Is Techno about the music or the mindset?
Long and the short of it, I’ve been on and off with the music. Still doing at it making the occasional song/track when the inspiration hits, but the music (for me) has become less the art than the mindset.
When I started in this game, it was this mindset, this re-appropriation that inspired me. It has always been part of my ‘Need to create’ mindset. A mindset which fits well with techno music.
Techno music has always been about the re-appropriation of technology in novel and unique ways. For a great example watch the TB303 documentary.
If you haven’t watched the TB-303 documentary I highly suggest it: Roland TB303 Documentary BASSLINE BASELINE by Nate Harrison
Bassline Baseline is a video essay that investigates the invention, failure and subsequent resurrection of the mythic Roland TB-303 Bass Line music machine in the last two decades of the 20th century. The narrative seeks to invite thoughts on technological mediation within product innovation and creative expression. The dead-panned ‘documentary’ video attempts to explore how and why creative tools fail and how increasingly more options, parameters or intermediaries devised during a tool’s research and development phase don’t necessarily lead to increased expressivity or virtuosity during the tool’s lifetime of actual use, unless the super-structure of its cultural context is dramtically reconsidered.
(Source: Archive.org)
Now here I am approaching 40 years old thinking less about dj’ing and producing, and more about embracing that mindset into other aspects of my life. While the ‘Hacker mindset’ speaks to *how* to move forward, I’ve always had a problem with the why… the spark that creates the action.
The mindset of Lx7 has always been ‘the something in that square‘… This has always been my translation of the techno mindset. That mindset has driven more successes within my own life than I ever could imagine… and it continues to drive me forward.
Which makes it more relevant today than ever before. It’s that mindset which can’t easily be commoditized. Techno music may one day become a commodity (that’s a whole other post), but the techno mindset is something that will always be unique.
