Techno/House Bobbins of the past

Oh for fuck's sake, Can a moderator move this to ILM.

Excellent idea. Both ideas are excellent.

i've recently picked up some 12"s on the old forcetracks label. this one in particular is pretty good. any recommendations for other forcetracks stuff (besides luomo)?

I'm quite enjoying John Beltran lately, that very mid-90's Detroity ambient techno sound.

Also, Agaric - Virke (liebe Detail 10 from 2006) is killing me right now.

which John Beltran are you listening too? Placid Angles is awesome.

love 'Decembers Tragedy' by Beltran, mehlt's description being the reason

I think Decembers Tragedy was used in the HBO series Six Feet Under.. It was cool hearing as a soundtrack.

Dub Taylor had a couple good/great LP's + 12"s on Force Tracks.

also check the label Raum...Musik for other pre-bobbins sounds.

Beltran's Ten Days of Blue LP on Peacefrog is classic from the first sound to the last.

In terms of Force Tracks MRI's All That Glitters is one I come back to cos it's pure pop. "Tied to the 80's" is from a an 80's TV theme and the dub Aaliyah cover is soo cool.

Heh, I was playing All That Glitters a moment ago - first Vinyl I ever owned.

I've been listening to the Beltran Stuff of Stryax Leaves, which is a really great label by the way, which are rereleases from older stuff. 'Anticipation' is wonderful, and "vienna" is beautiful little piece of classical string sampling.

Heh, I was playing All That Glitters a moment ago - first Vinyl I ever owned.

jesus.

In my defense, I'm only 19.

All That Glitters, I still come back to that one too. Esp. side 1 and YEA the aaliyah tribute!

Speaking of Force, I want to rep for the Star You Star Me album (esp. "Perfect Day" and "Sweet Things", which are mighty swoonful).

Akufen tunes on force tracks are belters.

Akufen! That guy disappeared off the grid for the last couple years as far as releases have gone, right?

He's apparently putting out an album this year!

I don't know why, but I found the MRI album to be really irritating with a few exceptions. I still need to hear the Mathias Schaffhäuser and Crank AK stuff on FT.

In my defense, I'm only 19.

heh i wasn't zinging , you just made me feel old and useless. i have and love the 'all that glitters' double vinyl btw, esp the title track.

Tied To The 80s is a gorgeous track - I heard it via gareth via spencer chow but I'm not sure I heard any other MRI.

Crane A.K.'s Pink Eyed Pony seems fairly typical of the Force Tracks roster to me. Deep, dubby, bouncy, clicky. More minimal than Dub Taylor, a bit too polite?

a couple of v old classics i recently encountered:

Jesse Saunders - On And On
good electro-boogie/house crossover but you could make a good case for this as first house track ever maybe (released in 84 but maybe first recorded in 83)

Farley Jackmaster Funk - Jackin The Trax
to hear it you'd believe hercules & love affair have been basing much of their sound on this one track. great house with that macabre synth hook seemingly taking its cue from italo and electro from a few years earlier.

second one is m4a btw

i also put this on the prescription thread: http://www.sendspace.com/file/85v4yg

romanthony - the wanderer (journeyman thump)

I saw the Ladomat 100 compilation in a charity shop today, listening to it now the pre-Kompakt quirkyness seems so great. I think I should hunt down more of this stuff.

the only thing on Ladomat 2000 i've heard is this, which i like. what else is worth checking for?

this is all-time top 10 luv 4eva material: http://www.discogs.com/release/49178

This Ladomat 2000 is all-time top 10 too - http://www.discogs.com/release/17353

Bobbins galore: http://www.youtube.com/user/HouseMasterz

hardwax appears to have copies of moodymann's ultra-classic 'dem young sconies' 12". a repress, perhaps?? in any case, can't rate this one highly enough.

I would be real surprised if Dem Young Sconies was an OP. That record makes you wonder what would have happened if KDJ had decided to concentrate on techno. That record hasn't left my crate in years.

Model 500 'Starlight' is still a favorite of mine. Play doubles of that late at night. The recent Echospace/Deepchord remixes are alright, but the original holds up just fine. Others I still love, Ken Iishi 'Overlap (Mark Broom mix)', Joey Beltram 'Energy Flash', Burger/Ink 'Las Vegas', Axis' lp on Guidance, Moodyman 'Forevermore', Jay Dee 'Plastic Dreams' must still be making them money, i see new remixes of that every year. Then, play Irresistable Force's 'Flying High' over some djax to kick out the jams.

Yeah that's weird about "Dem Young Sconies" appearing at Hardwax. Do they sell bootleg stuff? I mean there is always the chance that Planet E re-pressed it I suppose, but I would think they would've used one of the Planet E Classics labels or something rather than the original label like they're showing on the Hardwax site.

hardwax sold the sharevari repress, which was rumored to be a bootleg, so who knows?

i'm all for bootlegs of shit that never gets repressed, though (like sharevari).

True and the "Sharevari" boot just feels very different from a bootleg of an active label that has even been re-pressing some of it's "Classics." No judgement in these statements (I got both the "Sharevari" and "U Can Dance If U Want 2" bootlegs) just wondering.

i didn't know there was a bootleg of "u can dance"

totally awesome

but i'm still waiting for the "moody trax" boot

"Yeah that's weird about "Dem Young Sconies" appearing at Hardwax. Do they sell bootleg stuff? I mean there is always the chance that Planet E re-pressed it I suppose, but I would think they would've used one of the Planet E Classics labels or something rather than the original label like they're showing on the Hardwax site.

-- matt2"

a bunch of DYS 12" appeared at the Planet E booth at DEMF 06 (i think it was) along with the original Designer Music 4 track EP. DYS was $5, DM was $15. i got em both as each was amongst my most wanted Planet E's.....

All the more proof that it's really unacceptable that I've never made it to DEMF. I keep trying to convince my wife that it would be a great vacation.

is this the right place to ask about forever sweet-- namely, is anything else they did as perfect as "bleed"? does other ladomat stuff sound similar?

"All the more proof that it's really unacceptable that I've never made it to DEMF. I keep trying to convince my wife that it would be a great vacation.

-- matt2"

it is a great vacation. i bring my wife and my younger sister with me every year. at least 20 of my friends go up every year from pittsburgh as well, not even counting all the people i know from around the world who show up. its as good of a time as you can have if you like dance music.

That'd be the problem. Wifey loves dancing but doesn't like "dance music." It only takes about 30 seconds of any synthetic beat of the thump-thump-thump-thump-this-is-going-to-be-a-dance-song variety and my wife gets extreme anxiety. She loves Depeche Mode and plenty of early 90's poppier house stuff but can't stomach a moment of "true" techno, even something as gorgeous as "R-Theme" or "Dominas." I know, it doesn't make sense to me either.

My bf and I went for the first time last year and hope to make it a tradition. He is not into dance music/music in general as much as I am, but he's willing to indulge me and has family in Michigan so it works out. It is our one chance each year to hear this music in its "proper" setting (i.e. not between a pair of headphones or blasting from my car).

Yeah, I'm pretty much asked to keep the beats in my headphones.

I really, really want to go to DEMF again this year but it overlaps with a 2 week Germany trip. I guess that balances out.

Just got this one yesterday: http://www.discogs.com/release/4982

The locked groove on the A side is perfect. I let it play for 10 or 15 minutes yesterday.

"That'd be the problem. Wifey loves dancing but doesn't like "dance music." It only takes about 30 seconds of any synthetic beat of the thump-thump-thump-thump-this-is-going-to-be-a-dance-song variety and my wife gets extreme anxiety. She loves Depeche Mode and plenty of early 90's poppier house stuff but can't stomach a moment of "true" techno, even something as gorgeous as "R-Theme" or "Dominas." I know, it doesn't make sense to me either.

-- matt2"

man, that sucks. get her some good drugs and take her there, maybe she'll have a religious experience and you can all live happily ever after ;)

on the other hand, you could just go by yourself! there are lots of friendly techno nerds there.....

got a few things today. soul center III which is pretty cool, very unique sounding.

also got this psi performer remixes and am just listening to it now. has anyone heard the album?

and should i go back to the shop and pick up Sten - Leaving The Frantic for $6?

How it all felt to me as clubber + record collector in 1991-1993 was that the relatively limited sonic palette of Detroit techno + Chicago house had kickstarted a much more exciting/varied sonic landscape with Jungle in the UK, Trance in Germany & Belgium, IDM in the UK, Acid/Goa etc. That crazy hardcore/gabber one-upmanship going on in Holland (also finding an audience in NY and the UK scenes) was part of that wild everything-is-possible-what-will-they-think-of-next experience.

The rapid gentrification of Detroit/Chicago at the time as the tasteful middle-brow sound for mature discerning clubbers who were 'real underground', in-the-know, respectful of the history etc felt intensely boring to me, I guess in the same way that so many people (used to? still? not my scene tbh) dismiss backpacker/boom bap Hip-Hop. Now that I'm older I can appreciate it more, there are indeed many gems among the crud, kudos for sifting through it all.

In retrospect this wild expansionist time was really a surprisingly short period, things got codified into subgenres with strict sonic conventions very quickly.

I got off the hardcore/gabber train around 1992 when it all got a bit too fast and sonically abrasive to me to dance to or listen at home (Death/Black Metal scratched that itch much better), also the audience at the clubs quickly became way too football hooligan for me. I've checked back in occasionally over the years, I can listen to and appreciate it in small doses.

Re: Detroit becoming ‘tasteful’ - there’s a bit in the ‘Der Klang Der Familie’ book where Thomas Fehlmann describes how whenever the Detroit guys were booked for Tresor in the very early days they would stay for a week or 2, get in Maurizio / Fehlmann’s studio and craft an EP.

Blake Baxter then mentions that, at that point, the Detroit guys were just producing on a couple Roland boxes direct to a mixer, but the Berlin guys had a room full of synths and used a PC for sequencing, which blew their minds.

Wading through all these old tracks you can pretty much spot when most of the main Detroit guys must have flown over, as their releases suddenly dip from ‘raw and funky as hell’ to a few grandiose ‘this is my magnum opus’ washes of synths and notes unlike anything previously. Thanks for nothing Thomas!

That aside, coming across ‘Sun Electric’ (another Thomas Fehlmann associated act) has been another real treat, another act I had totally slept on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0ITMRG7ATk

Sun Electric were amazing, I was a huge fan then and now.

One of the remarkable things is that this kind of lush hi-fi atmospheric stuff was a central part of the German trance scene at the time but retrospectively post-Tiësto/Armin all that got retconned as "techno", and much of the stuff that actually was called "techno" then got airbrushed out of history as "rave" or "hardcore".

I can see that - there is a lot of stuff tagged as Techno in Discogs from 90-92 that your modern fan would likely shudder at. Some of the early Spanish stuff especially is absolutely dire.

Re: the German trance scene, you can also pretty much spot when key synths are released. Everyone at one point seems to have got hold of a Korg Wavestation and made an ambient album or B side at minimum 😂

It's a remarkable turnaround where at the time (1991-1995) the trance scene was seen as a more musically ambitious step up from overly simplistic/populist Techno bangers for pilled-up ravers (much like Jungle & atmospheric Drum & Bass).

But retroactively the whole oldschool Trance scene got airbrushed and re-labeled as Techno, to the point where you almost get banned by 20-year-old mods on Discogs for suggesting that tracks like "Acid Eiffel", "Acperience" or those old Sun Electric, Speedy J and Quazar tracks have any connection to Trance, which would've been absolutely baffling to any DJ or clubber who was in that scene.

Definitely, you can see the German side of things rapidly splitting along the lines of notes and melodies vs sound design. Then Waveform Transmissions v1 comes along and pretty much defines what the genre ends up becoming, which where I’ve just got to :)

I only ever came across any of the proto-trance stuff on this late night weekend show on UK Channel 4 that played it over space video clips, along with Black Dog etc.

I caught the very tail end (no pun intended) of the non-shit trance era via Megadog dance tents / market stall raves / chill out areas at my first few festivals as a teen but would have loved to have caught it out in the wild properly.

On that note, this was another ‘holy shit’ moment when it popped up on Discogs after another 20 ‘James Brown is Dead’ knockoffs:

Barbarella - Barbarella (The Irresistible Force mix)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2a51A2eMaU

Some of the early Spanish stuff especially is absolutely dire.

A lot of the Spanish & Italian stuff from that time was still clunky second-rate EBM, just sped up a bit and relabeled as Techno.

Speaking of which, I was revisiting the old Technopolis/Techno Club compilations a bit back, it's really interesting to see the point where the German producers pivot from EBM to techno/trance in 1989-1991.

Yeah the EBM > Trance pathway wasn’t something I’d really considered before.

It’s pretty wild that fucking *Laibach* of all people end up putting out some pretty hands in the air bangers at one point:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49VkhI-kCTY

Also following the career arc of Torsten Fenslau from EBM to Culture Beat has been far more enjoyable than I might have admitted if I was forced to listen to all his tunes out of the context of other tunes of the era. Aged like milk obviously nowadays, but sonically he was way ahead of his dance pop peers for a bit.

i think the early Torsten Fenslau tracks have aged well. "Alone It's Me" is all time. Force Legato and even Der Erdbeermund still sound good to me.

I was a huge Lenny D fan in the late 80s / early 90s. i booked him right at the point he went full on Gabba. i thought it was funny for 90 seconds and then had had enough it but the crowd loved it.

Yeah it must have been wild booking people a few months in advance back then - imagine having to worry about a booking inventing a whole new genre before their gig came around 😂

remembering the mighty J Saul Kane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDU0IPEcRY0

what??!! Very sad!

As a confirmed kung-fu movie fan, Kane was involved in setting up the company Made in Hong Kong, which licensed Chinese movies, particularly those made by the Shaw Brothers. Many of these movies are examples of the heroic bloodshed genre (The Killer, A Moment of Romance). Made in Hong Kong was the first company to release Stephen Chow films on VHS in the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AXEZBe6rF0

i think "Free-er Than Free" was my intro to JSK. I reckon i played it in every DJ set i did from '89 to 91 and got through a few copies. it still does it for me today.

It still startles today. Just so much unexpected stuff going on.

A new electronic beats blind test is always a cause for hope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jen93Xs0YGw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLPLPzEd_Sc

Keith Tucker - Face Your Fate (D. Wynn Remix) (1999)

Unexpectedly genial rework

I slept on this … so much better than the more canonized “I’ve lost control”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2rcBaFNlcU

actually the slightly shorter Ron Hardy one is more my vibe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLHE4Cwvghc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69KmxijbmRk

Jori Hulkkonen - Whispers (Extended Dance Version) (2001)

Plaza - “Uh Oh” (Belgium, 1990, epilaulets, euro rapping)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxtxSU6x1xY

I think if you slowed the instrumental down it sounds like 400 blows “pressure” in an air fryer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y2_AtMznxg

Today’s favourite discovery is ‘Psychic Media - Bio Feedback’

As far as I can tell it only ever appeared on a 1992 Profile records CD, an early Tetsu Inoue and either Nico or Masa Inamura production depending on which Discogs listing is correct. Either way, top notch ravey acid banger 👌

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcnhGHmign8

Matthias - Insect Eaters From The Jungle (2018)

I never really clicked with this guys records but this ep of mid afternoon quips is a delight, though this is the only track to arrive at youtube

This is a long thread and maybe my bobbins is obvious, but this is new and choice to these ears

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7WLKph052Q
Classic Man - A Passing Thought (2002)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0IN00RehtI

i've had the orig of that on my wantlist for a while but not seeing a numero group version on discogs. It ever come out?

Beatport but nothing else AFAICT. Might be working on a box set of some kind?

seems like their MO.

Eccentric House box-set due out by xmas?

what are the rolling contemporary dance music threads around here? is there one ?

gold! i've been afer this for years!!

x post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lulHoe_Om4c

Keith Kemper - La Grosse Femme (1997)

The breeziness of this, it seems impossible to imagine such things

what are the rolling contemporary dance music threads around here? is there one ?

― ok (D-40), Monday, April 21, 2025 5:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

theres rolling everything except dance music ?

This one, probably?

Current bobbins, doing it wrong techno, and my club music thread?

Rolling Left-Field Club Music 2025

Rolling techno* albums thread for people who are clearly doing it wrong

Apropos of nothing I got to thinkin' about "You've Got the Love" a while back, because I remember really liking the late-1990s Now Voyager remix. I'm surprised to learn that the original vocal was recorded for a kind of prototype of The Whale:

"The original Candi Staton track had been recorded for a direct-to-video 1980s documentary about an obese man who was trying to lose weight. Staton said she couldn't remember having recorded a song called "You Got the Love". It was only later that she realised she had performed the song years earlier for the documentary. ... The planned 1986 video was supposed to feature a 900 pounds (410 kg) man wanting to lose weight. The filming was shelved when the actor portraying the character lost his weight to around 300 pounds (140 kg)."

Although the Quietus interview implies it was an advert for a diet product, so who knows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TDqzZ7Gxd0

Hanna - Eyes of Angels

open top bus parade season

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll5T6XmiKxQ

Jonathan Monteiro & Mazi Namvar - 23 Days (1996)

Plot twist, there was no bus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiqcrOQfZMI

Grey - Billy Smiles too Much (2004)

Very much in the spirit of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg8o-VJEfPw

Merrick Brown - swizzlestick

oh duh, it’s the same label, that’s why

I still jam this fairly frequently, and right now it's giving me beautiful nostalgic 2000s vibes

The Rice Twins - For Penny And Alexis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3EYn0TE1Dw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7L4qc4WlkQ

Dillinger & Capone - Trysting Fields

Any opinions on this? It's just been reissued. By the way, I MADE THIS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUVng2_-SwU

Jewellery - 'Voices'

Classic sound! Love those hats, congrats on the reissue.

Cheers, thanks

I think they were 909 hihat samples in the S950, and pitched up. I'll have to try that again. I often adjust the pitch of bass drums and snares, but for some reason (stupidity, probably) it doesn't usually occur to me to alter the pitch of hihats and I just fiddle with the EQ instead.

What a track!! Thanks for this

https://soundcloud.com/young-ouin-ouin/unknown-artist-unknown-title-1989

Unknown record at Raydon Airfield, Suffolk 1989. Looks to be part of a liveset but no one seems to know who