From Kraftwerk To Boys Noize: The Importance Of German Electronic Music In Melbourne

Detroit has long been mythologised as 'Techno City'. It was here in the '80s where Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson – all former students at Belleville High – invented a post-industrial Black music and manifesto they named 'techno'. But, as the trio of DJs/producers experienced success in the UK and then continental Europe during the second summer of love, techno became an outernational movement. And Detroit found satellite techno cities: some similarly ailing economically or socio-politically marginalised. 

One of these would be Frankfurt, Germany – eventually superseded by the liminal Berlin, briefly home to Underground Resistance (UR) member Jeff Mills, advancing Detroit's 'Second Wave'. In the UK, Surgeon put Birmingham on the techno map, as Warp Records did Sheffield, and Slam's Soma Records in Glasgow. Laurent Garnier ignited a Parisian techno, auguring the Ed Banger fold (and Justice). Sweden, known for wholesome pop, spawned the uncompromising Adam Beyer and Cari Lekebusch. Techno surged across post-Communist Eastern Europe. Tokyo was another techno metropolis, with Japan's Ken Ishii reinterpreting Detroit techno while heeding the legacy of Yellow Magic Orchestra. Melbourne emerged as Australia's techno city – although Adelaide produced DJ HMC and Juice Records.

"German techno proponents toured Australia early, permeating Melbourne club heritage."

Melbourne Music Week (MMW), celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, has consistently programmed techno – crucially the Detroit and Berlin traditions. Through the '90s, Detroit exerted a profound influence on techno in Melbourne and elsewhere, with its dual streams represented respectively by The Belleville Three (May's enduring track Strings Of Life epitomised the music's utopian and romantic impulse) and Mills, who alongside Robert Hood, ushered in an abstract minimalism. Yet Berlin gradually was as important.

Of course, post-war Germany pioneered machine music. Kraftwerk busted out of Düsseldorf in the '70s as avant-garde musicians, being designated 'krautrock' by UK media-types (they're now referred to as 'kosmische'). The enigmatic group intrigued David Bowie, who'd settle in West Berlin, cutting his so-called Berlin Trilogy with Brian Eno. Later, the robo-funksters prompted Black American musicians to experiment, creating electro, hip hop and techno. Meanwhile, in Munich, Giorgio Moroder laid the blueprint for (Italo) disco, connecting with US vocalist Donna Summer to record dancefloor classics like I Feel Love. From the late '70s, DAF rebelled against kosmische – their output punk and visceral (ironically, they teamed with Kraftwerk cohort Konrad "Conny" Plank). Plausibly, DAF originated not only EBM, but also a raw form of electroclash. Again from Düsseldorf, Propaganda – signed to Trevor Horn's UK ZTT Records – made synth-pop industrial, epic and arty: cue the single Dr Mabuse. In 2019, Propaganda's frontwoman Claudia Brücken stands among Germany's first female electronic innovators. The artists all converged into an industry – and culture.

Claudia Brüken in Propaganda.

Before Berlin was a techno haven, Frankfurt was the hotspot. Frankfurt's flamboyant Sven Väth began DJing in the '80s, launching the Omen nightclub plus his Eye Q stable. Initially identified with the techno-adjacent trance, Väth pivoted to minimal in the mid-'90s under his Cocoon brand. The German even popularised techno in house-fixated Ibiza (hosting Kraftwerk on the Balearic isle this past September).

The rise of techno in Berlin would be linked to German reunification. In July 1989, Dr Motte and friends conceived the Love Parade street rave as a demonstration for peace in the partitioned Cold War city – WestBam DJing. That November, the Berlin Wall fell – and newly accessible vacant buildings were utilised by party people. Promoter Dimitri Hegemann devised the Tresor club and label – symbolically, and significantly, forging alliances between Berlin and Detroit's resolutely independent Black techno fraternity. Tresor made way for Berghain, accommodated in an iconic old power plant – the club's ethos pluralistic, communal and hedonistic. Over time, Ellen Allien, Monika Kruse and Anja Schneider challenged the scene's gender imbalance.

Dr Motte.

German techno generated offshoots. Berlin's mysterious Basic Channel fostered a dubby variant in the '90s. The Munich house/techno DJ Hell (aka Helmut Geier), boss of the eccentric International Deejay Gigolo Records, accidentally started electroclash – nurturing Kittin and The Hacker. Minimalism evolved into its own genre with a figurehead in Steve Bug. Around the 2000s, German electro-house, a counterpoint to minimal, took off, with Booka Shade – from Berlin's Get Physical crew – ubiquitous. Frankfurt's Chris Liebing introduced the dark, hard and fast style of schranz. 

Teutonic techno is now global. Indeed, in Germany, techno(logy) is a cultural export, sponsored by the Goethe-Institut. But German techno proponents toured Australia early, permeating Melbourne club heritage. Frankfurt tech-trancer Oliver Lieb latterly shared footage of his 1994 gig at The Palace on YouTube. Melbourne actually had spin-off Love Parade events. 

There is a push to chronicle dance music history – and challenge lingering perceptions that the counterculture is transient. In fact, electronic acts enjoy unusual cross-generational support. Kraftwerk joined 2003's Big Day Out. Their contemporaries Faust appeared as part of 2011's Melbourne International Jazz Festival, using chainsaws as instruments. MMW presented Tangerine Dream at Melbourne Town Hall in 2014, tragically less than two months prior to leader Edgar Froese's passing. Dr Motte guested at 2015's Face The Music. In 2017, 500 years after the momentous German Reformation, DJ Hell, a native of Catholic Bavaria, DJed at the protestant St Paul's Cathedral for MMW. Last year the festival booked Mills, techno's greatest conceptualist, taking the music from warehouses to art spaces at ACMI.

Tangerine Dream @ Melbourne Music Week, 2014.

Young Melburnians have drifted towards Berlin as an international hipster destination, queuing to enter the infamous Berghain. In a cultural loop, MMW is recreating a Berlin ambience in Melbourne. This year, German electro-punks DAF will perform their inaugural Australian show. The Berlin-based Robert Henke will return to stage the latest iteration of his laser techno symphony Lumiere at the Melbourne Recital Centre, as well as play dub-techno as Monolake. Notably, Henke co-developed the Ableton Live music software that revolutionised techno production and performance. Nevertheless, in keeping with the Tresor spirit, Detroit's Mark Flash will DJ on the same bill as the Brit Radio Slave.

Today Berlin techno is at a tipping point – but it's resisting gentrification by shifting unexpectedly. As Kraftwerk inspired Black artists, the Berlin contingent are collaborating directly with US urban auteurs. Hell worked with P Diddy. And Frank Ocean's R&B(erghain) single, DHL, was co-produced by the electro-punk Boys Noize – a Hamburg transplant in Berlin. Boys Noize debuted on International Deejay Gigolo and infiltrated the US 'EDM' circuit. But, neatly, he also cites DAF as an influence, recently remixing their vintage Als Wär's Das Letzte Mal.