B12
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While Detroit techno originators such as Derrick May, Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson are rightly revered in the electronic music scene, early British techno remains a strangely overlooked part of the music's history.
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Within the formative years of the techno sound, UK artists were eagerly creating their own version of the formula pioneered by Detroit artists, and B12 is representative of that first wave of British techno. The duo of Mike Golding and Steve Rutter began producing music in the late 80s as a response to what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic.
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A collection of dreamy starscapes and sci-fi melodies, Time Tourist is now regarded as a classic of 90s era techno.
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While the difference was subtle, B12's music was less tied to house and funk music and more cerebral than that of their American counterparts, the percussion evolving to become more complex. You can begin to hear traces in early B12 records of trance, and, more obviously, the sound that would later become known as IDM, a genre indebted to the legendary Artificial Intelligence compilation on which they featured alongside little-known artists like Autechre and Aphex Twin.
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Although they had started and ran their own label, B12 released their famous full-length Time Tourist on Warp Records in 1996. A collection of dreamy starscapes and sci-fi melodies, Time Tourist is now regarded as a classic of 90s era techno.
