Meet the Techno twins, one yells at us: primal, thumping, higher states of consciousness, the other whispers: sleek, seamless, artificial, beats for people who wail excitedly when reading: ‘IT’S HERE: THE IPHONE 4 IN WHITE!’ Thus is the strange split in Techno music's image. Take Richie Hawtin’s DE9: Transitions (2005); Hawtin’s face adorns the predominantly white cover; who knows what thoughts are crossing his mind as he stares out at us? Is he pondering the invention of a waterproof Macbook Pro so he can make music while bathing in Evian? I don’t know; a slightly repulsive sheaf of golden hair provides the only colour in the heavily embellished image. But bizarrely enough, this impassive picture is the binding for pumping, kicking, relentless sounds, surely designed to make the listener sweat? This is sweaty music, with the capacity to produce puddles of perspiration. But the front cover makes Mr Hawtin look as if he’s had biological treatment to block his glands; I call this Techno’s ‘Hairdresser Aesthetic’.
Obviously this ascetic aesthetic, if you will, comes from Techno’s root in machines, machines of course being mankind’s apparent paragons of progress: functional, efficient, fast, never prone to error. You don’t need to have watched The Terminator to know this is bollocks, machines can be ugly messy things that turn against you, waging war on humankind, or even worse, erasing all your mp3s.
The mirroring of machine efficiency in album artwork started well enough: Kraftwerk sheathed their music with stylish, crisp album covers, Autobahn (1974) and Man Machine (1978) resonate with a beautiful 2D style, echoes of Russian propaganda posters and the functionality of road signs. Very tasteful. But these days it’s morphed into what looks like commercials for skin cream, propagating a lifestyle of clean living and slicked back hair, God knows why; most techno nights I’ve been to are far from clean.
Yet more offenders: Ricardo Villalobos’s Salvador (2006) has him squatting in the middle of a desert highway in a white v-neck and shades, looking like a fellow who owns a variety of skin lotions. On Carl Craig’s Sessions (2008), Craig locks eyes with ours, tendrils of smoke drift behind him, a functional man fresh out of the dry ice container. Is this really the guy who made ‘Jam The Box’, a song which crashes out of the speakers like a malfunctioning robot, hell bent on destroying any semblance of sterility with it’s clattering, punching kick drum? It's called 'Jam The Box' for god's sake, not 'Wrap The Box In Velvet After It's Had It's Long Soak'.
Yet more offenders: Ricardo Villalobos’s Salvador (2006) has him squatting in the middle of a desert highway in a white v-neck and shades, looking like a fellow who owns a variety of skin lotions. On Carl Craig’s Sessions (2008), Craig locks eyes with ours, tendrils of smoke drift behind him, a functional man fresh out of the dry ice container. Is this really the guy who made ‘Jam The Box’, a song which crashes out of the speakers like a malfunctioning robot, hell bent on destroying any semblance of sterility with it’s clattering, punching kick drum? It's called 'Jam The Box' for god's sake, not 'Wrap The Box In Velvet After It's Had It's Long Soak'.
Rather than these dull misnomers, a more fitting machine analogy would be a gargantuan industrial powerhouse, leaking oil and covered in grease, braying as it’s wheels turn and it’s pistons pump. It may not be electronic, but it suits the thundering sound of Carl Craig’s ‘Jam The Box’ more than a Kindle.
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