The Top 20 UK Techno records of the 1990s

[chico enrico]

they were slow, beepy, bassy records and came out of the northern rave scene - uk techno records came out of that,for sure, but were separate to many. i'm talking about records that were big in the techno clubs in the mid 90s

yea, but i went to a few of those nights, and clubs where winston hazel / dj parrot etc who were behind a lot of those early warp trax played and the biggest tracks in those clubs would have been stuff on Transmat, KMS, Incognito etc. so that's like saying 'Nude Photo' or 'Wiggin' (or Nexus 21 or 'true faith' etc...which basically sound pretty damn similar to the early sheffield stuff they influenced) 'came out of the northern rave scene' as those were amongst the first clubs i'd imagine in the country which were playing bass heavy detroit techno and the like.

 

[Mation]

Don't worry. He doesn't like i as much as I do and I'm sure he enjoys some rubbish too.

 

[Orang Utan]

yea, but i went to a few of those nights, and clubs where winston hazel / dj parrot etc who were behind a lot of those early warp trax played and the biggest tracks in those clubs would have been stuff on Transmat, KMS, Incognito etc. so that's like saying 'Nude Photo' or 'Wiggin' (or Nexus 21 or 'true faith' etc...which basically sound pretty damn similar to the early sheffield stuff they influenced) 'came out of the northern rave scene' as those were amongst the first clubs i'd imagine in the country which were playing bass heavy detroit techno and the like.

mebbe, but this list ain't about detroit

 

[chico enrico]

mebbe, but this list ain't about detroit

No. it's about UK Techno records.

Which you are saying excludes sweet exorcist, forgemasters, xon, early NOW.

Which I am saying is a load of fanny batter.

anyway, why does the dork who made up this list say early sheffield stuff shouldn't be included anyway?

 

[Mation]

It's quite confusing with it all being called techno. Totally different genres, to my ears, UK, Detroit, acid, the 'eurotechno' (ouch ) that someone suggested OCB were playing at the weekend.

Does anyone have a link to that really detailed tree showing how dance music branched?

 

[Orang Utan]

it seems too early to me, techno splashed big 1993-1995 and that's where the records on the list are mostly from.
the sheffield/leeds/bradford stuff seems to be from a different era.

 

[Orang Utan]

No. it's about UK Techno records.

Which you are saying excludes sweet exorcist, forgemasters, xon, early NOW.

Which I am saying is a load of fanny batter.

anyway, why does the dork who made up this list say early sheffield stuff shouldn't be included anyway?

also, i don't think the artists above would have called their music techno

 

[chico enrico]

it seems too early to me, techno splashed big 1993-1995 and that's where the records on the list are mostly from.
the sheffield/leeds/bradford stuff seems to be from a different era.

i don't know anything about the techno scenes in leeds or bradford, but i'd thought it was fairly cast in stone that the early warp/sheffield stuff was possibly UK techno's 'golden era' and that it was only a couple of yars or so later, with warp's release of the first 'intelligent techno' lp that there emerged an divergence in what was regarded as essentially music for folk to dance to in clubs and the more cerebral stuff , exemplified by many of the artists on that first comp.

no?

 

[chico enrico]

also, i don't think the artists above would have called their music techno

roundablout 1990 or so nobody really used that term though. folk may have talked of 'bleeps', 'clonk', 'rave' or myriad other sub-genres but i'd say until 1991 or so when 'rave' became a much larger - and nationwide - phonemon, if you spoke about 'techno music' you were pretty much speaking about Detroit. that's the way I recall it anyway. Maybe diffrent in other places.

 

[Orang Utan]

i think a lot of us see 1995 as the highpoint.
did you read the article?

 

[Orang Utan]

roundablout 1990 or so nobody really used that term though. folk may have talked of 'bleeps', 'clonk', 'rave' or myriad other sub-genres but i'd say until 1991 or so when 'rave' became a much larger - and nationwide - phonemon, if you spoke about 'techno music' you were pretty much speaking about Detroit. that's the way I recall it anyway. Maybe diffrent in other places.

exactly

 

[Spandex]

i don't know anything about the techno scenes in leeds or bradford, but i'd thought it was fairly cast in stone that the early warp/sheffield stuff was possibly UK techno's 'golden era' and that it was only a couple of yars or so later, with warp's release of the first 'intelligent techno' lp that there emerged an divergence in what was regarded as essentially music for folk to dance to in clubs and the more cerebral stuff , exemplified by many of the artists on that first comp.

no?

Might the confusion you're having be because you stopped going to techno clubs in about '92 when circus bells and that acid sound hit? Your experience of techno seems to be the late 80s/early 90s, while a lot of people (like me) only really discovered techno in 93/4, so our idea of techno is what the scene was doing when you'd given up on it. Dance music moved and mutated pretty fast in the first half of the 90s...

 

[Azertyioup]

Anyone here used to go to the Orbit at the After Dark Club in Morley ? (near Leeds)

Now that was a club !

 

[Orang Utan]

Anyone here used to go to the Orbit night at the After Dark Club in Morley ?

Now that was a club !

that's where i had my techno awakening - was there constantly between 92 and 94!

 

[Spandex]

Anyone here used to go to the Orbit at the After Dark Club in Morley ? (near Leeds)

Now that was a club !

Yeah, I went there a few times. For some reason my memory is a bit vague about it all..

Didn't it start and end really early?

 

[Orang Utan]

started at 8 and ended at 2
people started queuing at 7

 

[Spandex]

people started queuing at 7

We were never that organised to get our shit together and get over from Leeds by then. I usually walked into a packed club that was already going for it and then wondered why it was all over so soon

 

[Orang Utan]

believe me, it was going for it by five past 8.
people just ran in and started dancing.
there was no such thing as a warm up set

 

[chico enrico]

Might the confusion you're having be because you stopped going to techno clubs in about '92 when circus bells and that acid sound hit? Your experience of techno seems to be the late 80s/early 90s, while a lot of people (like me) only really discovered techno in 93/4, so our idea of techno is what the scene was doing when you'd given up on it. Dance music moved and mutated pretty fast in the first half of the 90s...

a fair point and one with a lot of truth to it.

however, it wasn't til around 1995 or 1996 that pavlovian abominations records like hardfloor's armani remix/higher state/positive ed. came out and trance became big after which i really did stop going out to any techno clubs atall (though for another couple of years i would still DJin them).

before that i'd always tended to prefer more house/garage oriented clubs anyway as a) that's more the stuff my mates were into/DJd at and there would be more girls at them, and b) there were a few other phases most of the techno clubs in edinburgh went through (the proto-gabba 'industrial strength' hard NY lenny dee type sound or the boring jeff mills mills/robert hood/jay denham 'repetitive loops' nonsense) tht i didn't like but i have always kept abreast of te developments within techno from its genesis till at least the late 90s, so it's not like i missed the changes and emerging sub-genres within the scene.

anyway, I HAVE just read the article that accompanied this list and whilst i can appreciate his 'filter' with regards to most areas of the pool this top 20 was culled from, i disagree about his non-inclusion of the early Warp stuff, as i think that was as much a development from the original (ie Detroit) techno sound as anything else. In fact, even more so than many he has included - as first and foremonst it was dance music which, at the start, techno always was, where-as arguably a lot of the artists included in this top 20 owe as much to european industrial music, ambient sound-scapes or avant garde modern classical minimalism as they do the sound of "george clinton & kraftwerk caught in an elevator" (to paraphrase May on the techno sound)

 

[kyser_soze]

Did any of you actually dance during the 1990s, or were you all too busy standing around DJ booths spotting?

At Club UK (and Eurobeat 2000 and a lot of other techno clubs) in 94/95ish you'd hear both acid techno and 'proper' techno. You were as likely to hear Bang the Acid as anything on the OP's list. After about 95 there seemed to be a complete schism and the 2 sounds moved into completely different scenes, with acid techno being championed by the squat party people while 'real' techno stayed in the clubs.

Maybe it's just cos I was into it, but it seemed massive at the time, with big clubs in every major city in the country packed out every weekend with pilled up nutters going mental.

It was when all that looped stuff took over that I kind of lost a lot of interest in the scene until a few years ago. When Purpose Maker first came out in 95 it sounded fucking amazing, but gradually that sound took over the scene and a lot of the joy in the music (not to mention most of the girls in the clubs) disappeared.

Hear hear, especially the bit in bold. Tekno might be 'for ve kids' but at least you get girls dancing to it.

Much as I love many of the tracks from the OP, and many others mentioned on this thread, much like Cloud's thread on dubstep sooo many of the tunes are 'boy' records - clever, well crafted bits of electronica that you'll never see a roomfull of women dancing to. Which to my mind kinda defeats the point...

 

[Azertyioup]

Yeah, I went there a few times. For some reason my memory is a bit vague about it all..

Didn't it start and end really early?

Few times went on till 4am I believe, and IIRC was only open twice per month, shame it closed down, I had some amazing nights there, worst thing was that it ended too early, would have been great if it was till 4am all the time..

 

[chico enrico]

Much as I love many of the tracks from the OP, and many others mentioned on this thread, much like Cloud's thread on dubstep sooo many of the tunes are 'boy' records - clever, well crafted bits of electronica that you'll never see a roomfull of women dancing to. Which to my mind kinda defeats the point...

aha!! and there we have what i think draws the line in the sand between the type of stuff and the artists included in this 'top 20' list and the stuff which 'went before' (and was more dancefloor - ie "enjoying yourself and having a good night out" oriented) ...

"Electronica"

Which for me just conjures up an image of wanky student types with pony-tails and Rephlex shirts playing crappy sub-Plaidy/Black Doggy noodly-nonsense to their mates in some empty club.

 

[kyser_soze]

I blame the Artificial Intelligence compilations meself...

 

[Azertyioup]

that's where i had my techno awakening - was there constantly between 92 and 94!

Never got there till post 96, have heard the early days were the best, well if that's the case it must have been some night, I couldn't fault the atmosphere or the quality of the dj's..

Sven Vath was the best one I saw there, brilliant stuff.

 

[Orang Utan]

anyway, why does the dork who made up this list say early sheffield stuff shouldn't be included anyway?

you've met him btw - he came to the benetti night

 

[Orang Utan]

Did any of you actually dance during the 1990s, or were you all too busy standing around DJ booths spotting?



Hear hear, especially the bit in bold. Tekno might be 'for ve kids' but at least you get girls dancing to it.

Much as I love many of the tracks from the OP, and many others mentioned on this thread, much like Cloud's thread on dubstep sooo many of the tunes are 'boy' records - clever, well crafted bits of electronica that you'll never see a roomfull of women dancing to. Which to my mind kinda defeats the point...

that's just nonsense - there's loads of girls at the parties i go to. i know loads of lassed who dig good techno. are you saying girls only like shit techno? that's a bit of an insult.

 

[Orang Utan]

Did any of you actually dance during the 1990s, or were you all too busy standing around DJ booths spotting?

why did you say that? of course we danced. we bought a lot of records. i was never one for standing round booths.

 

[kyser_soze]

No, I'm saying that a lot of 'proper' techno is pretty alienating to anyone outside of a fairly niche group of people. I also find your definition of 'techno' pretty limiting TBH...I agree with Chico, the lack of Warp, Sweet Excorcist etc is a big omission from the list...

Also, where's your sense of humour gone? Probably lost somewhere in the the speccy tunage

 

[Orang Utan]

i just want to exlude all the stayupforever crap!

 

[Orang Utan]

No, I'm saying that a lot of 'proper' techno is pretty alienating to anyone outside of a fairly niche group of people.

you could say the same about any non-mainstream genre