With the rising mainstream popularity of EDM, there has been a glaring vision between music fans on how they view the scene and what styles they enjoy. one such scene is the techno underground movement, whose ideas are grounded in staying true to itself. For the past 6 years, producer Adam Beyer has been on the forefront of the movement, keeping it alive and running with his label Drumcode. Thanks to his work, techno is more alive and well and is now receiving the proper attention it deserves worldwide.

With more attention, however, comes the concern of a genre selling out. When House music becomes popular, it quickly drew the attention of many producers and DJs to jump on board. With techno on the mainstream rise, will it also face the same problem? Beyer doesn’t think so.

In a recent interview with Dancing Astronaut, Beyer opens up on techno trends, bringing techno to international visibility, and where he sees Drumcode evolving next. Below are a couple interview questions/answers that caught our attention.

For his full interview, Click Here.

Dancing Astronaut: Most would consider you to be an ambassador for techno. In which countries do you see it coming up?

Adam Beyer: By now, I think it’s already pretty much existing everywhere. Maybe, I mean, it’s been good to see it develop in the US over the last few years. I came to the US for the first time in 1997 and it was good back then as well; there was a scene. But because of the EDM explosion and all that, I think techno came along a little bit on the tail of the whole explosion and a lot of people quite fast maybe started to dig deeper into electronic music. For the last three or five years I’ve been coming to the US and it’s been completely packed, shows have been amazing. It’s good to see the US really happening.

South America has always been very strong but I think even more territories are opening up. It’s just an expansion. A global expansion on all levels. I don’t think there are any territories – not that I go to anyway – where I feel that it’s new. I usually go to Japan and have been for many years but I don’t go so much to the other parts of Asia. I’ve been to a few places in China, Taiwan, Singapore…but it’s always been not difficult, but I never really felt like they completely get it. Hopefully it’s happening. I wouldn’t be able to say since I haven’t been for a couple years to be completely honest.

Dancing Astronaut: What do you think it will take to bring techno to the next level of international visibility?

Adam Beyer: I don’t know if it’s meant to go to that international visibility. For me, I’m not really concerned about that. Once it does, if it does, there’s always going to be techno that doesn’t, because that’s what techno is. There’s always underground and super underground, which is just not meant to be mainstream. It’s too, maybe quirky or nerdy. Call it what you want. But it’s really quite self-indulgent. Not so much me these days.

I consider myself being one foot in both worlds, which I love. I love to be diverse and I don’t like to pigeonhole myself anymore or put myself in one bracket. I’ve done all that for years, and I feel like I’ve expanded and I’m trying to have a positive view on the thing whole thing all the time. And not judge and not be too elitist about music. But there is a techno element. I don’t think it will ever surface in that way. I mean, you see some records getting bigger now than they ever would years ago that would probably be related to techno. It’s always been in a good place.

That’s why I love techno. A lot of other genres are kind of limiting because of their own sound. If you look at dubstep, it came, it had a hype, and then it almost disappeared because it has to sound in a different way or people take it and rip it apart and make something completely commercial out of it. And then the people who created it feel like they are being ripped off and they start doing off. That’s not really possible with techno, I don’t think. It’s such an open pallet and can be so many different things.

 

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