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Minimal techno is a form of electronic dance music (EDM) that is considered a minimalist sub-genre of techno. It is characterized by a stripped-down^[1] aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition, and understated development. This style of dance music production generally adheres to the motto less is more; a principle that has been previously utilized, to great effect, in architecture, design, visual art, and Western art music. The tradition of minimalist aesthetics in Western culture can be traced to the German Bauhaus movement (1919 to 1933). Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990's by Detroit based producers Robert Hood and Daniel Bell.^[2][3] Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... Electronic dance music is a broad set of percussive music genres that largely inherit from 1970s disco music and, to some extent, the experimental pop music of Kraftwerk. ... For other uses, see Minimalism (disambiguation). ... For the gay mens lifestyle magazine, see Genre (magazine). ... For the comic book character previously known as Techno, see Fixer (comics). ... This article is about building architecture. ... All Saints Chapel in the Cathedral Basilica of St. ... Many times, the term art is used to refer to the visual arts. ... Classical music is the sweeping term applied to the musical tradition that is untethered and almost diametrically opposed to the popular music of contemporary culture. ... For this articles equivalent regarding the East, see Eastern culture. ... For information about British rock band, see Bauhaus (band). ... Robert Hood is an American electronic music producer and DJ. He is best known for producing hard minimal techno. ... Daniel Bell Daniel Bell (born 10 May 1919) is a sociologist and professor emeritus at Harvard University. ...

Related styles include Detroit techno, ambient techno, microhouse and tech house. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Ambient music is a loosely defined musical genre that incorporates elements of a number of different styles - including jazz, electronic music, new age, rock and roll, modern classical music, reggae, traditional, world and even noise. ... This article is about music. ... Tech house is a fusion of house and techno music. ...

Style

Many Minimal techno works feature consonant harmony, but most lack functional chord progression, sometimes to the point of seeming atonal^{[citation needed]}. Melodies, when present, are usually short loops of one or two bars, and emphasis is put on creating layers of unique sounds^{[citation needed]}. Musical development is achieved mostly by adding or removing instruments (sounds) on eight-bar phrase boundaries and adjusting sound effects^{[citation needed]}. Music created under this genre can range from melodic harmonies with a prominent bass line, to glitchy, unstructured, disjointed sounds which are unified to create an organized new track^{[citation needed]}. In music, a consonance (Latin consonare, sounding together) is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance, which is considered unstable. ... A diatonic function, in tonal music theory, is the specific, recognized roles of notes or chords in relation to the key. ... A chord progression (also chord sequence and harmonic progression or sequence), as its name implies, is a series of chords played in order. ... Atonality describes music not conforming to the system of tonal hierarchies, which characterizes the sound of classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. ... In musical notation, a bar or measure is a segment of time defined as a given number of beats of a given duration. ... In music a phrase (Greek φράση, sentence, expression, see also strophe) is a section of music that is relatively self contained and coherent over a medium time scale. ... Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of movies, video games, music, or other media. ...

Minimal techno tends to take on one of two styles, either a skeletalism or a massification^{[citation needed]}. In skeletal techno only the core elements of the genre are included in the tracks; embellishments are used only for the sake of variation within the song. Massification is a type of minimalism in which many sounds are layered, but with little variation in sonic elements. Minimalism within techno has been the impetus for many genres such as Detroit Techno, Chicago House and Acid musicians to do more with less. Today its influences are not only found in clubs, but becoming more commonly heard in popular music. ^[4] Regardless of the style, "minimal Techno corkscrews into the very heart of repetition" so cerebrally as to often inspire descriptions like "spartan", "clinical", "mathematical", and "scientific."^[5]

Broadly speaking, minimal techno (as well as house) branches off into two categories, either skeletalism or massification^{[citation needed]}. Skeletalism is defined as stripping away all embellishments--the inessential, "predictable" sounds used to produce techno--leaving the music devoid of traditional drum samples and instead replaced with "pared-down, white noise" like clicks, glitches and crackles which have been sequenced into 4/4 pulses. The sound of skeletalism can be heard in many of Richie Hawtin's productions, often which incorporate a bassy, dark and simplified sound. House music is a style of electronic dance music that was developed by dance club DJs in Chicago in the early to mid-1980s. ... Richard (Richie) Hawtin (born June 4, 1970, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England) is a English-Canadian electronic musician and internationally-touring DJ who was an influential part of Detroit technos second wave of artists in the early 1990s. ...

Massification, on the other hand, incorporates more of a classical minimalist approach, featuring complex pulses and poly-rhythms^{[citation needed]}. Massification is more readily explored in techno than that of Skeletalism, due in part to the dynamic resources available to produce the sound of massification^{[citation needed]}. Techno artist Ricardo Villalobos is often regarded as a producer who utilizes massification while mixing techno, using only a few, select sounds to comprise a dense, highly rhythmic song^{[citation needed]}. Ricardo Villalobos is a Chilean-German electronic music producer and DJ. He is well-known for his work in the minimal techno and microhouse genres, and is one of the most significant figures in todays minimal techno scene. ...

Origins

Minimal techno, like most contemporary electronic dance music, has its roots in the landmark works of pioneers such as Kraftwerk and Detroit Techno's Derrick May and Juan Atkins, all of whom worked in a relatively pared-down style. Minimal techno focuses on "rhythm and repetition instead of melody and linear progression", much like classical minimalist music and the polyrhythmic African musical tradition that helped inspire it, a connection exemplified by Richie Hawtin's "Afrika".^[6] By 1994, according to critic Philip Sherburne, the term "minimal" was in use to describe "any stripped-down, Acidic derivative of classic Detroit style."^[7] Kraftwerk (pronounced , German for power station) is a Grammy award nominated, electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Derrick May, also known as Mayday and Rhythim is Rhythim, is an electronic musician from Detroit, Michigan U.S.. He was born in Detroit in 1963 and began to explore electronic music early in his life. ... Juan Atkins (born December 9, 1962 in Detroit) is an American musician. ... This article is about a musical style. ... Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms. ... Hand drumming is significant throughout Africa The music of Africa is as vast and varied as the continents many regions, nations and ethnic groups. ... Richard (Richie) Hawtin (born June 4, 1970, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England) is a English-Canadian electronic musician and internationally-touring DJ who was an influential part of Detroit technos second wave of artists in the early 1990s. ...

Los Angeles based writer Daniel Chamberlin, attributes the origin of minimal techno to the German producers Basic Channel and in doing so fails to credit the contributions of Robert Hood or mention the influence of Hood, and other members of Underground Resistance, on the Berlin techno scene of the early 1990's (the scene out of which Basic Channel emerged). Chamberlin draws parallels between the compositional techniques used by producers such as Richie Hawtin, Wolfgang Voigt, and Surgeon and that of American minimalist composer Steve Reich, in particular the pattern phasing system Reich employs in many of his works; the earlist being "Come Out". Chamberlin also sees the use of sine tone drones by minimalist composer La Monte Young and the repetitive patterns of Terry Riley's "In C" as other major influences^[8] Flag Seal Nickname: City of Angels Location Location within Los Angeles County in the state of California Coordinates , Government State County California Los Angeles County Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) Geographical characteristics Area     City 1,290. ... Basic Channel is a minimal techno duo of Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus that originated in Berlin, Germany in 1993. ... Robert Hood is an American electronic music producer and DJ. He is best known for producing hard minimal techno. ... Underground Resistance (commonly abbreviated to UR) are a musical collective from Detroit, Michigan, in the United States of America. ... Richard (Richie) Hawtin (born June 4, 1970, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England) is a English-Canadian electronic musician and internationally-touring DJ who was an influential part of Detroit technos second wave of artists in the early 1990s. ... This article is about the medical specialty. ... Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is an American composer. ... La Monte Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer whose eccentric and often hard-to-find works have been included among the most important post World War II avant-garde or experimental music. ... Terry Riley – (Portrait by Betty Freeman) Terry Riley (born 24 June 1935) is an American composer associated with the minimalist school. ... In C is an aleatoric musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for any number of people, although a group of about 35 is desired if possible but smaller or larger groups will work[1]. As its title suggests, it is in the key of C. It is a...

In his essay Digital Discipline: Minimalism in House and Techno, writer Philip Sherburne also points to the possible influence of American minimalist composers on EDM, particularly minimal techno; yet, both Sherburne and Chamerlin largely understate the possible influence on EDM of ethnic music, such as that from Africa (and it's many Afro-American derivatives), Indonesia, and India. Sherburne does concede that the noted similarities between minimal forms of dance music and American minimalism could easily be accidental; he also notes that much of the music technology used in EDM has traditionally been designed to suit loop based compositional methods (it's hardly surprising then if some results sound similar to Reich's early tape loop works). Early Day Miners Early day motion Earthquake disaster mitigation Easter Dating Method Electric dipole moment Electronic direct marketing Electrical discharge machining Electronic dance music Electronic distance meter Electronic document management Engineering design management Engineering drawing management Environmental design and management Department of Essential Drugs and Medicines of the World Health... Hand drumming is significant throughout Africa The music of Africa is as vast and varied as the continents many regions, nations and ethnic groups. ... This article is about a musical style. ...

One group who clearly had an awareness of American minimalism is the British act The Orb. Their 1990 production Little Fluffy Clouds features a sample from Steve Reich's work Electric Counterpoint (1987). Further acknowledgement of Steve Reich's possible influence on EDM came with the release in 1999 of the Reich Remixed tribute album which featured reinterpretations by artists such as DJ Spooky, Mantronik, Ken Ishii, and Coldcut, among others. In listening to this album, and works by Reich, such as that sampled by The Orb, it is difficult to see any direct relationship with the minimal techno productions Robert Hood describes: a basic stripped down, raw sound. Just drums, basslines and funky grooves and only what's essential. Only what is essential to make people move. I started to look at it as a science, the art of making people move their butts, speaking to their heart, mind and soul. It's a heart-felt rhythmic techno sound^[9] The Orb are an English electronic music group known for popularising chill out music in the 1990s and spawning the genre of ambient house. ... Little Fluffy Clouds is a single released by the ambient house group The Orb. ... Category: ... DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid (born Paul D. Miller, 1970), is a Washington DC-born electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called illbient or trip hop. He is a turntablist and producer. ... Kurtis el Khaleel (Arabic: ) (born September 4, 1965), known by the stage name Kurtis Mantronik, is an American hip-hop, electro funk, and dance music artist, DJ, remixer, and producer. ... Ken Ishii (Japanese: ケンイシイ) is a successful Japanese techno DJ and producer from Tokyo. ... Coldcut: Jonathan More (left) & Matt Black Coldcut is a duo comprising English DJs Matt Black and Jonathan More. ...

Daniel Bell has also commented that he had a dislike for minimalism in the artistic sense of the word, finding it too "arty", so it is here that comparisons between the music that was being produced in Detroit and other forms of minimalism fail.^[3]Robert Hood describes the situation in the early 1990's as one where techno had become too "ravey", with increasing tempos leading to the emergence of gabba. Such trends saw the demise of the soul infused techno that typified the original Detroit sound. Hood explains that I think Dan [Bell] and I both realized that something was missing - an element...in what we both know as techno. It sounded great from a production point of standpoint, but there was a 'jack' element in the [old] structure. People would complain that there's no funk, no feeling in techno anymore, and the easy escape is to put a vocalist ans some piano on top to fill the emotional gap. I thought it was time for a return to the original underground.^[3] For other uses, see Rave (disambiguation). ... Gabba may refer to: In music Gabba (music), an incorrect spelling of gabber, a subgenre of hardcore techno in electronic music Gabba (band), a tribute band covering the pop songs of ABBA in the punk style of The Ramones Gabba (musician), a guitarist in the 1980s streetpunk band Chaos UK... For other uses, see Soul music (disambiguation). ...

Development

In recent years, the genre has taken great influence from, to the point of merging with the microhouse genre. It has also fragmented into a great number of difficult to categorize subgenres, equally claimed by the minimal techno and microhouse tags. This article is about music. ...

Minimal techno has found mainstream club popularity since 2004 in such places as Germany, France, South Africa, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Ireland and the UK with DJs from a wide variety of genres incorporating differing elements of its tones, the famed after-hours club DC10 in Ibiza being one exponent of the genre. DC10 logo DC10 is a world-renowned nightclub on the island of Ibiza in the Mediterranean. ... “Ebusus” redirects here. ...

By the second half of 2006, the term 'minimal' had in many ways become contradictory, as it serves as a denominator for the tech house sounds of the moment, many of which should rather be coined as 'maximal' in terms of their sonic content, in contrast to the original stripped down, i.e. minimalist electronic genre.^{[citation needed]} Tech house is a fusion of house and techno music. ...

For the newer minimal techno listeners in northern europe, many of whom have learnt of minimal techno through clubbing, the russian internet radiostation Deepmix has become a popular source of minimal techno. Deepmix (Deep Mix Moscow Radio) is a noncommercial online radio station which broadcasts minimal techno. ...

Artists and labels

Notable artists include Daniel Bell, Ben D, Richie Hawtin (a.k.a. Plastikman), Ricardo Villalobos, Luca Bacchetti, Mika Vainio, Maurizio (Basic Channel), Jeff Mills, Paulo Nascimento, Steve Bug, Luciano (Lucien Nicolet), Robert Hood, Troy Pierce (a.k.a. Louderbach), Sleeparchive (Roger Semsroth), Sutekh (Seth Horvitz) Minimal: Impossible (Tom O'Hara), Dj Ivanoff, Raresh (Romania), Trentemøller (Denmark). Daniel Bell Daniel Bell is considered to be one of the pioneers of the minimal techno genre. ... Richard (Richie) Hawtin (born June 4, 1970, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England) is a English-Canadian electronic musician and internationally-touring DJ who was an influential part of Detroit technos second wave of artists in the early 1990s. ... Ricardo Villalobos is a Chilean-German electronic music producer and DJ. He is well-known for his work in the minimal techno and microhouse genres, and is one of the most significant figures in todays minimal techno scene. ... Pan sonic (originally called Panasonic) is a Finnish experimental electronic music duo consisting of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen. ... Basic Channel is a minimal techno duo of Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus that originated in Berlin, Germany in 1993. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ... Robert Hood is an American electronic music producer and DJ. He is best known for producing hard minimal techno. ... Sutekh is an experimental techno producer from the west coast. ... Anders Trentemøller is a Danish electronic musician from Copenhagen. ...

Some record labels specializing in minimal techno are 90wattsrecords, M nus, Underline, Foundsound, Sähkö Recordings, Force Inc, Kompakt, Trapez, Tenax Recordings, Cadenza, Poker Flat Recordings, Wagon Repair, Marco Carola, Revolver Canada, Minimouse Records. In the music industry, a record label can be a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. ... M_nus is a Canadian record label set up by DJ and producer Richie Hawtin in 1998. ... An underline is one or more horizontal lines immediately below a portion of text. ... Sähkö Recordings is a record label in Helsinki, Finland. ... Kompakt is a Cologne-based electronic music record label and vinyl/CD distributor, owned by Wolfgang Voigt, Michael Mayer and Jürgen Paape. ... Traum Schallplatten, commonly referred to as Traum, is an electronic music record label based in Cologne, Germany. ... Marco Carola is an electronic music DJ, producer, label owner, remixer, and artist born in Naples, Italy on February 7, 1975. ...

References

External links

• Minimalmusic.org Microhouse Minimal IDM Xperimental Ambient Large collection of minimal techno DJ mixes, and Releases from Netlabels and Commercial Records Labels.
• minimal techno podcast - Large collection of minimal techno DJ mixes.
• mnml.nl - international minimal house/techno-oriented website and forum.
• techno minimal community - big collection of techno minimal mixes, playlists, intwrweiw and other stuff.
• minimal techno forum - leading web forum dedicated to minimalx