Originally Posted by
DJAmok
It's gotten confusing lately.
The main confusing is between "Hardtechno" from Germany, which is what "Schranz" evolved into and "Hard Techno" from the UK, which is what Mark EG for example is doing.
So here's a little history lesson on what went on in Germany the last 5 years (again, note the difference between "Hard Techno" and "Hardtechno" or else this won't make sense).
When Schranz started in Germany, it became a huge hype. A year or two into the hype, Schranz as a word became unpopular and the music started to become soft and turned into what is now Techhouse. That aside it also started to suck. That's pretty much when I surfaced and started doing ridiculously hard 'Schranz' with the sole purpose of shocking and protesting this new, softer direction the music had taken.
The work of ViperXXL, Wittekind and myself gave birth to a new hype. 'Schranz' played at 150 bpm. Back then our sets mostly consisted of mostly UK Hard Techno and some of the harder German and French stuff. Think Glenn Wilson, Cold Dust, The Anxious, WJH, Stigmata, etc.
Since we didn't see it as Schranz, for lack of a better word, we called our music "Hard Techno" which was written as "Hardtechno" in order to keep Germans from writing it as "Harter Techno". (This was shortly before the iraq war and in Germany people tried to avoid english words as protest against the US or some shit).
So from then on everybody called the hard and fast stuff "Hardtechno". A bunch of new producers showed up, some good (Arkus P., OBI, Seema at the time), but most of them sucked. People started producing and djing on speeds of 155bpm and up to make their tracks sound harder. This of course wasn't gonna work, but like anyone ever listened to me....
People started stealing loops from each other, overcompressing the f*ck out of their productions, so you basically get some muddy drumloop shit with no highs which pumps for 2 monutes, then theres a break with some random noises and some angry sounding movie sample "haha now prepare to die". Of course that's when the compressor lets go, so the highs start screaming and it messes up you hearing, then the beat comes back in and it's back to the old mud sound.
Now, 3 years later, the scene has devolved into something I don't want to have a part in anymore. Hardtechno partys start at 160+bpm and end at... 160+bpm. NO WONDER party people get sick of this shit. Hell I love headbanging as much as anyone, but I feel insulted by the stupidity and lack of creativity of Hardtechno productions lately.
I pretty much quit playing any of that stuff in 2004 and worked my way towards a more Industrial Hardcore like sound, which in my opinion is far closer to UK Hard Techno than anything else. Names like Manu LeMalin, Daisy, Rude Awakening, Lenny Dee, Peaky Pounder, Ophidian, etc come to mind.
I got into hot water for it, I was threatened last year by DJs from the Hardtechno scene, that if I continued "opening the doors to our market for the the Hardcore guys, it would be the end of Hardtechno, because one can't compete with DJs like Lenny and businesses like Third Movement". Not that I cared. There was even a call for boycott against me. Promoters were threatened, that if they book me or any one from my agency, they would no longer get headliners from a certain agency.
So I started my own agency and right now we're promoting this new Industrial Techno style and building up a new scene. A scene where there will be no room for bpm contests, cokehead artists who mistake themselves for god, calls for boycott and all the other crap that ruined Hardtechno.
At least that's my vision and mission for the next few years.
Ideally there will be partys that start with Techno, move up to Hard Techno and from there go harder and harder until you end up with Industrial Hardcore.