The Ferry Quay Cafe', Caravan Cafe' has me again for a live set of my ambient techno. It is a low key affair, just a 40watt pa system, with cafe' visitors and music fans attending.
The pa system has been repaired, a tweeter had broken loose inside, I'd glued it back in place previously with epoxy resin but it broke loose again, so this time I built a mound of Gorilla Glue around it. That stuff reacts to water, expanding and solidifying into a pad of plasticcy mechanical support.
Ambient Techno is not so much dance music as an artform, not the up-market club scene, more artistic electronic listening music. Nevertheless a consistent 128bpm beat with a 4 on the floor kick for 15 minutes is actually very danceable.
The 4 on the floor kick is an essential human rhythm and takes courage to explore interestingly because there are strong associations with Eurodance pop, hard Tek and rave of the 90s. Ambient techno is more nuanced and sensual.
I'm biased, I grew up with prog-rock (synthesizers) and eventually jazz (harmony, meter, swing and rhythm) which led me into minimal electronic music (repetition as an aesthetic surface and simplicity as a relief from the chronic over-thinking of prog-rock).
My favourite performance this month (May 2018) is a half-hour Facebook Live jam with a drum machine (listen here).
The whole of modern western music culture is rooted in African influences, drums/rhythms are good so at Techno Brunch #3 I shall thoroughly enjoy the part where I do an extended drum machine jam and this is why I love playing music - it's like cooking, not following a recipe' word-for-word but knowing what can be done with a few ingredients.