Ten years ago, at the height of the US electronic dance music boom, Richie Houghton read "Room" and realized that not only were there many new electronic music fans and artists on the scene, but many of them had very limited understanding. The origin of the genre was a sound outside of the mainstream big house style that dominated at the time.
The Canadian techno pioneer set his sights on becoming a teacher and led CNTRL tours of North America in 2012 and 2015, where Hout hosted techno talks and workshops throughout the day, as well as teaching demo sessions after dark at the Track Club. .
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At the time, many of the scene's pioneers hoped (and criticized) that the American public would mature outside the big venues and discover the deeper sounds of house and techno, genres originally created in America, mostly in the artist community. Detroit and Chicago are colorful. .
Ten years later, that vision has materialized in many ways as house, techno and tech house have replaced electronic dance music as the genre of choice among the new generation of dance fans and EDM fans who have grown up with the sound over the last 10 years. . Thus, techno fell into the same kind of mass marketing that had annoyed many viewers of the scene a decade earlier.
To celebrate the achievements of techno and educate listeners about the underground realms of the already familiar commercial sound, Khotin embarked on yet another educational tour in March of this year. The race will span eight cities in the US and Canada and celebrate the virtues and values of techno by featuring an underground group of producers who create some of the heaviest, weirdest and most unusual genres. Each warehouse exhibition is held in partnership with an independent organizer.
"It's been ten years since the CNTRL tour, and now we're in the depths of a new techno sound that perfectly blends the elements we were experiencing at the time, " Hotin told Billboard. “The massive explosion and popularity of EDM 10 years ago led us to create the CNTRL Tour, which took us bussing across North America to reach the ideals and express them through performance and conversation.
Here we are now, 10 years later, he continues, “participating in Storeroom events across the country with artists of that era – artists of all genres and styles of electronic music, but very focused and committed to the sound and ideals of techno.”
The This From Our Minds - To Be Unknown 2023 tour kicks off March 10 in Detroit, the birthplace of techno, then travels to Canada before returning to the US with shows in Las Vegas, San Francisco and elsewhere. Locations have not yet been announced. See the full schedule below.
Alongside Hawtin, the tour, which takes its name from Hawtin's '90 Plus 8 label and From Our Minds to Yours, will feature a rotation of techno producers including Canadian Barbosa, New Yorker Jay York, Texans Decoder and Declan James, Herbert. Lindsey Phoenix (who first encountered techno as an EDM fan during the CNTRL tour), DJ Dev Bedi from San Francisco and JIA from Guam, LA. Each show will definitely have a set from Hooton himself.
The tour was co-produced with Canadian agency Genova, which was founded by Barbosa, Decoder and fellow artist Garrett Finn (aka Riot), who said in a joint statement: “This tour not only represents a once in a lifetime opportunity. for us. This is an opportunity to learn, grow as aspiring artists and professionals, but also an opportunity to inspire and lead the entire scene.”
Check dates below.
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