#2000s techno

Misstress Barbara - “For All There’s Left” Relentless Beats Vol. 1 by Misstress Barbara Song released in 2000. Mix released in 2001. Tribal Techno

***Song starts at 5:43 and ends at 9:11***

The Italian-born, Montréal-residing Misstress Barbara (which is a portmanteau of "Miss" and "stress" to reflect her overactive, perfectionist nature and not really a dominatrix thing, if that's what you're thinking) has been steady on her dance music grind since the mid-90s. And while she's a beloved DJ who really wants nothing more than to play her sets according to whatever her personal tastes are at that point in time, as well as a Juno-nominated producer and singer (it's like a Canadian Grammy), the thing that she was most prominently known for at the beginning of her career was techno, plain and simple; both her ability to spin it in order to work a crowd into a frenzy, and her ability to make it.

And in 1999, Barbara landed a 12-inch on Swede Christian Smith's Tronic label, a then small-time outlet that specialized in the wall-vibrating, tribal style of the music. That same year, she launched her own label, Relentless, through which she released her own same type of records, and in '01 she brought her hard-nosed mixing talents to the venerated Moonshine Music, for which she made a fantastic and perfectly titled set called Relentless Beats, Vol. 1.

Like any self-respecting DJ, on that mix Barbara included some of her personal favorite cuts and sprinkled in some of her own material as well. And one of those tracks of hers that appeared on that mix was a blistering piece of tribalism, which was originally released the prior year on a 12-inch EP for Relentless called For All There's Left.

This track is really just a lovely, rhythmically primal assault of sorts. Misstress Barbara uses a heavy, pulsating 4/4 kick drum and rumbling, bonging sinister bass as her foundation and then proceeds to pile a packed stack of tightly woven percussive rhythms on top, making for a thickly layered brain masher of a track. Clapping, resonant rimshots(?) lead the way as they're soon sandwiched between a hot spring of rustling hi-hats and then a soft hand drum rhythm that runs alongside the bottom. But while she's got more than enough to make for a satisfying track at that point, Barbara still has even more rhythms in the tank to mix in and out in order to keep us on our toes.

Radial 3h Oldscool Set @ The Hanger Dublin  

E.B.E. - “Serenity” Soma Compilation Seven 2000 Tech-House / Deep Techno

California’s not a place that’s really known much for its techno, but in a state that’s home to literally tens of millions of people, you’re bound to find at least a few great producers, and one of them is San Jose’s Lucas Rodenbush. Although Rodenbush may have looked like the bassist in a local skate-punk band during some of his most prolific years, don’t let his exterior fool you; under just a few monikers, he was actually able to proliferate his well-crafted blends of techno, house, and tech-house through a number of popular dance labels the world over between the late 90s and early aughts. Since then, he’s transitioned himself into an academic and is now immersed in the avant garde world of electro-acoustic music, but in his earliest days, Rodenbush channeled his always innovative music sense onto a globalized dancefloor instead.

One of the many labels on which Rodenbush’s music has landed is the highly respected Glasgow-based Soma Quality Recordings, through which he released two 12-inches under his primary stage name, E.B.E., between 1999 and 2000. The second 12-inch, the Neural Response EP, is a four-song release that has a fantastic keys-and-strings combo kind of track on it called “Serenity,” which also appeared on Soma’s Compilation Seven label sampler in 2000 as well.

“Serenity” is a tune that’s on a real deep-space tech-house kind of vibe, thanks in large part to its echoingly sharp, twinkling keys and its floaty bed of slowly swaying, French-inspired, melancholic synth work. And while these two integral elements, when combined with a 4/4 kick drum, closed and open hats, hand claps (is it just me, or does every fourth hand clap sound a little more thunderous than the others?), shakers, and some other hissing bits of percussion are enough to make “Serenity” a solid piece of inward-looking deep techno on its own in the early going, it’s the extra stuff that Rodenbush adds to the mix and the little changes he makes along the way that put this song over the top; more percussion, some lightly rumbling bass, spots of more keys with a little added heft, and the crowning pieces: a growing chorus of prickling, glassy string shards of varied lengths, plus an extra, brief mini-bed of strings that lie beneath the just-introduced strings, which sway in much the same way as the main bed of dreary synths at the track’s bottom.