When techno began it was partly a flow on from the house and industrial genres and partly a reaction against the resurgence of white male rock and black, predominantly male, hip hop. As techno has progressed and mutated it has splintered into a thousand different genres. Unfortunately it has, in many cases become formularised. Dollars and misogyny have crept in. The gabber of labels such as Knorr, Terror Trax and Ruffneck scream relentlessly encouraging the listener to "suck their big dicks" and not to "fuck with us"; the breakbeat of England has trivialised complex black rhythms into prepatterned programmed nonsense; kiddiecore is rising again buoyed by a wave of newly discovered cartoon heroes to sell to twelve year olds; and trance has moved from its organic Goa roots into the hypermelodies of a Jean-Michel Jarre on speed. All is bleak in the once interesting world of techno.

 Sven Vath is coming to change the situation. Sven Vath is a man much talked of in Europe and many rumours follow him wherever he goes. Most far-fetched are the tales of his fifteen hour marathon DJ sets at his Omen Club in Frankfurt. I spoke to Sven direct from his home, recovering from a cold, in Frankfurt, Germany.

This is the man behind the EyeQ and Harthouse labels, a man who has written numerous tracks with his composing partner, Ralf Hildenbeutel, including 1992s Barbarella, 1993s Accident In Paradise, and this year’s beautiful The Essence Of Nature Goa project and his latest album, The Harlequin, The Robot, & The Ballet Dancer, has just become available on import. As part of a mid-80s German band, Off, with the members of Snap, Sven reached the dizzy heights of super pop stardom. Thankfully, for us, he has retreated into the underground where he and his label have brought us some of the most beautiful moments in trance dance music.

The Harlequin The Robot and The Ballet Dancer is somewhat of a concept album, moving between classical ambient and organic trance. "It represents three persons in one - me - which I try to describe in different moods. I like to make people smile all the time in all facets of my work so I am the harlequin. The robot is about me making things as perfect as possible, and also represents the technical side of things, and the ballet dancer represents commitment and giving everything up to DJ and compose. It also represents the classical element in my work". Indeed listening to some of the ambient tracks, Harlequin’s Meditation and Ballet Romance, Sven and Ralf Hildenbeutel’s classical talents show through very clearly with heavily orchestrated strings and bells reminiscent of Mozart. "I have been thinking about the album for the last year, planning it, and sourcing sounds for it . . . Ralf is the musician, he has been into classical music from a very early age and since Barbarella we have found our language to communicate . . . so when we co-write tracks it is very easy".

Ralf Hildenbeutel has been very busy himself as have the rest of the Harthouse and EyeQ families. Under the guidance of Sven, label chief and mentor, Ralf Hildenbeutel has produced his own Earth Nation project which Sven gleefully announces is "touring Europe at present with a live drummer and this weekend they play at the enormous Universe rave at Munich airport with Underworld". In the lead up to Christmas the label has its work cut out releasing a new Spicelab LP, Global Virus (the fourth Harthouse compilation), a new Juri Cerver, a spoken word album from a famous German writer with Oliver Lieb, and finally a chillout album and a new "low bpm ambient music with groove" label by those responsible for the now defunct and infamous Frankfurt XS Club. Also from his own album Sven will be releasing The Beauty and The Beast as a single remixed by Underworld, CJ Bolland, Total Eclipse, and others. Sven will be a busy record executive these next few months not to say the last year has not been hectic. Harthouse recently reached and passed the 50th release mark with a commemorative gold Hardfloor EP, EyeQ has been steadily increasing its flow of melodic hard trance, and the albums have been pouring out at a rate of knots. Unfortunately ambient subsidiary Recycle Or Die disappeared beneath the torrent of Harthouse and EyeQ activity but it looks as if the idea will be revived under a new name later this year or early next year.

Frankfurt has been home to some of the most interesting techno sounds for the last year or so, surpassing Berlin as the German techno capital. Frankfurt is home to Peter Namlook, the prolific ambient maestro who releases new CDs at the rate of one per week with no end in sight. It has also been home to the XS Club now replaced by a heavy metal night. Electronic ambient music, German style, has found its new birthplace in Frankfurt. "The German ambient scene is growing, especially in Frankfurt, in England as well, but now they call it all sorts of things - intelligent techno, artificial techno, ambient, chill out - but to me it is just good music". Frankfurt has also been home to the German trance sound since the MFS fiasco shook Berlin from the trance throne. EyeQ and Harthouse, Thomas Heckmann’s Trope records, Delerium, Pod and Ongaku, Frankfurt is trance central and home to some of the finest experimental trance composers, DJs and labels. "The trance scene is splitting between the rave and club scene, 130-150bpm in the clubs with only a few tracks over 160bpm is what I play most. My favourite is 140-150bpm when you can still dance. The rave scene is still very speedy and stupid - all that hardcore gabber shit. I can’t dance to that, its just jumping music with nothing inside". Harsh words, perhaps, but this is from a man responsible for some of the most beautiful organic Goa-inspired trance over the last few years. Unfortunately for us in Sydney we have only a rave scene with little club support so is it little wonder that musically we remain in the Gabber, hardcore, and pop trance stone age.

Yellow Peril 1994

 

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