tresor

Tresor has left a rich legacy to electronic music – one that has defined a lot of what “techno” means – and not least of all through the Tresor Records imprint. So as follow up to our preview of the Tresor 25 festival, we’ve partnered with Beatport to share a set of 25 tracks that trace a small slice of that deep catalog. It includes some old classics, the younger generation carrying that torch, and gems like Objeckt’s terrific continuous mix Kern, Vol. 3 (with still more music, so… kind of more than 25 tracks, actually).

Berlin’s Tresor club turns 25 this year, celebrating with a four day festival next week. And the lineup is just completely and totally insane. If you took, say, the Thursday night program out of context, you might be excused for believing it was the headliners for an entire festival. The festival says as much about the healthy state of techno as it does about Tresor – but Tresor is without question one of the venues at the center of that world.

Techno is a thread in Europe that can bring people together, and be a lingua franca. That phenomenon can earn detractors and champions alike; the common currency threatens to devolve into sameness. But one thing I’ve found looking beyond centers like Berlin: there’s extraordinary talent on the horizon, answering to the beacon capital techno cities. If techno is giving people musical commonality, it’s also encouraging people to push their music such that they can extend beyond a hometown or home residency.

In the age of five- and six-figure commercialism, empty and sugary big-stage shows, “DJ” has for some become the butt of a joke, a self-caricature. But DJs are essential to music lovers – now more than ever, with a deep catalog of records past and an astounding volume of new work produced daily, with the DJs shaping tastes and tone in clubs and beyond. Even if you never step into a club, these are the people shaping the way your audience hears. And so it’s refreshing to see the work of Mint Berlin, a booking agency augmented by parties and …

In our last episode of “watching things on the Internet instead of doing real work,” we were enjoying a full-length 90s electronic music documentary and a bunch of music videos. Well, here we are at yet another weekend. And hopefully we can give you some video watching pleasure yet again, in those moments when you aren’t, well, hopefully, making music. Leading the pack is a 1986 story from Chicago TV news back when house music was in its early days, as spotted by Dancing Astronauts. And it’s an astounding document, featuring Danny “Sweet-D” Wilson, Farley “Jackmaster” Funk, Steve “Silk” Hurley, …

There is a mysterious and wonderful appeal to the dangerous power of music. Music can come from the harmonious sound of the spheres, yes. It can sound like a sunny summer picnic. Or – it can sound like it’s trying to kill you. Not every genre goes there, but speaking for Germany’s label Snork Enterprises, Neil Landstrumm and Syntax Error refer to that murderous quality of techno. Today’s words and sounds therefore come from Snork. The interview at top I felt had to be published on CDM just for this quote from Syntax Error, aka label boss Christian Schachta. But …

Summertime may conjure images of Ibiza and middle-of-the-road festivals in Europe and America, “summer jams” and the musical equivalent of the beach book. And there’s nothing wrong with that; anyone who would deny people the pleasure of listening and dancing to music they love is kind of a jerk. But this stereotype can also obscure a simple fact: music at the edges, music falling under the broad umbrella of “experimental” is actually becoming remarkably popular. What’s beautiful about “big tent” experimentalism is that it can encompass a broad range of music. Musicians playing clubs no longer fear angular sounds and …

Switch off that negative talk: vibrations between musical scenes continue to resonate and grow. Here we have two artists, each somehow evergreen and still blossoming, making the link from past to future feel secure. And speaking of good vibrations, I can think of no better way to get the summer vibes going this weekend than warming up with this warm up and mix. So, we turn to Detroit’s Juan Atkins and Hamburg’s DJ Koze to set us straight. They demonstrate that channels between Germany and Detroit remain open and live, that maybe the best days of cross-pollination are ahead, not …