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[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.

Related styles include Detroit techno, ambient techno, microhouse and tech house.

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].

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. 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."

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.

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].

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". By 1994, according to critic Philip Sherburne, the term "minimal" was in use to describe "any stripped-down, Acidic derivative of classic Detroit style."

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

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).