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. 

"Click Click," The Wedding Present (1994)

Should have been called "No In-Between," reflecting the song's uncompromising romantic intensity. In the 1980s the Wedding Present were associated with the C86 indie rock label in the UK. David Gedge, WP's only constant member (at least 28 others have played with him), is a bonafide two-way player-- i.e., he plays guitar with ferocious speed and drone pop grandeur and matured into a master of punk rock heartache and melodramatic love songs. Gedge lived for a spell in the 1990s in Seattle but never succumbs to grunge's dinosaur rock bombast. In the long run carving his own hard jangle punk pop path proves to be Gedge's superpower. The classic sound of the Wedding Present is terse, frenetic, buzzing with thick feedback energy, and ringing with dissonance and harmony. Noise pop. (And another fundamental inspiration to 1990s shoegaze.) The backup singer echoes Gedge, as if to soothe his restless mind with her soft banter. Even if the bad romance gets old the roar of the careening guitar noise never does.