- “Oldschool, Baby”
Checking the Womb website for the second event of Jeff Mills’ three event residency reveals that the musical theme of the evening (apart from “alien abductions” and Jeff Mills opening “with a new form of Techno Music that he … specially prepared for this event”) was “Pure Techno”. What the website and flyers didn’t announce was that this was going to be an exploration, and celebration, of classic Old School techno.
Jeff’s opening two-hour set dived right into the history lesson, with soaring, melancholic classic Detroit melodies plucking at the crowd’s heartstrings. In Jeff’s hands, the sound hasn’t dated at all, with tracks such as the legendary “Strings of Life” retaining their power to summon up feelings of hope, joy, and sadness. After an hour or so, the moody emotional inner-city melodies of Detroit gave way to driving, almost EBM-ish/Industrial beats, Jeff hinting at his early historical roots as a DJ. Quite frankly, “a new form of Techno Music” wasn’t needed since the Old School was proving so strong.
"Jeff’s opening two-hour set dived right into the history lesson, with soaring, melancholic classic Detroit melodies plucking at the crowd’s heartstrings."
As Jeff stepped off the stage, Scion took to their laptops. For an evening that was announced as “Pure Techno”, but was also taking a decidedly Old School approach to Techno, Scion was the perfect choice. Scion had the first ever release on the Chain Reaction label in 1995, the label that Basic Channel created after finishing their legendary run of nine 12”s which undoubtedly set one of the blueprints of Techno. It’s significant that the very first Basic Channel release in 1993 features a remix by Jeff Mills. The links between Detroit and Berlin are strong, and it was Basic Channel and Mills who helped forge those links. Scion tread directly in the footsteps of Basic Channel, and have worked very closely with them, so it’s only natural that Mills invited Scion to play.
The first 30 minutes of Scion’s 90-minute set was characterized by the distinctive Chain Reaction/Basic Channel sound. A deep, aquatic sound, with washes of dub-like reverb echoing across the dancefloor. Dark, murky depths, with a beat slowly but surely churning at the bottom of the ocean. Gradually, ever so slowly, that beat began to rise, although it took the club goers of Womb quite some time to recognize this. Perhaps lulled by the deep narcotic dub textures, many people began to drift off the dancefloor.
But like some kind of Leviathan, the deep aquatic beats finally came surging up to the surface, pounding and raging. The dub-like textures and reverb remained, but they now served to underscore the hammering four/four beats. Soon enough the dancefloor filled up again, and became something of a churning ocean itself. With the hook firmly placed into the crowd, Scion launched into 60 minutes of superlative Techno that had everyone absolutely shrieking by the end. Implacable behind their Macs, Scion went surging into the heart of the stormy sea, hammering, pounding, yet never loosing sight of the texture that somehow grounded it all and leant necessary human warmth to the music.
"A deep, aquatic sound, with washes of dub-like reverb echoing across the dancefloor. Dark, murky depths, with a beat slowly but surely churning at the bottom of the ocean."
It was, without hyperbole, simply one of the best live Techno sets I have ever seen.
Jeff Mills stepped up behind the decks for his second set of the evening, and boldly announced his intentions with the very first track. As the epic soaring synths of Underground Resistance’s classic “Amazon” filled the air, quickly followed by its insistent four/four beat, Mills announced that the energy level created by Scion would not drop. If anything, he was going to try to even increase the energy levels. With that, Mills ripped into a high energy set of slamming four-to-the-floor classic techno that never let up. The dancefloor never emptied, forever surging forwards and back. Old School was the name of the game, as Mills briefly tore through some Basic Channel-like structures, and then into the classic techno of Detroit’s past. Mills managed to keep the energy level high, never wavering, never dropping off. At one point Mills moved to a 909 beside his decks, and began programming live beats with insistent snares stuttering like machineguns which he twisted faster and faster until the crowd’s collective head was twisted clean off.
In the end, it was fortunate that Jeff didn’t unveil “a new form of Techno Music”, as was originally claimed. We didn’t need a new form of Techno. Nor did we really need anything to be connected to ideas of space exploration or alien abductions. The music spoke for itself, thankfully overcoming pre-conceived ideas of what the night was supposed to be about, even overcoming the horribly overcrowded nature of the event (which removes a point from the ratings because it turned what would have been a “magic” evening into a “great” evening). The music spoke, and the message was this: there is indeed no school like the Old School.
Photos of Jeff Mills, Scion and additional crowd shots taken by STRO!ROBO
Special thanks to Yuuka Tokomitsu @ Womb, Nikki Wright @ IMD and Yoko @ Axis.