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Plus 8 (also spelled as Plus8) is a Canadian techno record label, based in Windsor, Ontario. Along with Underground Resistance and Planet E, Plus 8 was one of the early producers of Detroit Techno's 'Second Wave' music at the start of the 1990s.
Plus 8 was founded in 1990 by DJs Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva. [1] The label's name referred to the fact that on most turntables, +8% is the maximum amount by which one can increase the speed of playback. [1] Initial releases were a series of increasingly faster industrial hardcore recordings by the pair themselves and their friends, using aliases such as States of Mind and Cybersonik, along with other Detroit-based musicians such as Kenny Larkin. [1]
The label began to retreat from hard and fast tempo after the release of Circuit Breaker's "Overkill/Frenz-E" and Cybersonik's "Thrash" in 1992. Hawtin and Aquaviva lost interest in the drug-fueled dynamic and rave culture that was driving hardcore techno. In 1992, after observing a crowd in a Rotterdam club shouting an anti-semitic football chant over Plus 8's song, Cybersonik's "Thrash", Hawtin and Aquaviva decided to change musical direction by slowing down the tempo and bringing funk and soul back into their music. [2]
Plus 8 releases include early 12-inch singles from Speedy J, and from Richie Hawtin's many pseudonyms including F.U.S.E. and Plastikman. By 1996 Plus 8 had also released a number of dance compilation albums. [3] The label was suspended in 1997, as Acquaviva concentrated on DJing and Hawtin on his new label, M nus, but releases (and re-releases of early material often licensed to other labels) have appeared from time to time, notably 2000's Plus 8 Classics triple 12-inch vinyl and CD retrospective.
Breakbeat hardcore is a music genre of the very early 1990s that spawned from the UK rave scene. It combines four-on-the-floor rhythms with breakbeats usually sampled from hip hop. In addition to the inclusion of breakbeats, the genre also features shuffled drum machine patterns, hoover and other noises originating from new beat, acid house squelches and bleeps, and often upbeat house piano riffs and vocals.
Intelligent dance music is a style of electronic music originating in the early 1990s that is regarded as "cerebral" and better suited to home listening than dancing. Emerging from electronic and rave music styles such as ambient techno, acid house, Detroit techno, and breakbeat, it tends to rely on individualistic experimentation rather than specific genre characteristics. Prominent artists associated with it include Aphex Twin, μ-Ziq, the Black Dog, the Orb, the Future Sound of London, Autechre, Luke Vibert, Squarepusher, Venetian Snares, and Boards of Canada.
Warp Records is a British independent record label founded in Sheffield in 1989 by record store employees Steve Beckett and Rob Mitchell and record producer Robert Gordon. It is currently based in London.
Richard "Richie" Hawtin is a British-Canadian electronic musician and DJ. A three-time DJ Awards winner, he became involved with Detroit techno's second wave in the early 1990s, and has been a leading exponent of minimal techno since the mid-1990s. He became known for his recordings under the Plastikman and F.U.S.E. aliases. Under the latter, he released his debut album Dimension Intrusion (1993) as part of Warp's Artificial Intelligence series.
Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson, Blake Baxter, Drexciya, Mike Banks, and Robert Hood.
Ambient techno is an offshoot of techno that united the atmospheric textures of ambient music with the rhythmic elements and production of techno and house. It was pioneered by 1990s electronic artists such as Aphex Twin, Carl Craig, Pete Namlook and Biosphere.
Digital hardcore is a fusion genre that combines hardcore punk with electronic music genres such as breakbeat, techno, and drum and bass while also drawing on heavy metal and noise music. It typically features fast tempos and aggressive sound samples. The style was pioneered by Alec Empire of the German band Atari Teenage Riot during the early 1990s, and often has sociological or far-left lyrical themes.
Hardcore is a subgenre of electronic dance music that originated in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany in the early 1990s. It is distinguished by faster tempos and a distorted sawtooth kick, the intensity of the kicks and the synthesized bass, the rhythm and the atmosphere of the themes, the usage of saturation and experimentation close to that of industrial dance music. It would spawn subgenres such as gabber.
Bouncy techno is a hardcore dance music rave style that developed in the early 1990s from Scotland and North England. Described as an accessible gabber-like form, it was popularised by Scottish DJ and music producer Scott Brown under numerous aliases.
Acid techno, sometimes known generally as "acid", is a genre of techno that was derived from acid house and developed in Europe in the late 1980s to early 1990s. It saw younger artists apply the "squelching" synthesizer sound of Chicago acid house to harder-edged techno material.
Novamute Records is the electronic dance music subsidiary of Mute Records, which was started in 1992. The label's staff included Mick Paterson (promotions), Pepe Jansz (A&R), and producer Seth Hodder, and it was originally set up to give UK releases to white label 12-inch singles and imports. In the United States it was distributed by Tommy Boy Records while the Mute parent label was distributed by Elektra Records.
Minimal techno is a subgenre of techno music. It is characterized by a stripped-down aesthetic that exploits the use of repetition and understated development. Minimal techno is thought to have been originally developed in the early 1990s by Detroit-based producers Robert Hood and Daniel Bell. By the early 2000s the term 'minimal' generally described a style of techno that was popularized in Germany by labels such as Kompakt, Perlon, and Richie Hawtin's M-nus, among others.
Daniel Bell is an American minimal techno DJ. He was born in Sacramento, California, but grew up outside of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and later moved to Detroit, where he collaborated with Richie Hawtin as Cybersonik for three years on Plus 8. In 1991, he started his own label, Accelerate, where he released a string of influential releases as DBX.
Jochem George Paap, known by his stage name Speedy J, is a Dutch electronic music producer based in Rotterdam. His breakthrough came with the release in 1992 of the minimal techno track "Pullover". He released music as part of Warp Records' Artificial Intelligence series in the 1990s, including his debut LP Ginger (1993).
B12 are a British electronic music duo consisting of Mike Golding and Steve Rutter. First appearing in the early 1990s under a variety of monikers, including Musicology, Redcell and Cmetric, the duo were often mistaken as hailing from Detroit, their sound being comparable to the so-called second wave of Detroit techno. This was compounded by the signature style of their initial releases on their own imprint B12 Records, limited editions on coloured 12" vinyl with cryptic messages etched into the run-out grooves, and the fact that Golding and Rutter tended to shy away from the press, and rarely gave interviews, which added to the mystery of their identities.
John Acquaviva is an Italian Canadian DJ, producer, artist, and musical entrepreneur.
Ginger is the debut studio album by Dutch electronic music producer Speedy J. Released via a joint deal between Plus 8 and Warp in September 1993, the album was the sixth release in Warp's Artificial Intelligence series, which focused on "electronic listening music" by different artists. It peaked at number 68 on the UK Albums Chart and remains Speedy J's most successful album there.
Blake Baxter is an American techno musician, associated with the first wave of Detroit techno. AllMusic called him "perhaps the most underrated figure" of the early Detroit techno scene.
Kenny Larkin is an American techno producer from Detroit. He has been described by AllMusic as "massively influential" on American, British, and German techno.
Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) that is predominantly characterized by a repetitive and hard four on the floor beat which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set. The central rhythm is often in common time (4/4), while the tempo typically varies between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's TR-808 and TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular.