to be confused with The House Crew) can be tedious boor(e)s just like the slapheads. (cf. moodyman's basic assertion that any "house" made by people who basically weren't black and from chicago wasn't house at all. endless and numbing pleas for a return to "the funk", yadda yadda.)

Omar & Gareth are right in that there's a lot of overlap, but I would say there's a basic difference in someone setting out to make a house record and someone setting out to make a techno record. The groove is different. There's a certain astringency to even the lushest techno record, and a certain lusciousness to even the harshest house record.

If I was slightly less intoxicated right now I'd go further, but at any rate a complete explanation is lost somewhere in the as-of-yet unrefurbished Skykicking archives.

Oh, and Omar is indeed correct: that Hardfloor compilation is Godlike.

'i always saw house as disco's revenge' was it frankie knuckles who said that ? anyway, chalk me up on the house side.

Speaking of this general genre, anybody had a chance to hear the new Force Trax mix CD? I'm curious about that, because Hypercity seemed such a good introduction to the whole Force, Inc. scene. How does Force Trax differ from Force, Inc., anyway?

I'm not sure I know the difference too well but house seems to have become this massive sprawling entity. I mean it might as well be a whole genre in itself, saying "I like house music" is so meaningless now.

I'm not sure if the same is true of techno, but then I don't know enough about it. I will say in my experience techno dj sets tend to be a bit hard for my liking. they often seem like one song going on forever which is a good thing if you're on e or something but otherwise I'm not so sure.

House is a bit of a chameleon isn't it? generally you'll hear a bit of house in any club even if it's not the predominant genre there.

Anyway, that's applies house v. techno, methinks. There's not necessarily a tidy way to articulate a uniform distinction--and there are tons of exceptions--but there is a line that exists. (And that line's been drawn pretty well above.)

Detroit techno from the late 80s and early 90s was often wonderful. I like its icy, melancholic qualities. However, I don't think it was quite as innovative as many people say it was. Early-80s electro was the truly ground-breaking music. Techno artists such as Juan Atkins "refined" electro by removing its trashy novelty aspects. However, they also removed some of electro's strong points (such as its exciting pop structures and links with hip-hop culture). Techno is a "pure" music, and is therefore very limited. I find minimal techno to be particularly inward-looking and dull. For me, the best music to come out of Detroit in the past five years is nu-electro (the sound of techno rediscovering its hybrid pre-history).

House music is far more varied than techno. It brought new life to the disco tradition and spawned many sub-categories of music, some great (acid house, deep house), some not so great (progressive, handbag, and hard house). House is innovative and uplifting.

Regarding electro, I was listening to Drexciya for the first time last night, and it pretty much kicked my ass. I'd love to learn more about electro--it sounds (both in theory and from what I've actually heard) somewhat more exciting than straight-up techno (but then again I guess if it's not "straight-up" then it's not techno qua techno eh?). I've still never heard "Planet Rock"!

DEMON. *covers Clarke in tar and feathers*

Actually, you *have* sort of heard "Planet Rock." Because you have heard "Trans-Europe Express."

But once you include "hardcore techno".... what happens to that?!?

Methinks the problem is that people really do think of "pure" techno when they think of techno because the different forms of techno have little to unify them (pure techno vs hardcore vs gabba vs glitch vs dub-techno vs....) whereas house can do heaps of weird stuff and still be identifiable due to the disco-beat and stable tempo.

Also, based solely on that 'Vocalcity' record by Luomo, I think micro- house (?) is deliciously amazing.

Clarke, I repeat my recommendations earlier, but now underline them. Also, example of why faster does not automatically = better: hard house.

Well, to be perfectly honest, I really hate the distinction made between house and techno. I mean, Is house music just a 909 shuffle, organs, and diva vocals, and is techno just a bunch of methed out Swedish guys banging at 160bpm? I guess you really need to example the clichés in dance music before you can really answer this question.

Here is the bottom line, there was no difference between Techno and House until Europe got involved. Obviously, I have a Detroit prejudice. But back in the day, and we are talking like 1985/Metroplex M01, there was not a distinction between Detroit and Chicago. Detroit Techno was originally called Detroit House. All the Detroit guys had strong connections with the guys in Chicago. In 1987- 88 Detroit Techno was even considered a branch of Acid-House.

You ask Derrick May who the greatest DJ of all time was, and he will not hesitate to tell you that it was Ron Hardy at the Music Box in Chi. All the old Detroit producers were heavily influenced by Chicago and early house music. There was a very strong interplay between those scenes.

The real difference between Techno and House (and I am talking about the real shit, the shit that was made by BLACK people in Detroit and Chicago, not the Euro stuff that fractured everything) Is that Chicago's black population was much more influenced by old Philly Soul and Disco, whereas in Detroit we had Motown and P-funk. When you travel between the two cities, you can tell the difference in flavor by the black oldies stations (Detroit and Chicago have a completely different canon in the classic soul dept.)

The thing with Detroit is that the guys that were going to create Detroit Techno cut their teeth on Electro, Funk, and Italio-Disco. The Electro and Funk influence was not nearly as pronounced in Chi. When Jesse Saunders made his first record, Derrick May's mother was living in Chi and he was there at least twice a month, and he dragged anybody who would come to the Music Box.

As time passes, Metroplex, Transmat, and KMS start making their records. In 1987, Derrick put out Strings Of Life, it become a smash during the Summer Of Love in the UK. That leads to a number of other early Detroit releases, and eventually the Techno Comp that Neil Rushton put together for Ten City. During this time the Detroit guys start asking for a distinction to be made in the press between their music and the music of Chicago. In the late 80's Detroit Techno and Chicago house become divergent genres.

The real split between house and Techno actually came during the second wave of Detroit Techno around 1990. When the first UR and Plus 8 records started coming out that marked a very radical shift. The reason being that that was the first time that Industrial music had poked its head directly into Techno. Mike Banks and Jeff Mills actually met during a Final Cut studio session for Interfisch Records in 1988-89 (If you ever check out your Tresor records, you will notice that Tresor is a division of Interfisch). When the Industrial aspect came into Detroit techno that is where things really started to splinter. Kevin Saunderson also had a lot of banging tracks, and he was responsible for a lot of the hard warehouse tracks in the 90's as well.

What eventually wound up happening is that Industrial eventually became more and more ingrained into what people consider "techno" that hard-as-nails 160bpm evil ass grinding shit. I think Dan Sicko put it best when he said that Techno wears neither passivity nor malice well. What has happened 12 years on, is that everybody thinks techno is the hardass banging shit with no funk whatsoever. The common perception of Techno is that it is this hard soulless music that is completely segregated from anything smooth, soulful, or funky.

As far as I am concerned, Techno is not Adam Beyer or The Surgeon, it is Carl Craig, Kenny Larkin, Octave One, Jeff Mills, and anything on Delsin or Digital Soul records. It is what happens when you take that original house vibe, and you smooth it out and take it into deep space. Techno is black science fiction, Techno is the sound of black kids naively making the music of the next decade as an escape from the first post-industrial ruins of the western world. If you are scared of Detroit in 2002, you would be having a heart attack in the Detroit of 1988 when crack and unemployment were tearing the hood up. All this warm electronic soul music was being made when Detroit was the Murder Capitol.

It is easy in 2002 to say that Detroit aint shit, and techno aint shit, and house this and house that. But the difference was that those Chicago cats were not taking it to outer space, they were keeping it firmly within the confines of the black musical tradition. House was an update on Disco. Techno was House, Funk, and Electro jammed together in a genre.

Detroit Techno influenced everything in underground electronic music in the 90's. Look at your Reese Bassline, your early UK hardcore, Hard Techno. All that shit comes from Kevin Saunderson, you can piss and moan about well it is so sloooow and it sounds like it was recorded on Cassette. Well, it was, and it might sound hella dated, but all the ideas for hard techno and some of jungle are on those cassettes.

You look at Derrick May, you want to know what IDM stands Imitating Derrick May, and the less you do that, the more your IDM sucks. You look at the roots of UK IDM, and where do they lead you, right to Derrick May and Carl Craig. Look at the old labels, like ART, GPR, Warp...all those guys were listening to Detroit records when they started their labels. IDM went to shit when it started distancing itself from its black roots. That is why IDM is so bad right now. You guys might not realize it yet because you are behind the curve, but you will be embarrassed about your IDM records in a year or two, mark my words.

But back to the original question, I do not believe in differentiating between the two. In the Midwest we did not segregate the two genres the way they were pushed apart in other regions of the world. It was not unheard of for dj's to go back and forth in their sets. It is all dance music, and it all suffers the more you try and force everything into it's own separate little box. There was no difference between house and techno until the British got a hold of the music and forced their special gift for classification on it. It is all music, quit trying to push it all apart.

The main difference between the two genres is that Techno has become something utterly purist and divisive, and House just keeps grabbing whatever comes its way. I always think of techno as being more elegant, stark, and theoretical, and house as just being the party music of the next five minutes. Dance music is disposable culture, and Techno will always be the black sheep because it always tries to elevate itself from triviality, and that is also it's greatest problem. House music is Techno happy go lucky older brother, it just wears whatever hat it comfortable today. I am a Detroit Techno head.

It is 4am and my thoughts are utterly scattered. I know that there are some decent ideas in this rant, but they are poorly arranged. This is not the kind of subject that translates well through email. This topic can get so deep, and ilm is not the best place for such a broad discussion.

Take a lesson from your Uncle Mike, If you have a lot to say, wait till the next day to post.

You guys might not realize it yet because you are behind the curve, but you will be embarrassed about your IDM records in a year or two, mark my words.

Now here's the thing -- no doubt there's lots I'm missing [there always is] when it comes to music that needs to be heard, in all sorts and areas. And IDM as a tag was always elitist and sucky. Yet there is still a lot of stuff out there stuck with said tag that I honestly enjoy, with its various debts to all sorts of sources perfectly clear. I don't see it so much as something to be embarrassed about as it is something that's part of its own continuum, and why not?

I actually kinda like some of the new electro--it's like the IKEA of dance music. Small, sleeker, and probably not as wellbuilt, but it sure looks like it.

I enjoyed reading your post and I neither like most of this music nor do I know the names of 95% of the indidividuals you mention. I do remember that techno and house seemed a lot more mixed together and less sharply defined in the late 80's (when I was initially more interested--not to imply that I lost interest because of the genre narrowing that occured afterwards).

For me "Techno" has always been one of the many subs in the broad spectrum called "House",

a spectrum that has its fundamentals in disco, hiphop, synth-pop, kraftwerk, moroder, telext & others-electronics & the electronica- experiments dating all the way back to Luigi Rossolo & the Futurist movement)

Looking at it like that you get one denomination to include them all which could be handy in discussions on boards like this one but would be too confusing somewhere else...

Just my two cents, Johan

Techno is what you get when you remove all the shitty parts from house. That's why techno has its own name, and why techno purists are such Stalinists. They know how easily it could all be turned back into shitty house music. Sometimes, music that isn't shitty at all is purported to be house. I consider this de facto techno. They've removed the shit from house, they just decline to fly the techno flag over it. So I just ignore all the labels and all the Chicago and Detroit mythology and so on. If I like it, it's techno. If I don't like it, it must be house.

You would only know if you were there, surely.

The main difference between the two genres is that Techno has become something utterly purist and divisive, and House just keeps grabbing whatever comes its way. I always think of techno as being more elegant, stark, and theoretical, and house as just being the party music of the next five minutes.

I'd like to tackle this point, because it goes to the root of what I see house music as being about.

To me, this characteristic is why house has become the pervasive force that it is, and why it just keeps going. House is essentially that disco 12" remix ethos of just taking the best bits of a record and dialling them up to the max. Except that house applies this to everything. You like the 4/4 beat and and driving insistence of disco? Turn them up to 11 and you get house. You like fast jittery drums and big basslines? Apply the house ethic, turn them up to 11, and you get jungle.

So you're right in that house isn't really a style, in the ongoing sense. If you're going to talk about these musical forms in terms of being a philosophy, then you have to take the house philosophy, although it is less purist, as being the one that will last, that will continue to produce great art.

If you're going to talk in terms of history - of the origins of both styles, and the canon that both produced in the late 80s, then detroit probably did produce more transcendentally great records, in that period of time. As everyone has pointed out, that tradition went all to shit shortly afterwards.

So, finally, if you're talking about, in totality, everything that has been produced in the name of house and in the name of techno, then as we know there is no contest. It's like comparing jazz to ragtime. Ragtime is a limited, conventional form whereas jazz is a way of approaching music. The canon of trad jazz might be limiting, but the philosophy lives on. And I think that's what history will also say about house...

How do you summon 100 things written on half a dozen threads over six months ? I do remember mentioning the original disco (narrative) nature of house and funk (looped) nature of techno somewhere, sort of like Mike did upthread. Also, saying techno emerged from house, so the direct chronological affiliation explains perceived "overlaps" between the two genres.
You can't severe every link between mother & child, but you can still tell them apart and choose between them : house is a feeling and I'm a Mama's boy

And recently as a DJ (since 10 years) I've understood something truly basic about the vibe you bring to the party with your musical selection. I mean, as listeners we can all appreciate how cleverly disillusioned/melancholic/sad/psychotic-like elements can be oh so poetically conveyed in song and dance and whatnot

but fuck it, you know ? Is life damn short or does it last forever ? You know it, and considering the amount of combined stress and human/ natural misery out there in the world which which we are daily reminded of on a daily basis, I don't think I'll have too much wailing and moaning in my music, thank you very much. Let's repair the day during the night, like when we're dancing horizontally you know what I'm saying ? ahem

I'm not looking for a Soma/E-fueled perfect happy house illusion of an existence outside of reality : I'll have my grime or whatnext like everybody else instead of looking for that edge within too-clever-for-it's-own-good nuelectromicrohousetechnoIDM or those noisy, cheezy rawk remixes being swapped like hotcakes over in the YSI thread. I am in fact surrounded by such producers and have dear friends among them I could be street-teaming here for all fucking day.

10 years ago when hardcore producers like PCP & such used to release records, they represented the current (and I guess necessary) quota of sadness most joyously within the techno framework. Now it's all posing posers, half-ass VIP frowning, asymmetric haircuts and "friendly" ketacoke vibes in the air.

Anyway to quit this Mike-like random ranting I'll just repeat what I explain to people about why I'm trying to stay away from techno altogether in my sets when given the opportunity and loving the world of difference it makes : having well understood the mechanics involved in taking a bunch of people in a room and shaking them energetically for hours using air pressure bursting from loudspeakers as they drink themselves into submission, I would now like to listen to the audience much better and find a way to collectively bind and "heal" us all a little. Thus making women weep with joy horizontally AND vertically *coughhhhhhhhh*

I really really in my heart of hearts believe you can (and should!) do this with techno too. It's difficult, though, and those who can are thin on the ground.

Sorry to get all Tuomas on you guys there, but fortunately this thread was becoming rather emo already.

a severe lack of history, combined with too many years of happy-clappy vapidity in house (not that techno isn't equally capable of cliches & emptiness... but this isn't a bad music thread) left me fairly prejudiced but I've realised how wrong I'd got & that it's more of a symbiotic relationship. Which isn't to say the best stuffs always in the centre-ground between them either, that's the odd thing about it.

see, where i live, this would be the house not the techno straw man

That said, I'm really really really getting more time for electro/breaks/micro/discopunk house at the moment and those have spots that techno doesn't reach. That said, isn't microhouse etc more to do with Techno than House, despite the name?

Search: Autofire - Efficient Beats

I love it that my name has now become an adjective. Anyway, I know shit about the current scenes, but back in the nineties I used to dance to house and listen to techno, and both were equally important. House was like the hedonist utopia with a undercurrent of uncertainty and techno more like the sci-fi dystopia with a glimmer of life. Utopias always promise too much, which makes them both dubious and interesting, whereas dystopias paradoxically make you look for and possibly appreciate whatever human is left in them.

The micro stuff has really had a bigger impact in the techno clubs, where things have slowed down a bit from their speed peak in the late nineties, and gotten more melodic (dare I say Detroit-ish) again. But then such clubs are much more enamoured with (say) Mathew Jonson and Gabriel Ananda than they ever were with Herbert or Luomo.

amazing

Re DJ T - "Philly" and "Freemind" are surely house. "Rising" or "Beat The Streets" are a bit more ambivalent yeah.

Oh ok, then I prefer techno then.

Is Electro Techno or House then?

In my eyes:

Techno = MDMA
House = Coke

One is cheap and embarassing, the other is expensive and dickheady. Both are euphoric in different ways but it's all down to preference, innit?

Blunt, after reading your posts over the past few months I can honestly say this is the first one that made me feel like I truly understand where you're coming from. While I can't say I agree with your conclusions about how to achieve it musically, I definitely agree with your goal.

Where I live coke is extremely cheap, dog latin. It's used everywhere and fucks up the city's night vibe since about 5 years or so. I don't use it, nor do I take MDMA (not since ten years and not planning to)

The thing is, you're also playing with people's expectations and all that they bring to the party. A lot of people expect the dancefloor to be a space to "work out" & get pummelled. That kind of energy. I can summon it, not with my eyes closed or every time or whatever, but it's like I accidentally discovered a new, hidden level in the game, I don't know how to express it better, and need to take everybody there with me.

Now the funny thing is, should I be invited to play a "knowing" house crowd I would be really humbled, trying to tune in really well and not fuck up the direction or spirit or atmosphere with egoist moves or "this cool record just came out I must prove I already have it" stuff.

Also I think fundamentally electro = Kraftwerk = techno. And hip hop, but again through Kraftwerk originally.

(partly joking here)

you might as well be like "villalobos, jeff mills, carl craig - i hate all that etc etc yawn snooze music".

this thread is, as they say, HELLA SORRY

mainly because it ignores the vast zones running through both genres where the "house = organic / utopian, techno = futurist / dystopian" divide doesn't work.

hello chicago house, french house, detroit techno, tech-house, trackmode-style deep house, dark tribal house, pounding abstract progressive house, japanese abstract techno, neo hip house / booty house, basement jaxx style ragga house, 4/4 speed garage, tribal breaks, etc etc

i agree with vahid most of the time except when he says crazy shit like the interludes ruin innovator.

I personally prefer Techno because it sounds more futuristic to me and because it delves into a (non) harmonic realm that conjures up emotions that are more ambiguous and obscure than the Joy, Uplift, Ecstasy of House. I like being transported into the unknown.

Juan Atkins: It has always been techno music. I always called the music I was making techno music.

Kevin Saunderson: We called it "techno" because of Juan. He was the main influence because he called his music "techno". [sings] "Uuuh, Techno City..."

Eddie Fowlkes: For me my first record was more of a house record even though it was hard. But back then you didn't think too much about how to call it. When Neil Rushton put this compilation together (Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit) Derrick wanted to call it "The Best of Detroit House". But then Juan said: "You can all call your music house but what I do is techno music.

Juan Atkins: See, that was because Derrick was going to Chicago and they tried to call our music the house sound of Detroit. In Chicago, you had the Jesse Saunders stuff and the Jamie Principle stuff and titles like "acid house" or something like that. But that was Techno! They just didn't call it that because it would give Detroit too much influence.

Mike Grant: Detroit had this more funky edge while Chicago was more disco. In Detroit you had Mojo [legendary Detroit radio DJ Electrifiyin' Mojo] on the radio who played Jimi Hendrix, the Gap Band, Parliament/Funkaldelic, and a lot of the European things, whereas folks in Chicago were more focused on disco. To me that stuff out of Detroit was very different from the Chicago sound. It's right more synthesizer-based whereas house music was more drum machine-based. You can hear that difference even right back to Cybotron.

I'm working on a huge mix of 1993 stuff at the moment and both the House (euro sound of Cappella, Aftershock, D:Ream, Perfecto mixes of New Order, K-Klass, Robyn S, Sagat, Morales & Oakenfold mixes of U2, MK & Rollo remixes, Hardrive/early M.A.W.) and the Techno (trancier breed e.g. CJ Bolland, Cygnus X, Age Of Love, Garnier, Jam & Spoon thru to Black Dog's 'Bytes' LP and early Cylob thru to ravier remixes by Jonny L and indeed The Prodigy & Moby thru to Detroitian 69, Martian, Drexciya, Millsart thru to Fuse & Plastikman thru to pounding British hard sound of Empirion, Slam plus individual styles of Orbital, Underworld, Fluke etc.) all sounds BRILLIANT still.

It would be really interesting to ask the question back in 1993 and see the responses and divisions in action/progress then - just as Superclub Culture was hitting and offshoots like Jungle were reacting to that. I would've said Techno myself then but looking back the choice is much, much harder.

I was right about IDM though, that scene had been sucking ass for awhile but ilm hadn't figured that out yet. Anybody heard any good IDM records lately?

Does that mean I can be a smug bastard for hardly ever buying IDM? Or do I still stay narrow minded?

Ronan on Saturday, January 26, 2002 1:00 AM (5 years ago)

i didnt think "techno" existed anymore
where do you guys live?