| DERRICK
MAY (The
Innovator)
|
 Derrick
May: "I believe that you're in control
of your own destiny. I believe that I chose to do songs like "Nude
Photo", "Strings Of Life", "It Is What It Is".
I really didn't care about making the charts or being a top 40 artist at
any point in my life and I still don't. I couldn't give a shit about that."
Many years ago the future began: In 1987 a shrinkwrapped record called "Nude
Photo" appeared on the shelves of a few specialist dance shops in Europe
and helped kickstart a musical revolution.
The label featured a drawing of what looked like a second world-war pilot.
Or was it futuristic time-slip rider? The hand written details read Rythim
Is Rythim, the word deliberately mispelt, given a fresh twist. The music
sounded outer-worldly.
Sub-aquatic basslines raced with hi-hats constructed from welding sparks.
It was like listening to liquid electricity. But the most outstanding feature
of "Nude Photo" and the subsequent music which it's author would
produce, was that it was much, much more than just machine-driven sounds.
This music was absolutely drenched in emotion. This was the sound of someone's
soul.
To put Derrick May's career into perspective you have to include the two
other chief innovators of the Detroit techno scene, Juan Atkins (Model 500)
and Kevin Saunderson (Inner City). Without these two there would have been
no-one for May to bounce ideas off and to help create and achieve a musical
vision. It's also worth understanding the state that the city of Detroit
found itself in at this time. Having once been home to the empires of Motown
and Ford Motors, Detroit was now a crumbling shell laid to waste, unsure
of it's future. It's skeleton was as much an influence as electric instruments.
With May having met Atkins and Saunderson at high school, the trio hung
out in the early eighties and slowly begun developing their own scene. Influence
and inspiration came from imported European electropop crystallised by the
likes of Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode, New Order and Nitzer Ebb and a fascination
with synthesisers. With Juan's primitive electro dabblings as Cybotron and
with Derrick and Kevin spinning on local mix station WJLB, it wasn't long
before they pooled their ideas musically. During this period Atkins had
introduced May and Saunderson to AlvinToffler's book "The Third Wave",
which tells of 'Techno Rebels as agents of the Third Wave', their assigment
being to help advance new stages of civilisation by utilising the skills
and characteristics of both man and machine with equal placing, but with
man still in control. These are the roots of 'techno'.
In the summer of '86 the trio's early explorations produced what was to
be the first release on May's own Transmat label, "Let's Go" by
X-Ray - an hypnotic space-dub-house journey across the dancefloor. When
May released "Nude Photo" into the unknown a year later, following
it with what was to become one of house music's classic anthems, the seminal
"Strings Of Life", he (like Kevin and Juan) was still unaware
of the effect that this music was to have on the European house scene. Between
them the trio had created a wedge of inspiring music that, although taking
a couple of years to fully sink in, directly helped twist the European dance
underground from a sampling prit-stick into a concentrated hub of new investigative
musical architects.
Alongside May's solo releases, Transmat released early conceptions by such
now well-regarded artists as Carl Craig (as Psyche), Suburban Knight, Octave
One, K-Alexi Shelby, Joey Beltram and British house act Bang The Party.
And along with Juan Atkins' Metroplex and Kevin Saunderson's KMS imprints,
Transmat became a window to what was happening inside the principal musical
minds of deepest Detroit. But in 1990, May pressed the pause button.
Now, with such an incredible catalogue and up to this point, obvious motivation,
it's a mystery to even the most ardent techno head why May's creative period
came in burst of just three intensive years. When Rythim Is Rythim released
the spellbinding "Beginning" in 1990, no-one knew that it would
be the last they would hear from May for another four years, as he took
a self-imposed exile from the techno scene that came complete with rumours
of retirement. The soul-searching briefly halted when he returned with "Icon"
in late '93, followed by the "Relics"album - a selection of previously
unreleased, almost work-in-progress snapshots. "Icon" was a masterly
return to form full of trademark Mayisms. Techno central breathed a collective
sigh of relief. At an interview later that year he revealed some of the
reasons behind the brief sojourn.
"I found that everything that I had done had been sampled, and I found
that I had put myself in a position where mentally I thought I had to surpass
myself instead of makin music like I'd always done. And I kinda let that
edge get to me."
It does well to consider the passion of the human spirit here. 'Techno'
is much more than a sound or a bpm rate, it's as much a state of mind as
it is a culture. Magic 'Juan' may be credited with 'inventing' techno through
his early electro experiments, but May changed the way electronic music
was interpreted, grasping hold of the rudiments and laying plans that bared
it's possibilities, plans which will always remain as fundamental reference.
To categorise May's music is to really give in to the genre wars. It reaches
deeper than that. Something unlocked inside that allowed him to nakedly
express himself through a musical form, thus he established that 'techno'
is as much inner-space music as it is outer. Even though he's produced very
little new music since "Icon" he still remains an enigma. And
anyway, Kraftwerk haven't released a new record in over a decade.
"Every time there's a reason to make a statement that's when you do
it, not just because the record companies tell you to." Mayday.
LIFE IS LIFE AND RYTHIM IS RYTHIM. Time......Space.......Transmat.
SHERMAN, APRIL 1998
|
THE
TRACKS
R-THEME - R-Tyme (1987) : Recorded with fellow Detroit ally Darryl Wynn,
R-Tyme is a majestic, melancholic mixture of spinning bassline, blipcode
and head in the clouds euphoric brassiness. A classic house record that
along with "The Dance", became a signature tune to the London
pirate radio scene in the late eighties.
RYTHIM IS RYTHIM - Nude Photo (1987) : The sound of an electronic brain
in deep meditation with the human spirit.
When this came out a friend of mine rang up Transmat expecting it to be
some huge industrial factory where incredible mechanical soul was being
made. Expecting to be put instantly on hold by one of an army of telephonists
manning the machine, instead, Derrick answered and sent him some mix tapes.
RYTHIM IS RYTHIM - The Dance (1987) : Because that's all you can do, "The
Dance" being a brutal a brutal mixture of bare percussives and rubber
noted electro-language that sounds like the workings of some distant future
technology developing laboratory.
"It's the instruction manual to the underground and the sample anthem
of the kingdom" said May.
RYTHIM IS RYTHIM - Strings O Life (1987) Without doubt May's best known
piece. An anthem of immeasurable status, written about Martin Luther King.
"When they killed him, they destroyed the hopes and dreams of a generation.
It was about the hope in his message."
Friend Michael James had written the piano piece previously. May took snippers
and created loops. When it was finished, he listened to it constantly for
six days, overtaken by it's mesmeric curves. Oh, and it originally started
off at 80bpm...
MAYDAY - Freestyle (1988): Recorded in Kevin Saunderson's basement - the
sound of African percussion meeting a funk band. Classic Mayday, intense
and uncompromising.
RYTHIM IS RYTHIM - The Beginning (1990) : The included mix differs slightly
from the original single release, which is a bewitching alliance of steel
and matter that builds teasingly into a crescendo of heavy breathing percussion,
curling chords and heavenly voices and pathes the way for the kick drums
eventual arrival. It seems like eons before it appears. When it does, it's
a liberation.
There would be nothing new from May for nearly four years. What a way to
be left hanging. Beginning?
RYTHIM IS RYTHIM - Salsa Life (1990) : The flipside to "The Beginning"
contained two equally captivating tracks. Firstly there was the pure bodymusic
of "Salsa Life", which as the title suggests, marries perfectly
steamy South American rhythms with May's mechanical moods, adding a final
teasing twist to the "Strings Of Life" saga midway through.
RYTHIM IS RYTHIM - Drama (1990) : Recorded with Carl Craig, "Drama"
contained the bassline for the waistline : a deep, call to arms resonation
that was subsequently adopted by the 'rave scene'. Something which came
to confound May later.
There's so much life in this track. The way it just picks you up and drags
you along for the ride never creases to exite. Millions of hi-hats seem
to drop from everywhere, until it's just a waterfall of percussion, while
a beautiful choirly mist chaperons it's limb-driving chassis.
MAYDAY - Spaced Out ("Innovator compilation. Network 1991) : A melodious
thunk. Alien language rhythms and outer-galactic innersphere grooves designed
for detailed bodywork.
RYTHIM IS RYTHIM - Kaotic Harmony (1993) : Mixed with Carl Craig, One of
May's more musically reflective moments that relies less on piston-driven
rhythm and more on the subtle wielding of chords - the stabs and drags of
strings, underpinning May's skill at manipulating keyboard padding into
activating the sensorium, interweaving their washes between the ever industrous
beats into an animated mass. Pure spiritual healing.
RYTHIM IS RYTHIM - Icon (1993) : Nearly four years passed before the innovator
returned. With just moments left of 1993, having encountered a period of
questioning what his music had given birth to, he fittingly returned with
one of his most evocative pieces ever, full of electronic morse code and
deeply emotive strings.
"Icon" first appeared on the now legendary Belgium compilation
"Virtual Sex", a stunning techno collection that also showcased
the emerging talents of Stacey Pullen, Neuropolitique, Stefan Robbers, Kirk
DeGiorgio, Carl Craig and Redcell.
Sherman, April 1998
information compiled by R&S records....view their
full site from our links page |
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