Thirty-eight years ago this week, on 22 August 1988, 10 Records and Virgin put out a single that had no business existing. “Big Fun” by Inner City was not conceived as a hit, not written for a label, and not even actively pitched by the man who made it. Kevin Saunderson had recorded the backing […]
In 1983 Roland set out to fix a machine that was not broken so much as misunderstood. The TR-808 had been dismissed as a toy, its synthetic booms judged unconvincing next to the sampled snares of the LinnDrum. So the TR-909 chased credibility: a crisper snare, six-bit sampled hi-hats and cymbals, and MIDI to lock […]
Before it meant IDM, Warp Records meant bleep and bass: how Sheffield and West Yorkshire producers built British bass music out of steel-city sub-bass and Detroit futurism.
How a sealed bank vault under no-man's-land became the room that carried Detroit techno into reunified Berlin.
