Exploring the sounds of ‘90s and early 2000s techno in Aotearoa

Growing up in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington—the capital city of Aotearoa/New Zealand—my first exposure to techno came in the late ‘90s through a network of record shops, cafes, clothing stores, and all-ages warehouse parties. On inner-city dance floors, the upfront sounds of Detroit and Berlin often shared space with Chicago house, UK jungle/drum and bass, trance, and other adjacent dance music genres. Thinking back, I recall overhearing conversations in 24 hour cafes about UFOs and hacking, reading William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk novel ‘Neuromancer’, and attending early virtual reality demonstrations. I also remember listening to specialist electronica shows on the local student radio station, Radio Active FM, hearing stories about a short-lived electronic venue called Biosphere that served smart drinks instead of alcohol, and hanging out at a self-styled oxygen cafe. This was the milieu within which techno was bubbling up here.

As I learned later, emerging local dance music subcultures all around the country fell hard for the race towards the future throughout the final decade of the 20th century. Whether you’re talking about cosmopolitan Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, the industrial backstreets of Ōtautahi/Christchurch, gothic Ōtepoti/Dunedin, or Kirikiriroa/Hamilton and Te Papaioea/Palmerston North, the source code remained the same: well-practiced DJs spinning quality techno records in equally well-decorated warehouse spaces and nightclubs where good sound, great lighting and sci-fi, new age spirituality, cyberpunk, virtual reality and futurist themes ruled the day. Soon enough, New Zealanders were making techno as well. In the years before the laptop-based music production software revolution, it was an expensive hardware-heavy affair. However, producers could set their studio equipment up on stage for live electronica performances as a byproduct, leading to some interesting experiences.

Despite the difficulties and geographic distances, local techno recordings started making their way into the world via CD compilations and albums, 10” lathe cuts and 12” vinyl EPs. Decades on, some of these releases have garnered cult status, most notably material made by Denver McCarthy, aka Mechanism/Micronism, and the coterie of artists gathered around the Nurture label. Here’s a rundown of ten industrial, acid and dub techno releases recorded by New Zealand producers during the ‘90s and the dawn of the 2000s.

In the ‘70s/‘80s, the maverick Tāmaki Makaurau guitarist, songwriter, producer, and visual artist Jed Town contributed to the genesis of Aotearoa and Australia’s post-punk, experimental noise, and industrial scenes at home in The Features, Sydney’s SPK, and his Fetus Productions group. After arriving in London in 1987, Town became immersed in the UK techno scene, leading to DJ sets and a series of cult 12” and CD releases under the I.C.U and Jedeye aliases. ‘Aquatic’ from Town’s ‘Intensive Care Unit’ EP (1992) combines a dialled-in machine beat with fittingly watery field recordings, oceanic synthesisers, and glistening bleeps.

In the ‘90s, Denver McCarthy was one of the most important figures in the nascent Aotearoa techno scene. During those years, he produced and DJed under the Mechanism, Micronism, and Chaos Reader aliases. By 1994, McCarthy’s production chops were already good enough to secure him several 12” releases on New Yorker Lenny Dee’s Industrial Strength Records sub-label IST. ‘Forever South I Fly’, the title track on McCarthy’s first Mechanism release for IST, is a monstrous slab of hardcore acid techno. That same year, McCarthy released his debut Mechanism album ‘Morningstar’ through the Tāmaki Makaurau techno label Pulse Records. Three decades on, McCarthy recently liberated a second previously unreleased Mechanism album, ‘Fall of The False Self’ on Bandcamp.

Before Mechanism’s ‘Morningstar’ album, Pulse Records released a techno-slanted compilation of New Zealand electronica titled ‘Harmonic 695’. A reference to the New Zealand airline pilot Captain Bruce L. Cathie’s book about UFOs, ‘Harmonic 695’, evoked the cyberpunk-meets-sci-fi tone of the times very well. Funnily enough, I actually remember finding a battered copy of that book in a secondhand bookstore in my teens. Over the course of twelve tracks, Field (Pulse Records founder Mike Weston), Mechanism, I.C.U, Bernie Eller aka Area 51, and several other early New Zealand producers presented the beginnings of an Antipodean vision for not just techno but the broader world of electronica. These days, ‘Harmonic 695’ is a hard-to-find rarity from an earlier era.

Two years after Tāmaki Makaurau stepped up with ‘Harmonic 695’, the techno Te Whanganui-a-Tara scene served up its own compilation album ‘Skankatronics Pure Wellingtronika’. Released by the Obscure label, ‘Skankatronics’ brought together six different production outfits, many of whom were already using hardware rigs to perform live at venues with names like Biosphere, which served smart drinks instead of alcohol. They also experimented with adjacent genres such as IDM, ambient, and downtempo. ‘Blister’ by Oblique (Bevan Smith, Shanan Holm and later Matthew Mitchell) is a blistering example of world-class acid techno. There are delights aplenty here, including some downtempo gems for the chillout room at the rave, as produced by Atemeg and Jet Jaguar.

Released in 1996 as a 10” polycarbonate lathe cut, ‘Mnemonic’ is made up of two pulsing techno tracks, ‘LDIR’ and ‘LDDR’ produced by Obscure boss Simon Swain aka LRS. Later on, Swain combined them into ‘Mnemonic’, a track taken from his LRS album ‘Syntax’ (1997). As well as making techno, Swain was very involved in event production in Wellington. An early internet guy, he also ran the lively Psurkit mailing list and the Obscure music news website, both valuable community resources. Opening with dystopian drones and bass squelches, ‘LDIR’ unfolds into a time-altering tunnel of grooves and textures.

A note: Discogs says this 10” was released in 1993. Swain told me he thought it was 1996, but there may have been two iterations of the record. During that same conversation, he asked me what I thought about the new generation of hyperpop-inspired K-Pop acts. His ears are still open.

Four years after ‘Morningstar,’ Denver McCarthy released a second album. Recorded under his Micronism alias, ‘Inside A Quiet Mind’ is a masterclass in ambient and dub techno that transforms his influences from Detroit and Berlin into an oceanic form of South Pacific electronica. Crucially, it also dovetailed with McCarthy’s personal reinvention as a Hare Krishna monk. Following the album’s release, he lived in South America before settling across the Tasman in Brisbane. On ‘Rainbow City’, McCarthy’s considerable gifts with synthesised melodies, textures, drum machines and wobbly basslines come into crystal-clear focus. It’s a remarkable track from an equally remarkable album. In 2017, ‘Inside A Quiet Mind’ was reissued on vinyl by Loop, triggering a sequence of events that lead to it being awarded the Independent Music NZ Classic Record award at the Taite Music Prize in 2023.

Alongside McCarthy, Tāmaki Makaurau’s Simon Flower, aka Peak:Shift, was one of the most significant techno producers to emerge from Aotearoa during the ‘90s. However, as with many of his contemporaries, his lush, naturalistic style has lent itself well to exploring a range of adjacent genres. The third release on Nurture, the boutique label he ran with the DJ and promoter Matt Drake, ‘Now Come Into This World’ is a tight, three-track EP of floaty bangers. Across ‘Living In The Past’, Flower pairs a deep, driving groove with hypnotic loops, fluttery percussion and glistening sunrise melodies that build and build. Flower continues to produce and DJ under a range of aliases to this day.

For their fifth release, Nurture called on the considerable skills of the Ōtepoti multi-genre electronica producer Leyton Glen. Recording under his Son.Sine alias Glen served up a three-track EP of elegant dub techno coloured by naturalistic ambient flourishes. Following its release, ‘Upekah’ became a sought-after cult classic. In 2013, the EP was reissued by Dutch record label Delsin, reinvigorating interest in Glen’s considerable talents. On the title track, dusty record crackles, pounding kicks and rumbling sub-bass expands into a spacious journey through sound. Halfway through, ‘Upbekah’ switches up into a harsher, hard-edged style for the ravers. Over the following years, Glen has continued to release techno, trance, and ambient under his Son.sine, epsilon-blue and Rotor + aliases, while also collaborating with other musicians.

By 2001, Oblique’s Bevan Smith was running the Involve label and releasing a mixture of IDM, downtempo, ambient and techno records under his Aspen and Signer aliases. One of the early releases on Involve, ‘Untitled’ is a mysterious three-track 12” that’s scant on details, heavy on vibes. Across ‘A2’, Smith uses a skipping rhythm as a backdrop for slow-burning sound manipulation. It’s avant-garde music that holds up on the dancefloor. Elsewhere on the EP, he dives into environmental electronica and the dubbier side of techno. A year later, Smith released his celebrated Signer album ‘Low Light Dreams’ through the US label Carpark Records, opening the door for a fascinating and still ongoing career that deserves to be discussed in length.

Eddie Chambers and Joost Langeveld met in the late 1980s when Chambers was working as a recording engineer for the longstanding Tāmaki Makaurau student radio station 95 bFM. Having helped record and produce the first generation of the city’s hip-hop acts, he was ready for a new challenge. Inspired by the reggae, ragga, dub and electronic music that was trending at the time, Chambers and Langeveld started producing as Nemesis Dub Systems. While recording ‘A Multitrack Situation’ (1992), they collaborated with a cast of sonic experimentalists from Tāmaki Makaurau’s vibrant inner city scene. Although it projects a dub-lead multi-genre vision, several of the album’s tracks play with electro and techno motifs, most notably ‘Bee Buzz’, ‘Headless’ and ‘The Glasses’. It’s an outlier pick, but it points towards what lay ahead. Not long after ‘A Multitrack Situation’ came out Chambers and Langeveld relocated to New York for a spell. These days, Chambers lives in Rarotonga. Langeveld, on the other hand, is based in Tāmaki Makaurau, where he has been involved in several waves of production outfits, record labels and studio spaces.

• Aspen ‘Self-Titled’
• Clone ‘Mist’
• I.C.U. ‘Ambulance’
• LRS ‘Syntax’
• Mechanism ‘Morningstar’
• Mechanism ‘Spirit In Decent’
• Micronism ‘Steps To Recovery’
• Peak:Shift ‘Bury / Disinter’
• Signer ‘Low Light Dreams’
• Various Artists ‘Nurture’

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Martyn Pepperell is a freelance journalist, copywriter, broadcaster, photographer and DJ. Find him on Instagram.