Detroit Techno Meets Krautrock: Carl Craig and Manuel Gottsching (1994)

Carl Craig is second wave Detroit Techno. I really don't know the first wave much beyond Derrick May and Juan Atkins; or the Bellevue Three. But second wave means after Cybotron, Big Fun, and above all "Strings of Life," the first wave peak of 1989-90. The second wave takes off in '91 and maybe peaks here in 1994. Craig tops most second wave lists, anyway; and doubles down on Detroit techno's hardcore tradition of spacey abstracted instrumentals. Here Craig remixes Manuel Gottsching's 1984 classic "E2-E4." Gottsching was one of '70s Krautrock's most celebrated guitarists, behind the group Ash Ra Tempel and playing a vanguard intersection of Krautrock and experimental minimalism. Mesmerizing repetition unspooling like a bullet train traversing an urban grid; a quasi spiritual quest after extended moments of flashing lights and melodic ASMR zen. Or ambient techno; noir disco; death disco without the dread. Blacktronica. Detroit Techno meets Krautrock. 

Bonus track: Juan Atkins "Session 4" off The Berlin Sessions (2005). More ambient techno in the Detroit style. 

Oh! Brother. Won't you give me one more chance?

"Oh! little brother

We are in a mess

Don't look at me that way

Don't put me to the test

When I first saw you

People said:

"He scrutinised a little monster"

And disappeared through red door

Now everyone is disinformation

Disinformation

Disinformation

He says:

"Won't you give me one more chance?"

"I'm not a communist"

Disinformation

Disinformation

Disinformation"

"Oh! Brother," The Fall (1984): Mark E. Smith (MES) at his most affable. Off Wonderful and Frightening World, Brix's first full album and also the last Fall album with two drummers. 

"League of Bald Headed Men," The Fall (1993): More of MES's semi-affable tip. Off Infotainment Scan, their highest charting album, graphically the worst Fall album, with a couple of standout covers, maybe a slight step back musically from the articulated tribalism, avant-primitivism, of their best work but MES's typically caustic lyrics are playfully sharp.  

"Hymn to a Great City," Arvo Part (1984/2016) & "Glassworks: 1 Opening" (1982) and "Aguas de Amazonia" (1999), Philip Glass:

"Hymn to a Great City" but what city? Part composed it for an emigre Estonian couple that first put him up in the U.S. and was first performed in New York City in 1984, then revised in 2004, and now performed here by the French piano duo Katia & Marielle. Minimalist Dream House. 

More piano. Glass at his most urgent, circling, shimmeringly great TV drama theme song poptimist peak. 

I have my problems with Paul Simon, who introduced instrumental group Uakti to Philip Glass. But these four Brazilians do cast the hot percussive bottom of Glasses's minimalist noir in a flattering nocturnal, a Ballet, spotlight. Come to think of it, I've had my problems with Philip Glass (sometimes he makes music that sounds like a funny melodramatic caricature of the serious composer artist, right?) but I've also come to realize I've neglected some of his work. Like this one. Delightful.