(03.07.09) “Put on some techno there. Any electro goin’?”
Two statements that few will hear from mates calling round for a drink, or two. But why is that? Techno and electro, not to mention acid and house, are the building blocks of electronic music, but for some reason they have been quickly sidelined. Perhaps it is because peoples’ tastes have changed. Maybe nowadays the primitive lull of a techno track or sharp twang of an electro movement doesn’t appeal. It could be that styles like electronica and, the woefully labeled, IDM surpassed these basic analogue sounds. There is also the issue of the press these sounds received, depicted as music for slack jawed pill heads wearing ill-fitting day-glo t-shirts whilst staring into the strobe lights of an abandoned warehouse; was it this that did them in? Or, is it that the brash and brazen sounds that techno and electro artists unashamedly pour through speakers in undiluted form still hold as true today as they did when they first arrived out of a synthesizer? MNX Recordings would probably agree with the last statement, their latest 12’s do.
First on the cards is Cestrian, better known as Ali Renault of Dissident Records and Heartbreak fame. Under his Cestrian moniker Renault has totally removed himself from any elements of italo or pop, this is raw electro through and through. The Walled City inhales its first corrupted breathes with the menacing “Cross,” exhaling sinister and dark reverberations met by a corrupted vocoder tongue. The sound of Bunker Records starts to ring as the 12″ spins, misery laden dirty electro that shines little in the way of light on the listener. “Bridge of Sighs” toys and tortures a droning analogue line into twisted forms while “Chronicle Lies” continues to map the murk and darkness as Cestrian folds fouled machine sound over forked vocoder lyrics. There is a looming industria within the record, tempting throughout but kept under control by Renault. “Roman Bridges,” despite its tormented visage of warped electronic scraps and bleeps, is one of the more playful pieces of The Walled City, with Cestrian putting on a knob twiddling experiment for your amplifier. The interestingly titled “Gorse Tracks” brings Cestrian’s first solo 12″ to an end; spinning out in morbidly disdainful electro grease.
Adam X and Going Back to Belgium follows Cestrian. Mr X plunges MNX right back into the squalor, putting the label through an acid rinse of 303 techno filth. “Going Back to Belgium” sends lines of echoing acid out, letting the tweaks bounce against walls of sharpened bass with slices of snare shot through. “Galactoid” ups the tempo as analogue sounds wrap their way around beat. The 12″ ends the day on “Steel Sky,” the Berlin resident finishes up the latest MNX outing as he began; in rolls of raw and unapologetic techno.
Techno and electro have been caricatured over the years. Techno was given human form, a lumpy stupid brute, as has electro, a skinnier version of the brute with maybe more brains; but to most they were indiscernible and left to hang out together in the corner of the playground. Electro grew popular when he went to high school, adopting skinny jeans and an expensive straightened haircut, but he was a completely new being. Techno grew bigger and more awkward, acne covering his balloon head. However, this is only one version of these intertwined lives. Techno and electro hung out together because that’s what they wanted to do. They fed off one another, gaining inspiration and discovering new avenues of sound. They created clubs and transformed peoples’ mindset about electronic music; they transformed derelict and disused space into venues and brought a new sense of community to many. MNX Recordings’ story of techno and electro are not that of social outcasts, but innovative trailblazers that revolutionized the world of music with a synthesizer under one arm and a drum machine under the other.
For more information about MNX, visit their website at mnx-recordings.com
