The Best Techno Tracks of the '90s
Detroit invented techno in the '80s. The '90s is when everyone else answered, so rank these tracks. A recording gets in only if its first commercial release, single or album, is dated 1990 to 1999; it has no sung top line and no credited vocalist; its kick lands on all four beats rather than a chopped breakbeat; techno or a techno subgenre is listed first by whichever of the track's page, the artist's page or the Discogs master carries a genre field soonest, so a house tag first is out; and its Spotify id must be the recording itself. That last rule is why Josh Wink is missing: his record's page lists acid techno first, so it is in scope. 'Higher State of Consciousness' just has no defensible id. No artist twice, aliases counted. Years are the recording's first; entries name each carrier. Tier one: first issued on Metroplex, Transmat, Axis, Underground Resistance, Plus 8, Planet E, Tresor or Basic Channel. Everything else that qualifies sits in tier two. Each entry names label and year. Votes reorder inside tiers.
Plastikman — Spastik (1993) is #1 on “The Best Techno Tracks of the '90s”.
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Plastikman — Spastik (1993)
Nine minutes of one drum machine pattern being pulled apart and screwed back together, with almost nothing else in the room. Richie Hawtin issued Spastik on Plus 8 in October 1993, and the record's own Wikipedia entry files the genre as minimal techno, which for once is a flat description rather than a label. The link lands on Recycled Plastik, the 1994 Plus 8 EP carrying the full length version.
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Jeff Mills — Jerical (1992)
Second track on Waveform Transmission Vol. 1, made after Mills left Underground Resistance for a Tresor residency in Berlin. Jerical spends five minutes and change letting the hi-hats do the melodic work while the kick refuses to move at all. There is no page for the track, so the call falls to his, and that lists Detroit techno before minimal techno. The 1992 Tresor pressing, catalogue Tresor.011LP, is the release this id sits on.
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Basic Channel — Phylyps Trak (1993)
Berlin, 1993, and the second Basic Channel release: a chord stab fed through so much delay and tape hiss that the thing sounds received rather than played. Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus issued Phylyps Trak on their own label as BC-02. Dub techno heads the duo's genre box, ahead of ambient techno and minimal techno. The id here comes off that original three track single, not the 2008 BCD-2 collection where the same recording also sits.
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Joey Beltram — Energy Flash (1990)
Simon Reynolds credited Beltram in Generation Ecstasy with having "revolutionized techno twice before the age of 21", meaning this and Mentasm. Energy Flash is a bass pulse, a whispered sample and little else on top. He was not yet twenty. One word sits in his genre box, techno. R&S released it in 1990 as the opening track of the four track Beltram Vol. 1, which is where the link goes.
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LFO — LFO (1990)
Leeds, on a Sheffield label, with a sampler and a bass tone low enough to be felt before it is heard. LFO crossed into the national singles chart in July 1990, which is peculiar for a record with no chorus and nobody singing. Their genre box opens on techno, with bleep techno after it. It came out that year on Warp as a four track EP, and that EP is what this id belongs to, not the Frequencies album.
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Sweet Exorcist — Testone (1990)
Richard H. Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire and DJ Parrot made a record from test tones and a stuttered voice sample, and left the bass to do everything a melody normally would. Warp released Testone in January 1990, and bleep techno is the genre listed against the duo's name. Spotify puts it on Warp10+2 Classics 89-92, the label's own 1999 anthology rather than a 1990 pressing.
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Slam — Positive Education (1993)
Glasgow, and Soma Quality Recordings, the label Stuart McMillan and Orde Meikle started themselves. Positive Education runs past eight minutes on one rising figure and a kick that does not let up. Wikipedia gives Slam no genre box, so the Discogs master decides it, and that lists techno first. Soma pressed the two track twelve inch in 1993, and this id is its A side.
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Ken Ishii — Extra (1995)
Sapporo rather than Detroit, and the label was R&S in Belgium: catalogue RS 95064, October 1995. Koji Morimoto's animation for Extra won Best Dance Music Video of the year for MTV Europe in 1997. Ishii's own page lists one genre, techno. The link is track two of that original five track single, which also carries a video edit and three remixes.
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DBX — Losing Control (1994)
Daniel Bell's genre box reads Detroit techno first, and his page opens by calling him an American minimal techno DJ. It describes Losing Control as "delay driven", which undersells how much of it is delay: the voice goes into the echo and does not come back out. He put it out as DBX on his own Accelerate label in 1994. Spotify carries it on a Peacefrog anthology from 2000.
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How this list was ranked
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