Popular Keywords

The growth of Techno House music in Europe : rewind in the 90s

Hello, hello, this is C from the MINIMALER project and I’m welcoming you in this new podcast series transcripts in which Imma talk about Techno Music, its development, everything around and this is going to be on a weekly basis on every Wednesday. But in the first place, I’d like to take this early time of the year to wish you nothing but the best for this new year ahead, may you create, experiment, feel, discover and share many new things in 2024, and of course all of this surrounded by your loved ones.

For the record, I’ve been launching this MINIMALER project a bit out of the blue back in December 2017, so a little 6 years ago, it came from the idea of spreading further a certain genre of music to a growing project, and over time by understanding better where it comes from and how it’s getting developed, I steadily started to focus on spreading this scene in the most relevant way possible, in the sense I wanted to promote the artists and the music we’re listening while at an event, leading me exactly a year ago to be opening 2023 with another side of this MINIMALER project : the videos on YouTube – coming back in a new format this year.

This said, in order to go a little bit more outside of my comfort zone in 2024, this year we’re sliding into Spotify as well, and so I’ll be sharing talks about this music industry, the behaviors related as well as any and everything around within these new podcasts that are called : Backstage

In this Backstage series of podcasts, I’m talking on a weekly basis about our electronic musical scene from the music released, the history to more human oriented topics like women safety within the crowds, artificial consumptions, swinging by other party or music related topics I feel interesting to cover, so in a nutshell, we’re going to blabla about its overall evolution. The purpose is to give my perspective about its development on a global manner, giving you the feedbacks of researches I did or books I read about it, or just about some experiences, while I’d be also inviting some guests giving theirs over the year within these episodes of talks with artists, label heads and more, or just me – especially to start 🙂

In order to start properly this new series of contents, I felt it cool to rewind a bit on the last decades of evolution of the electronic musical scene, and in this matter I’m gonna base myself on elements that I put together in order to enable a broader understanding, so let’s not waste anymore time and let’s start with the program of today’s first podcast, in which I’m discussing further about the development of the European scene, I’m going to focus on a few places that I feel are really connected with the roots of this musical scene and its growth in Europe, so let’s rewind back in the late 90s. I’m going to deep dive in details about how it’s been able to spread worldwide pretty fast, and so on this matter we’re going to focus on the debuts of venues like Tresor, Watergate and Club Der Visionaere in Berlin, Robert Johnson in Frankfurt, Fabric in London, Supermarket in Zurich, Rex Club in Paris, Circoloco and Amnesia in Ibiza, as well as the very first Amsterdam Dance Event gatherings back in 1996. Imma start with a focus on pioneering venues enabling artists to play their music during their performances, helped in hosting artists from abroad and therefore built a structure for everyone willing to be a promoter, an artist, etc today. So let’s start.

Amnesia, Ibiza

In 1976, as the world was listening on repeat songs like « Bohemian Rhapsody » from Queen, « You Should Be Dancing » from the Bee Gees or « Love to Love You Baby » from Donna Summer, a club called Amnesia located along the highway in Ibiza was getting opened. Indeed, Ibiza is home for hippies and hedonists seeking this special energy the island offers in order to fulfill this newfound sense of freedom related to the post May 69 era. Indeed, the Amnesia story started from before the club was built back in the beginning of the 70s, as it was originally a countryside house where a family was living for 5 generations, they decided to
move into town and so this led them to sell the house to a widow from an aristocratic background, and the building now called Amnesia was turned into a meeting point where several facets of the hippie culture were taking place and this was home of really wild parties that lasted for days, becoming over time a kind of legend growing internationally, however local authorities have been quickly insisting on the fact that a glass roof had to be built.

The shape of seasonal periods of events has been in place since the very debuts, by closing it all during winters and wilding it all during summers, bringing for the first time several types of dance music genres including House artists from as soon as the 80s, leading the club to gain international recognition by the 90s and to win the Best Global Club Awards between 1996 and 1999 at the International Dance Music Awards in Miami, which is today called the Winter Music Conference, where the club has later won again that Best Global Club title for 3 years in a raw in 2007, 2008 and 2009, as well as in 2011.

It’s very interesting to dig at information related to the parties hosted before the 2000s because the most part of websites referencing events have been created afterwards, like Resident Advisor for example that has been founded in Sydney, Australia back in 2001, at this time as a website getting together data related to the Australian dance music scene only. When it comes to the international scene, the oldest trace of events that I could find are from 2006 on RA, since it is correlating with the moment it has incorporated as a company in the UK and started to provide services to promoters to sell their event tickets.

This said, I could not really find accurate details about any line ups occurring before that date, what I can say though, it’s that as part of the first artists taking part in Amnesia’s programmation, we can find nowadays headliners who were by this time in their mid/late twenties, like Sven Vath, Ricardo Villalobos, Luciano, Roman Flugel or Mathew Jonson just to name a few. And actually just to contextualise a bit about how the island has been to German artists for a pretty long time, let’s go back in 1980 when Sven Vath was actually 16, he made his very first trip to Ibiza and discovered this one of a kind of atmosphere in pioneer clubs like Amnesia, where the legend says he was virtually begging the bouncers to let him in, and by witnessing the music played by Alfredo, known as the creator of the Balearic Beats style, Sven Vath was left speechless and told his mother once back in Offenbach, in Germany that he wanted to become a Dj.

Besides Sven Vath, another artist was living in the Offenbach area by this mid-90s period, this is Ricardo Villalobos who made his first trip there back in 1995, which made him adopting the island straightaway as his third home, and I can bet they were both pretty good friends because this is a few years later in 1999 that he played at Amnesia for the first time, and yes this was at a the very first edition of the Cocoon parties, which he joined the booking agency of the following year. Long story short, in 1999 now Amnesia’s longest standing resident Mar-T was offering to Sven Vath to host his Cocoon parties on the one day that Amnesia was closed : on Mondays. He managed to organize four events that went this well that Cocoon parties continued for another fourteen Mondays in 2000, as well as for the next eighteen years.

Many German artists have therefore been regularly playing at Amnesia since day zero, I personally think that this is because there was not this much cities where artists could properly play their music during the 90s, and so this is leading me to transition with the rising scene in Germany back in those days, starting with Berlin right after the wall fell with the opening of Tresor Club in 1991.

Tresor, Berlin

Tresor is more than a club, it is a real part of Berlin history which was founded in the vaults of a former department store in the central part of the East before Berlin was unified back, which happened to be the perfect place to hold a club, becoming over time one of the most attended ones, highlighting dance music that united the youth movements of east and west on one single dancefloor through events starting on Saturday nights having queues stretching all the way down the road, that were still going by Monday mornings.

Robert Johnson, Frankfurt

In the wake of such events in Berlin over the 90s, in another part of Germany, in Frankfurt am Main, another special club was opening its gates later in 1999 under the good cares of Ata, the one and only Robert Johnson. From its very debuts, artists like Magda, Richie Hawtin, ZIP, Ivan Smagghe, Tobi Neumann, Ellen Allien, Dorian Paic or Steve Bug have been sharing their vinyl selection behind the decks of this lifetime club, gaining international recognition fast enough due to its focus on the quality of the sound rendering when artists are playing, making it obviously better for the music lovers attending their performances. Indeed, the sound quality had always been a main focus for the musical experience to be led a step further at Robert Johnson, making of Ata a true pioneer in making of his passion a professional segment too.

Berghain, CDV and more, Berlin

Back in Berlin on the same year, the Ostgut club opened, becoming the well-known Berghain another couple years later, as well as the Club Der Visionaere that has been opening his doors in 2001 inside a wooden shed along the Spree canal with serious artists already taking care of the musical duties back then such as Margaret Dygas, Daniel Bell, Sammy Dee, Cassy, Vera, Edward, Binh, Audio Werner, Topper or Ion Ludwig, besides the obvious Ricardo Villalobos, Baby Ford, Thomas Melchior and Zip, which is here a non exhaustive list. The Watergate Club opening followed a year later in 2002, welcoming more by the time rising talents to perform in Berlin such as Onur Ozer, Mathias Kaden, Jamie Jones, Marc Houle, Jay Haze, Damian Lazarus, Dandy Jack, LoSoul or Efdemin, and once again I’m just saying a very few.

I feel like the Berlin scene evolution has been taking a huge part in the overall development of this musical segment in Europe and even worldwide, and to see it connected by the rise of the clubs in the city makes it clearer to understand how this much artists were able to come and play there, since in the most part of EU cities back then, there was mostly one or let’s say two clubs at max, making of Berlin a very special playground for artists since its debuts party wise, where a special sense of liberty was bringing the magic people were in need of.

Rex Club, Paris

This feeling of freedom through endless parties popping up significantly more around the 90s started to spread over many European cities, starting with Paris where the Rex Club was also welcoming more and more artists who were part of the growth of this scene at the European level, such as Laurent Garnier, Djulz, Cabanne, James Holden, Jennifer Cardini, Dj Deep or Miss Kittin for instance. Rex Club is here again a real piece of history, and not only since 1988 when it launched as Rex Club, but long before as the club was run under Le Reve name, which actually used to be a Jazz club back in the 50s and then turned into a more rock oriented one as the music was evolving, and as a matter of anecdote, the cinema next to it is opened to public since 1932!

But back to the nineties, just like Rex Club in Paris, many places started to gather like-minded music communities, which ultimately led this growing musical scene to be creating a related conference in Amsterdam aiming to connect together different professional actors in 1996, and yes, that was when the very first edition of the Amsterdam Dance Event took place and this was almost 30 years ago.

ADE, Amsterdam

This first edition of ADE was therefore held at a period in which dance music became an increasingly important part of Dutch culture, and it was aspiring to highlight the business sides of dance music, making of ADE the very first conference in Europe to be entirely focused on electronic music, and over its 28 years of activity, the Amsterdam Dance Event music conference has grown into a global business and inspiration platform for the global electronic music industry, featuring dedicated tools, talks and workshops both for music professionals and aspiring DJs and producers.

Supermarket, Zurich

Amidst the rise of Techno House oriented parties and even these music conferences, more clubs get to be opened by the late 90s, such as Supermarket in Zurich in 1998 run by his conductor Sandro Bohnenblust, who has been shaping a big part of the musical scene over there ever since its opening, welcoming many more artists to perform on one of the cleanest sound system in Europe like Bruno Pronsato, Stephan Bodzin, Kalabrese, Martin Landsky, tINI, Loco Dice, Eli Verveine or Dan Ghenacia.

Fabric, London

On the same wavelength, the following year in 1999, the Fabric Club opened its doors too in London, UK, marking a real shift into the nightlife which was by this time driven by this sense of freedom we already mentioned, and Fabric took freedom and parties to another level professional wise by having these three separate rooms with independent sound systems and stages for live acts, which was definitely groundbreaking at that time. As part of Fabric roots, we can find artists like Adam Beyer, Carl Cox, Thomas Melchior, Baby Ford, Akufen, John Digweed, Luke Slater, Sven Vath, Marco Carola, here again among many more, as well as its unique founding resident, the impressive Craig Richards – who actually celebrates this year his 25 years of operation at Fabric. As a matter of fact, I realized that Fabric has been a real turntable if I can say it as such in terms of artists hosting in London, not only for European performers but also for pioneer artists from USA such as Jeff Mills, Derrick May, Stacey Pullen, Green Velvet, Kenny Larkin or Kevin Saunderson, because they’ve been playing very regularly since its opening, but as I previously mentioned, an
episode focused on the US part of music will be up in the next coming weeks.

From 2005, many more artists are starting to play there, including Monolake, Gaiser, Frivolous, Fumiya Tanaka, Sonja Moonear, Jay Tripwire, Andre Galluzzi, Konrad Black, Tania Vulcano and even Justice, many more clubs are getting opened, promoters are starting to communicate about events and tours are being more and more organized between Europe, USA and Asia, leading this music community to grow always more worldwide.

From example, Craig Richards was the life of the Fabric party since day zero, just like Ricardo Villalobos could be at Watergate, Richie Hawtin at Amnesia or Tania Vulcano for Circoloco. This said, this is really by 2006/2007 that a new wave of artists have been rising, such as Raresh, Rhadoo, Petre Inspirescu – known as RPR Soundsystem – Praslea, Reboot, Enzo Siragusa, Bill Patrick, Ryan Crosson, Seth Troxler, Shaun Reeves or the frenchies Dj Wild and Dubfire, still I’ll keep this second period of evolution for another podcast
since we have a lot to cover on this matter too.

So, now I’ve been telling you more about these places shaping the early music scene that we do know today, let’s connect the dots together vinyl wise. I’ve been mentioning several artists being shaping the European scene since the 90s, and among many others let’s focus on Sven Vath, Ricardo Villalobos, Richie Hawtin, Ata, Luciano, Jay Haze, Margaret Dygas, Cassy, Roman Flügel, Baby Ford, Thomas Melchior and Zip. Let’s base everything out of genuine friendship and like-minded aspirations, as I really feel like their purpose back those days was to team up together in order to make things happen as much as possible regardless where they’re coming from, and so when you look at the bigger picture, among the artists evolving during the late 90s up to the early 2000s, we can see of lot of these artists who were playing in similar clubs or during same events were also ending up being releasing on one another labels, or have been part of one another projects. For example, Sven Vath is living in Offenbach, like Ricardo Villalobos is, Sven Vath is starting his events at Amnesia in 1999 and welcomes Ricardo there, then Ricardo Villalobos has been part of the very first Various Artists release of Cocoon Recordings back in 2000 and many more afterwards.

In the same idea, Ata is running the Robert Johnson club in Offenbach too back these days, hosting since its debuts artists like Daniel Bell who was a resident there, Isolee, LoSoul, Ricardo Villalobos and Thomas Melchior, this said he also runs the Playhouse label in collaboration with Roman Flügel, where all of these artists have been releasing their music too. Similarly with artist Luciano and his label Cadenza he launched back in 2003 alongside with Quenum, Luciano has been hosting peculiar Cadenza nights at Berghain as soon as 2004 and has been playing in parties together as well artists like Digitaline, Ricardo Villalobos or Thomas Melchior, who have also eventually been released on Cadenza.

A last example with Perlon masterminds Chris Rehberger, Markus Nikolai and Zip who have been hosting their peculiar Get Perlonized events at Panorama Bar on the first Friday of every months since its opening in 2004, welcoming artists like Akufen, Cabanne, Cassy, Daniel Bell, Fumiya Tanaka, James Dean Brown, Matt John, Margaret Dygas, Sonja Moonear, Ricardo Villalobos, Soul Capsule and Sammy Dee to be a part of it, who have here again been releasing their music on their Perlon label afterwards. And actually, according to me what could illustrate the best way this friendship turned into creativeness is that live band Narod Niki composed by Akufen, Cabanne, Dandy Jack, Daniel Bell, Luciano, Ricardo Villalobos, Richie Hawtin, Zip and Robert Henke – who is part of Monolake and the master behind the Ableton technology – which first performance at Mutek in 2003 was absolutely groundbreaking. For the anecdote, the band name was found by Ricardo Villalobos, and the Narod Nikis were historically a group of Russian revolutionaries back in the late 19th century, they performed just a few times in cities like Montreux Jazz Festival in 2006 or the historical Admiralspalast in Berlin in 2007 for instance, and it is doubtlessly as of today one of the best live acts ever.

So voila, that is wrapping up this first podcast transcript about the music industry, this podcast and more are available on Spotify so feel free to check them out!