Tomorrow night sQuare productions visits the classroom of Wayne Marshall where we are intended to speak on "Progressive House, Trance, Minimal Techno, Microhouse, Neo-Disco". I’m pretty excited. Wayne’s class is simply unlike any other in the world. A grand survey of electronic music as is applies to most all the forms of 20th century music. There is a bounty of info at the website. If you’re ever sick at home or want to delve into some of the topics, you’re strongly encouraged to click around at the website.

As for sQuare, we’ll show our extended trailer, which includes short vignettes about Mutek and Kompakt. It runs a little over four minutes and, as it was an early trailer, doesn’t quite represent the film anymore, but it does have some nice shots and, of course, a few snippets with Akufen, Wolfgang and the variety of characters that support both organizations.

One of the brilliant things about Wayne’s class is that it throws all modern genres under the definition of electronic music which, in a perfect world, is just as it should be. Hip-hop is electronic just like Kraftwerk is electronic. It all comes from Circuits. I think one thing about microhouse or electro-house or what have you, is the sense that it’s making minimal music funky. There’s more of a bump, more of stutter, more syncopation in this new minimal music than there was 10 years ago. As Akufen says in our mini trailer — technology becomes only the tools.

Oh, and we have a new website design. You probably figured that out by now. Thanks a whole pile of imaginary money to Aaron Grill, Amy’s brother and man amongst boys, for helping us hook that up.

In even bigger news, we’ve been able to secured two of the top bubbling electronic music acts in Europe to play the Enormous Room Thursday Mat 25th. The fun-loving, beat-pumping sound of MODESELEKTOR (who we blogged about a while back) and the true musical genius of JAN JELINEK. Both are German, of course, but both are distinctively awesome. Modeselektor are fantastic in a party-vibe, kill the club, get the f*ck up kind of way. While Jan Jelinek is a genius level manipulator of sound and genre. I was first convinced of Jan’s brilliance moons ago, but his newest album, Cosmischer Pitch, is something else altogether. By inverting the classic, meditative beat of Krautrock and adding modern digital flourishes (plus accompaniment) the sound developed is resplendant and truly fresh.

We put his "Universal Band Silouette" track on our sQuare Sound III promotional compilations some time ago. So here’s another song of the album, a song which my boss and my friend both agree is the best song on the masterpiece. They’re right, of course. The guitar, the processing, the composition of the track envelopes you like a descending cloud during a seaside drive.

Jan Jelinek - "Lithiummelodie I"

The show is Thursday, May 25th at Enormous so mark your calendars and sign up for our newslist on the rightside. That’s where we’ll announce the $10 ticket sales sometime early next week.

Funny how things work. This Thursday, we have a special guest at the club night we co-host, called Make It New (a name inspired by Ezra Pound, fwiw) and he was reviewed in hipsterati music site Pitchfork Media just this morning.

James is an industry friend (meaning we met him at conventions and so forth) who’s turned into a better friend, and, more importantly, a nationally-known DJ. And I’m going to try to open for him. Here we go.

We’ll use the opportunity to promote the film a little bit (naturally) and keep the interest up in electronic music in general. It may not be an entire coincidence that PFM and sQuare linked up, being that I used to write for them early on (visit some pretty awful early reviews here) and our co-producer writes for them. More likely, though, is that PFM is just a stand-up organization.

They are fast becoming the first stop for industry cats and music heads worldwide, and have done a brilliant job maintaining independence and thier enthusiasm for electronic music. That they have Dominik Eulberg and Koln’s own Ada playing their music festival is awesome enough, but they also give careful consideration to a lot of the music that’s in our film. Long live Pitchfork.

We have plenty of screen shots of our DVD forthcoming, as it turns out. Director Grill has set up an edit suite in the dining room and the more footage we log and splice together (over 120 hours at this point) the more it’s clear the film is about people and a desire to see things change through independent means.

James is independent, so is Mutek, Bunker, Forced Exposure and the others who have made it to the edit screen. They’re all so well-intentioned and unique it makes for good footage.

As we prepare for the rest of the shoots this year, songs jump out as relevant, true and nourishing. One such track comes from a recent compilation of the Hacienda club, perhaps the greatest club of all time. The inclusionary, deliberate sound and look of the night still remains a standard for every dance party that’s thrown. The final track on the 3CD set (it’s a brilliant set, btw) is Candi Staton’s gospel-tinged, deep electrohouse anthem “You Got the Love”.

There’s no denying that the dedication some people have to dance music borders on the religious, and the song sums up the pinpoint strife of maintaining in a world where you think nothing you do matters.

The Source - “You Got the Love (with Candi Staton)”

The new electronic underground is soulful, determined and full of enthusiasm — especially when enthusiasm might be all you got.

Our ambient night happens again tomorrow, sort of snuck up on us, but it’s pretty clever. We get a lamp, some lovely projections (last time it was all moon landings and ocean life) and play some of the finest ambient music we have. It’s hosted by myself and Billy Kiely (aka UFO) one of the gentlemen of Boston. He’s also the head of sales over at my day job.

It’s a relaxing good time.

As for the film we’re making (Speaking in Code), we’re considering changing the subtitle from “Stories from the New Electronic Underground” to “Adventures in the New Electronic Underground” to give it an added jolt. It really is a series of adventures.

Also, as I write, our director/producer is in the other room cutting together a series of “magic moments.” These moments represent best the characters and segments of this new worldwide scene. A scene which includes tiny labels like Unlockedgroove and brilliant cottage empires like Kompakt as well as parties like the M3 Summit, and so forth. We’ll post them as they go through the process.

In Boston, we’re also curating Free the DJ on Wednesdays and have Make It New this Thursday with Kiely and Pearson on the decks, and next Thursday, special guest DJ James Friedman. A lot of which we are promoting via My Space, a site which has taken on a kind of undeniable, if apocalypic, momentum.

Which isn’t to say we’re losing site of the music. Today I heard a 3CD set from the Hacienda, a famous Manchester club, and was reminded of “Good Life” from Inner City — a duo founded by Kevin Saunderson, one of the legends we mentioned in the previous post. “Good Life” is what we might call an ATC or, All Time Classic.

Our DJ at ZuZu this Wednesday has a residency at the Good Life club in Boston. It ties together, then, with our ambient night. Here’s a fab acoustic mix, from one of those ubiquitous Ibiza chill-out comps. This mix is quite pleasant, though, and the genius of Paris Grey’s vocal maintains. Inner City is a group whose status endures as the techno community ages.

Inner City - “Good Life (Acoustic Mix)”

And now I think — we get some sleep.

There is the kind of electronic music that cashes in pretty quickly, and the kind that endures for decades. We know about the scene that is cashing in (Paul Oakenfold played Boston tonight, fwiw) and the Detroit originators have legendary screen time, but where is this new indie scene?

One of the biggest stories of the year has been the handing of the old-school DEMF festival over to the new crop of minimal funkeers known as Paxahau.

The festival, usually sponsored by Ford, will take on a new perspective under these guys, focused more outside of the US than inside. How many internationalists can fit into Detroit? Can the city re-define its sound again? Detroit has long been home to some of the best music in America (Motown, Madonna, Iggy Pop, MC5, Techno, etc., etc.) and it will host quite the group of new indie techno elite.

Of course, we think this is pretty astounding (and may even have to take our cameras there). Plus they are featuring a documentary (and we love documentaries).

High Tech Soul is the latest film to try and capture the essence of Detroit Techno and, from what we can tell, does it pretty damn well. It’s strong music from a strong town, a town where they give tours of ruins.

This year in Detroit, elements from our film in progress will meet this old school aesthetic and, with paxahau organizing, this could be the most combustible US music festival in decades.

It’s perfectly reasonable, then that we are one of the hosts of Juan MacLean this Thursday at the Middlesex Lounge. After all, dude gets his first name from Juan Atkins, one of the heralded Detroit legends.

Juan is taking a little break from his tour schedule to play our night here and we think its fab. It’s free this Thursday. Oh, and next week he’s playing Fabric in London. So, you know, he for really real. And he is part of that new indie scene, with a record deal on NYC indie DFA Records and growing up as a punk rock kid.

Juan Atkins is a brilliant mind, and had a bit of a pop group in the 80s with Cybotron. Recently, a track of theirs was sampled by Missy Elliott (always the pro sample-selektor) for her runaway club smash "Outta Control" a song we blogged about quite some time ago.

If you don’t have it yet, well…

Cybotron - "Clear"

Now you do… and find a way to get to Detroit (and, you know, Middlesex).