TECHNO BEGINNINGS


If we had to look back in time for a precedent of todays techno, that would be, without doubt, the futurist movement of Marinetti and his followers. His passion for industrial machines took Luigi Russolo to create in 1913 the "machina intonarrumori", an incredible and complex artifact which emitted strange and stern sounds. It didn't need much time for futurists to talk about "the art of noise", expression which gave name to one of the most important band of the 80s, fact that shows again that avant-garde movements always come back to its origins. You can listen to techno-roots in some recopilations as "Dada for Now" (Ark) and "Futurism & Dada Reviewed" (Sub Rosa), where there is, for example, "Veglio Di Una Cittá" by Luigi Russolo, the only recordings made of the "machina intonarrumori". By the other side, the dadaists, from their refuge in Cabaret Voltaire (other connection with nowadays techno), Zurich, promoted their desires of freedom, madness and experimentation through poems such as "Gadji Beri Bimba" by Hugo Ball (also in "Dada For Now"), which would be later used by Talking Heads in their song "I Zimbra". With regard to Kurt Schwwiters, he was who patented a collage technique known as Merz, which along with William Borroughs's cut-ups have been the two main extra-musical references used by "sample-terrorists". And a bit before, between XIX and XX centuries we have impressionist Erik Satie's works, whose eliptical and circular compositions are in many of the new trance technocrates' themes.

Finally, in a time nearer to the present time, we must talk about some of the great masters of contemporary music. Right from Edgar Varesse's crashing experiments (adored by Zappa) in his work "Ionization" till Stockhausen's electroacustic sound, going through Greek Iannis Xenakis's stochastic music (based on chain reactions and probability calculations) or great John Cage's random and subversive music, which in works like "Cartridge Music" makes a precedent of industrial music.

















TECHNO