Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Techno Town
Call it techno, electro, house, minimal - electronic music is the sound of Berlin and its near-
mythical club culture has defined the capital's cool factor and put it on the map of global he-
donists. The sound may have been born in Detroit but it came of age in Berlin.
The seed was sown in dark and dank cellar club UFO on Köpenicker Strasse in 1988. The
'godfathers' of the Berlin sound, Dr Motte, Westbam and Kid Paul, played their first gigs
here, mostly sweat-driven acid house all-night raves. It was Motte who came up with the
idea to take the party to the street with a truck, loud beats and a bunch of friends dancing be-
hind it - and the Love Parade was born (it peaked in 1999 with 1.5 million people swarming
Berlin's streets).
The Berlin Wall's demise, and the vacuum of artistic freedom it created, catapulted techno
out of the underground. The associated euphoria, sudden access to derelict and abandoned
spaces in eastern Berlin and lack of control by the authorities were all defining factors in
making Berlin a techno mecca. In 1991 the techno-sonic gang followed UFO founder
Dimitri Hegemann to Tresor, which launched camouflage-sporting DJ Tanith along with
trance pioneer Paul van Dyk. Today, the Tresor label is still a seminal brand representing
Jeff Mills, Blake Baxter and Cristian Vogel, among many others.
Key label BPitch Control, founded by Ellen Allien in 1999, launched the careers of
Modeselektor, Apparat, Sascha Funke and Paul Kalkbrenner. Another heavyweight is the
collective Get Physical, which includes the dynamic duo M.A.N.D.Y. who fuse house and
electro with minimal and funk to create a highly danceable sound. The charmingly named
Shitkatapult, founded in 1997 by Marco Haas (aka T.Raumschmiere), is focused on minim-
alist styles and counts Apparat and Daniel Meteo among its artists.
Foreign artists too have influenced the Berlin scene, including the provocative Canadian
songster and performance artist Peaches, UK-Canadian techno innovator Richie Hawtin and
Chilean minimalist master Ricardo Villalobos.
