Why not: from early Detroit let’s go to contemporary Berlin. This Real Scenes documentary about techno culture in the German capital I wanted to post for a long time.
Not only does it capture perfectly well the romanticism of rave culture; it also demonstrates the evolution of Berlin from underground freak haven in the 1990s to current hotspot of the international “EasyJet set” (i.e. tourists). Club owners and dj’s talk about their mixed feelings regarding this development, and how they try to retain some of the original Berlin spirit. By means of restrictive door policies, for instance.
It’s a little unfortunate that there’s no original footage of how Berlin used to be in it, but still the images of Bar25 and Tresor make you wanna go there asap. And like the people interviewed say, there’s still enough secret locations and urban exploring going on, even in the center (plus club owners have their roots in the illegal scene), to last for a long time.
For the third edition of Real Scenes, RA and Bench go to one of the most special places for electronic music in the world: Berlin. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, techno became the underground soundtrack to the reunion between East and West. In recent years, it’s become an international destination for ravers—a cheap place to party with clubs that are renowned throughout the world.
Techno has become a business in the meantime. Yet Berlin still maintains a credibility that other cities lack. To understand why, RA and Bench went to the German capital eager to find out about its unique history and the reasons behind its continued relevance.
Techno music -- we’re not talking commercial electro crap like Deadmau5 and Skrillex that is right now gaining mainstream popularity in the US -- is and has been primarily a European thing. The acid house scene in England and techno scene in Berlin made it great. Yet, the roots of techno are firmly in America, in particularly the former industrial metropolis of Detroit. Here, in the early 1980s, a couple of black dj’s later named the Belleville Three listened to Kraftwerk (admittedly, very European) and Chicago house, and turned it into something stripped-down and industrial that reflected the place in which they were living.
NPR -- that’s the American public broadcaster -- has a nice feature on its website with 10 of the most essential Detroit techno tracks. A couple of illustrious names from the Detroit scene like Juan Atkins, Carl Craig and Jeff Mills (who can still be found dj’ing regularly all around Europe) write about these tracks. It’s nice to hear this and notice how tribal and spacey everything sounds. But this is the basis for today’s sound.
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