2008: A year in electronic music news

2008: A year in electronic music news

23 December, 2008 | 10.09AM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: 2008 roundup

If you had the unfortunate event of being stuck in a coma for the last 12 months, then I’m afraid you’ve missed rather a lot.

There were festivals and incarcerated DJs, apocalyptic storms and behind-the-decks fights, amazing records and glorious club moments.

Legendary venues closed their doors forever and new ones brought technological genius to the dancefloor.

Clubbers protested, and we all debated passionately about the ever-evolving beast of electronic music.

Curious isn’t it, how addictive DJing can be? How strange it is to feel music through giant speakers; to have enlightened club moments with perfect strangers and to feel connected through music.

Do you feel a fool, subscribing to a lifestyle that others don’t understand? I don’t, because electronic music, club culture and DJing gives life meaning, silly as those bleeps and beats can be.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our blog coverage of electronic music in 2008, as we’ve certainly enjoyed bringing it to you.

Herein lies a timeline of important electronic music moments that happened in 2008, so if you’ve just woken up, you can re-experience the events and news that shaped the scene this year. Just don’t blink.

January

British drum & bass don Grooverider appeared in a Dubai court after two months in prison admitting possession of 2.16 grams of marijuana.

Beatportal’s tech editor Francis Preve blogged live from the Winter NAMM trade show and bagged himself an interview with synthesizer legend Dave Smith: “I’m a sound guy — I almost prefer sound itself over notes,” mused Smith.

We launched a remix competition for Sasha’s ‘Mongoose’, much to the delight of aspiring producers worldwide.

The owners behind Fabric announced they would be opening a new megaclub in the O2 Arena, which confirmed a rumour we printed back in November 2007 (no one believed us the first time).

I’m really proud of what we’ve done and been through at Turnmills; the club will always have a special place in my heart—Turnmills’ Director Danny Newman (January)

News emerged that Dutch trance megastar DJ Tiësto was to marry his 19-year-old girlfriend, whilst one of his fans asked Yahoo! Answers, ‘How does one dance to Tiesto?’
We offered up a video from YouTube to help him.

Long-serving London superclub Turnmills revealed it would be closing on March 24th 2008.

February

Dub techno pioneers Basic Channel released all their music digitally on Beatport, and no doubt influenced a new generation of producers to flirt with dub.

We got our hands on an early prototype of the portable DJ toy Pacemaker and filmed an unboxing for Beatportal’s users.

Tech boss Francis Preve reopened his Guide To Synthesis series with ‘Understanding Envelopes Part 1’, and continued with further tutorials on compression, LFOs and sampling.

Daft Punk performed live at the 2008 Grammys alongside rapper Kanye West. Their profile in the US subsequently soared.

Beatportal’s Ben Raven grabbed an early inteview with Johnny D a few weeks before ‘Orbitallife’ made him a star.

Grooverider got four years in a Dubai prison for possession of cannabis.

Beatportal scribe Lee Smith grabbed rising underground house and techno star Solomun who forecasted that “classical techno will be coming back.”

Dutch tech trancer Marco V publicly canceled a gig in Syria after “receiving death threats”.

March

The Beatportal team traveled to Buenos Aires to blog live from the South American Music Conference, and came back with enlightening tales of a strong scene full of dedicated dance music fans.

Thousands of electronic music fans begun voting for the first ever Beatport Music Awards, which for the first time combined multi-genre nominees based on music sales with a public vote.

Beatportal kicked off its coverage of Miami’s Winter Music Conference with an interview with Detroit techno god Carl Craig who revealed that the strengthening of the Detroit techno scene illustrated by the rise of the annual DEMF “was all fucking amazing.”

In South Beach Beatportal spotted Dubfire being turned away from The Fifth club by a clueless door man.

I found my love in electronic and techno music because you can play with emotions.—Loco Dice (March)

Richie Hawtin made the switch to Traktor.

Loco Dice checked in with Beatportal to discuss his forthcoming album ‘7 Dunham Place’.

WMC 2008 ended for the Beatport crew with a final tearful set from Gabriel & Dresden who announced just before their set that they were splitting up.

April

Beatportal did a world’s first by blogging live from Sasha and John Digweed’s tour bus as it traveled across North America.

Over the course of three weeks, Industry Boy produced an insightful account of what it is like to tour as a superstar DJ in 2008, who John Digweed and Sasha are today, and how they rose to become the world’s most prominent electronic music duo.

The winners of the Beatport Music Awards 2008 were revealed, and Deadmau5 walked away with no less than five awards.

May

Industry Boy joined Get Physical nutcases M.A.N.D.Y. and Heidi, plus DJ duo Audiofly on their tour bus for a messy two week tour of North America. Border crossings, DJs fainting, afterparty nonsense, hilarious videos and serious tech house tracks emerged out of his shabby tales from the front line.

Beatportal contributor Caleb Rakes grabbed an interview with dubstep king Martyn.

Although it might sound a tad arrogant, I’d like to think of my music as ‘Martyn music’.—Martyn (May)

Our features editor Ryan Keeling visited Romania and with a little help from Lee Burridge concluded that the Eastern European country was well on its way to becoming the “next Ibiza”.

Luciano explained to Beatportal his fondness for Romania with, “My side is that I play music, and my music, I live it in the way they ask me to. So when I’m in Romania, I’m there for them. Maybe they understand this more than other places?”

Pendulum’s new album ‘In Silico’ made it to No.1 in the UK album chart despite the group receiving hateful messages about ‘selling out’ on online drum & bass forums.

The Beatportal team sent live blog dispatches from Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival, including an insightful ‘Techno Tourist’ piece from former Detroiter Liz Warner. Josh Wink, Heartthrob, Konrad Black, Richie Hawtin and Deadmau5 all were featured in our coverage as was a certain Grandma Techno and a famous pornstar.

Pete Tong produced an exclusive diary from his International Music Summit in Ibiza, which was touted as the ‘G8 of music conferences’.

We launched a remix contest with Paul van Dyk and Giuseppe Ottaviani’s ‘Far Away’.

June

Berlin’s famous techno bastion Berghain went dubstep with the first ever Sub:Stance night, signaling that the two genres had officially collided.

DC10 club in Ibiza opened touting new yellow walls, but it wasn’t long before the Guardia Civil moved in and shut it down.

Circoloco’s Antonio revealed to Beatportal that the club was being unfairly targeted by the island’s authorities.

French duo Noze joked “We gave our soul to Get Physical because they have a lot of money.”

Cielo in New York celebrated its 5th birthday.

A video surfaced on the web of Alan Braxe and Detroit’s DJ Assault fighting on stage at Primavera Festival in front of thousands of clubbers.

Armin Van Buuren discussed trance’s recent evolution.

The tempo has gone down from 138 to 134. Basslines have become more important and the peak of a track is no longer a snare roll but an automated hi pass filter or noisesweep.—Armin Van Buuren on trance (June)

Jay Haze growled, “With the electronic music scene, anytime you’re talking about a small scene, there are people like at high school, cliques, hanging. There are people who are so close-minded that they’re happy to be in that place, they don’t wanna see anything else.”

Sonar 2008 took place in Barcelona and Beatportal blogged live throughout the whole week. Our dispatches included a world exclusive sneak peak of forthcoming electronic music documentary ‘Speaking In Code’, and interviews with Sonar’s organizers, Guy Gerber, Miss Kittin, Radioslave, Claude VonStroke and Funk D’Void aka Francois Dubois.

Industry Boy spent a night with Dubfire and watched him spin to 8000 clubbers at Sonar By Night.

Beatportal reported live from Ibiza, dance music’s Mecca, with a week-long blog that included a disappointed note from Bora Bora, an interview with house maestro Quentin Harris, a video blog with Ibiza legend Alfredo, some amazing chill out records and a frustrating interview with an Amnesia dancer. We also grabbed a chat with Ibiza’s Lady Pi, who some say might be the long lost child star from the 1970s TV series Pippi Longstocking.

Beatportal began a tearful week-long celebration of Tokyo’s Club Yellow from inside the famous venue during its last ever dancing sessions.

July

The Wild In The Country festival in the UK was canceled, but not before Icelandic singer Bjork called its organizers “volatile”.

A number of high profile nightclubs in New York were raided by police including Pacha and Marquee, marring Gay Pride Weekend’s celebration of freedom.

Drum & bass producer John B showed Beatportal around his home and revealed some of the strange things his fans have sent him, including a block of concrete.

Richie Hawtin gave his enlightened thoughts in a series of exclusive Beatportal interviews in which he revealed how to organize a digital music collection, the future of music copyright, his advanced DJ set up and his new Contakt parties.

Heartthrob aka Jesses Siminski also revealed that the Minus boss can sometimes be a hard man to please.

I gave Richie the album to listen to first, and he was really into it. He had some critiques with a couple of the tracks...and he can be a very tough nut to crack—Heartthrob (July)

An apocalyptic storm ruined Creamfields Central Europe. DJ Sebastien Leger nearly became the first man to have ‘crushed by a speaker stack’ listed as a cause of death.

Aril Brikha accused Israeli producer Shlomi Aber of ripping off his dance anthem ‘Groove La Chord’.

Theo Parrish caused controversy by arguing dance music had fallen prey to the “black roots, white fruits” concept that has characterized other music scenes.

Patrice Baumel told us: “I made ’Roar‘ as a tool to break up my DJ sets, give people a bit of a breather and provide some contrast to their ears. I have a few of these tools and they are really effective to take down the intensity for a while...kind of like a sax solo in jazz music.”

August

Lee Burridge showed us his wacky side during a video interview.

Indie dance’s Modular Records reported a $6m loss.

Berghain resident DJ Marcel Dettmann reckoned, “For me it’s [Berghain] the perfect club, because the people are a really good mix – gay, young, old, all kinds. You have tourists, native Berliners, a really good mixture. You can go around and you can meet some people from all over the world. It’s amazing, it’s so crazy.”

Hundreds of clubbers in Ibiza protested the closure of the much loved DC10 club, part of an overall crackdown by the island’s authorities that some felt was infringing “on our freedom to party”.

Polish DJ Magda upset a few folks by claiming that minimal techno was now mainstream.

Dutch techno veteran Speedy J offered a glimpse of the future with the release of ‘Kreate’, a huge library of DJ tools and loops that allowed DJs to mix on a molecular level.

Everyone is making what I call ‘Ableton techno’-- James Holden (August)

Anonymous dubstepper Burial caved in to public pressure (and a witch hunt by Britain’s The Sun newspaper) and took off his mask.

James Holden caused controversy while Deadmau5 announced a world tour.

September

The End club in London announced a plan to close forever in January 2009.

Radiohead grabbed Modeselektor to warm up for them throughout their Japan tour.

Danny Howells defended his use of vinyl with, “I know in the eyes of people like Hawtin that makes me a luddite because I’m not pulling each tune to pieces, but I really believe that if a record’s great it doesn’t need dissecting. Also it’s a bit of an insult to someone’s work if you’re gonna play their track and only use one bar of it!”

Grooverider was released from Dubai prison early during the Festival of Eid al-Adha, a religious ceremony that traditionally sees the pardoning of select prisoners in UAE.

A new study by the UK’s Herriot-Watt University concluded that dance music fans were “creative, outgoing, but not gentle”.

Industry Boy visited Los Angeles and discovered a healthy underground techno scene had infected the mainstream.

Sasha released ‘Invol2ver’, the follow up to his groundbreaking ‘Involver’ mix compilation.

Third Ear Recordings attacked German DJ and producer Sascha Dive, claiming he owed the label money for using a record owned by them on a mix CD.

Beatportal took the public inside the brand new Matter superclub in London with a world exclusive video.

Drum & bass’ Ram Records revealed it would be releasing dubstep in the future.

Minitek, the first ever New York techno festival, was a complete disaster and its organizers were blamed for poor planning.

Dave Smith introduced the Mopho, a portable version of the Prophet 08 synth.

Moby hit out at EMI by claiming the major label was “compromising the careers of its electronic artists” by not allowing their music to be sold on Beatport.

October

Grooverider played his first gig since leaving prison.

Fabric in London celebrated its 9th birthday.

DC10’s long-running fight for survival ended with a €300,000 fine and a one year closure order. Ibiza’s underground music fans mourned the end of an era.

The highly regarded Dubstepforum.com, the No.1 site for dubstep news and mixes closed unexpectedly.

Industry Boy joined Swedish techno stallions Adam Beyer and Joel Mull on their tour of North America with stops in New York, Los Angeles, Denver and Toronto and almost ran out of fumes.

Pete Tong announced his ‘Tong Factor’ talent search with Beatportal, and kept the community up-to-date with insightful diary posts whilst on the road.

Native Instruments released Traktor Scratch Pro, the most advanced digital DJ system on the market and competitor Serato hit back with the news that it had formed a partnership with Ableton Live.

Industry Boy jumped on board the Viva Tour bus as it trundled across North America in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Steve Lawler, Tiefschwarz and Audiofly provided suitable raucous entertainment and DJs-on-tour insight.

The results of DJ Magazine’s annual Top 100 DJs poll were released; the reaction from the electronic music community was typically negative.

November

French start-up Musinaut unveiled its MXP4 music format, a contender for an MP3 replacement.

Get Physical reached 100 releases, as did Poker Flat.

Appleblim and Shackleton’s dubstep imprint Skull Disco kissed farewell at the height of its influence.

Speedy J once again pushed boundaries by calling upon producers worldwide to submit loops and parts to him for the world’s biggest collaborative album project.

Dubfire revealed that he can be his own worst critic, “It’s funny, if I have a bad gig, I’ll think that I’ve lost it as a DJ or if I turn in a remix or release new productions that I wasn’t 100% happy with, I’ll think my career is over! So in that sense, I’m somewhat neurotic about my current level of success.”

French electro duo Justice admitted to using “maybe 400” uncleared samples on their smash debut album [†], and then afterwards got accused of faking their live sets after an embarrassing photo emerged.

To highlight outdated copyright law in the digital age electronic music composer Johannes Kreidler submitted 70,200 forms to GEMA, Germany’s RIAA for a 33 second avant garde piece.

British dance band Orbital announced their intention to reform for a one-off live show at Big Chill festival 2009.

December

You’d run into people in the street or in a club in Chicago and you had to be careful what you said, otherwise you could get into a fight.—DJ Pierre (December)

DJ Pierre discussed the early days of acid house.

Kerri Mason investigated the disco trend of 2009 and concluded, “The finest moments of the disco resurgence are when the old and the new school find each other.”

Deadmau5, Hot Chip, Daft Punk and Justice led the dance nominees at The Grammys 2008.

Marcel Dettmann, Move D, Martin Roth, Brookes Brothers, Aeroplane, Lee Mortimer, Johnny D, Martyn, Eric Prydz and ATFC are named as Beatportal’s Top Artists of 2008. SIS topped Beatportal’s best singles of the year list and Flying Lotus got the No.1 spot in our top 2008 LPs list.

Ricardo Villalobos was crowned No.1 DJ in the world by RA’s readers.

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