Marc Acardipane aka The Mover, talking to the Alien Underground magazine about his Techno music
The latter half of the 80s and the first half of the 90s were very strange days in the history of humanity. But I think even many individuals who lived through this era are not aware of how strange everything was.
Looking back, most people think "ah, the second half of the 20th century had the Cold War, two superpowers facing each other, the threat of nuclear war; but thankfully everything was resolved peacefully in the 90s and folks could live on happily then".
Slightly correct, but not the full picture. Because no-one in the 80s or the decades before thought or believed it would happen this way - that the Soviet Bloc would just go bust, and everything comes to a more or less peaceful resolution - without a major war, and without nuclear Armageddon.
Amnesia - Hysteria
Instead, people thought the Soviet Union would last. Major political players in the "West" planned for a world in which the Soviet Union and the conflict between the superpowers would go on for decades.
More than that, in the 80s it seemed as if this conflict had entered a downward spiral of nuclear stockpiling, political threats, lingering disputes that would inevitably escalate into full blown thermonuclear war sooner or later - or rather sooner.
Hence why you have movies like "Terminator" which dates nuclear war to the late 90s - this was not some bizarre idea for movie fans of the 80s, but the more realistic part of the franchise (unlike the terminators and time travel plot etc).
Konzept – Last Night (N.W. Remix)
But the dice did not roll this way. Instead we got the most favorable scenario - the Soviet Bloc dismantles itself, without any major and / or nuclear war.
Please think about how strange, almost unimaginable these events were. When ever did an empire, with immense power and a giant army, disappear as "peacefully" as this?
The KLF - America: What Time Is Love?
Of course, the Eastern Bloc had begun to topple a few years earlier already.
But, a few defecting countries do not mean an empire has to end (Great Britain did not end after it lost its colonies, for example).
More so, the crumbling, chaos and collapse of the Soviet Bloc could have easily led to a situation where someone "in control" decides to let the nuclear hammer hit down on the nail of humanity.
What happened is nothing short of a miracle.
Part 2
Dreamscape - Nuclear nightmare scene
Needless to say, in the present day we can look at the larger picture, and clever archivists and analysts might give this or that explanation. and maybe some of it is true.
But the people who lived in those years did not know this and had no access to these "facts".
They lived in a period where every outcome was possible.
Grim Cold War for decades on. Or escalation of the conflict. Nuclear death. Or possible peaceful resolve.
No one could know what would happen, or how things would turn out. "Are they gonna drop the bomb or not?"
If all this had happened in a movie or comic book, maybe one could say that it was a period in which multiple future timelines and worlds did collide, for a few years, for a short moment in history.
Pop Will Eat Itself - Def Con One
During these "liminal years", another thing happened, on a more cultural level. the emergence of new sounds that we now call "Techno music".
Just like in the political realm, in the underworld of the subcultures, various things were happening at once. Newbeat / EBM in the European territories of the "Blue Banana". Detroit Techno in the eponymous city. Acid House in the UK and on idyllic islands. Chicago House, New York and LA dance scenes, Synth Pop / Dark Wave was still strong, too.
Oppenheimer Analysis - Cold War
All these were slowly blending together and forming a new scene and youth culture, and I think even the synthesized "Disco" music of the 80s had its part in this.
Now the interesting thing is: the "liminal" situation we talked about above is mirrored in these cultural events and the emergence of "Techno".
The major strains of the techno scene were apocalyptic, dystopian, bordering on the nihilist. The first ravers danced under the nuclear threat, and they were aware of this.
Space Trax - Atomic Playboy
Early techno parties were full of "World War III" imagery such as gas masks or military gear.
New Beat is often considered to be the other "major player" in the development of techno - next to Acid House. And one of its focal points was Belgium and the capital of Brussels. Where the NATO headquarters were located. The home of the command centers that would send the warheads to the skies - should the nuclear scales begin to teeter.
And Detroit Techno? Full of dystopian tropes, too; resistance against future police states, tyranny, the misery of the present day and yes, nuclear danger as well.
Underground Resistance - Your Time Is Up
What then happened was one of the biggest U-turns in the history of a music culture.
"Techno" dropped the darkness, the pessimism, the nihilism. Instead the happy sounds of newer genres like Trance or Breakbeat took the scene.
Techno became synonymous with the desire to enjoy life as an everlasting dance party, fueled by happiness, ecstasy, and a few other emotions (or substances).
Defcon - Brainwasher
To have a good time, to get on the dancefloor - the celebration generation.
And just a few years earlier, the Techno clubs were filled with tracks about world war iii and all the other shady things in life!
Again, all this can be seen as the mirror of the political events that happened parallel to this: the "peaceful" resolve of the cold war crisis, and the prospect of future decades without the threat of the apocalypse and major wars or tragedies.
Hocus Pocus - Postcard From Armageddon
Hence, if we look back, these "turn of the century" years - the last turn before the new millennium - were highly bizarre, peculiar, surreal, and the world could have evolved into any direction.
But, despite all expectations, the world did not "go bang", and most of us survived these years.
The importance of these events might seem feeble and faint for today's eyes.
But they left their mark in the formative years of the techno movement - and its tracks.
Nuclear War (16 bit computer game from the 80s dealing with nuclear war)
Further listening and viewing suggestions:
- The Day After - Nuclear attack scene
- Terminator 2 - Nuke scene
- Wargames - Defcon sequence scene
- Sting - Russians
- Ultravox - Dancing with tears in my eyes
- Snowy Red - Euroshima
- Data - Fallout
- Tangerine Dream - Teetering Scales
- Microchip League - New York
- Komakino - Drill
- The Weathermen - Bang Bang! (ICBM Version)
- The The - Armageddon Days
- Meng Syndicate - Sonar System
- Space Cube - Nuclear
- Radiation - Uranium
- N.u.k.e. - Underworld
- M - Razzia 2 (Nuke Remix)
- Radiation - Armageddon Dance
- Disintegrator - In The Sun
- C.C.C.P. – Made In Russia
- Front 242 - Commando (Remix)
- Armageddon Dildos - East West
- Underground Resistance - Method Of Force
- H-Bomb - Radar
- Vibrators - Disco in Moscow
- Bigod 20 - It Doesn't Matter
- Bigod 20 - The Big Bang
- Ministry - Destruction