Bring the Beat Back by Hannu Puttonen (1992)
“For me, house means liberation from the burden of history and musical tradition. Rock is dead.”
With the length of 45 minutes, the documentary managed to capture the spirit of those heady days when the new electronic dance music culture was loaded with high hopes and expectations, for better or worse. The film had its Finnish premiere on 3 July 1992 at Illusion cinema in Helsinki. Soon afterwards it was shown on Finnish television (YLE TV1, 10 July 1992), with some five minutes left off from the original version. Unfortunately, these days it's very hard to see the film in any format.
Hannu Puttonen
Hannu Puttonen explained the premises of his documentary in a 1992 interview for Helsingin Sanomat:
"The power of house culture is that it escapes all definitions. People have tried to compare it to both the arrival of punk and the hippie culture, but it has nothing to do with either. The dance situation resembles the cultural framework that otherwise interests me. Techno is a cultural catalyst of the 90s, the melting pot, the mouth of Moloch. The creators, the auteurs, are nowhere to be seen, the machines play the main role. Techno foretells a different attitude towards the role and position of the artist."
Hannu Puttonen's later cinematic works included Momus Man of Letters (1994), on the eclectic British indie pop artist Nick Currie a.k.a. Momus, and The Code (2001), an early documentary on Linux. His documentary debut had been Mr. Bragg Goes to Moscow (1988), on Billy Bragg's tour in the Soviet Union. Furthermore, Puttonen directed over 20 music videos, previously having worked also for the culture publication Chant where he had been responsible for the magazine's layout, already interested in a new kind of visual expression. All in all, Hannu Puttonen's output consists of nearly 70 independent documentaries, short films, music videos, radio pieces, and newspaper articles.
According to Hannu Puttonen in 1992:
“In the new kind of television expression, one no longer starts solely from the tradition of film, but from, for example, layout, music riffs, and generally multimedia. Chant magazines are related to my works made for TV: if you flip through them quickly, the impression is the same.”
Nowadays all video editing is done on a computer. In 1992, it was still pioneering technology.
“The creative process brings on a new syntax. Now there is a fertile ground to develop a new language for documentary. Linearity should give way to audiovisual hypertext!” exclaimed Hannu Puttonen in 1992.
Chapters
The film is divided into the following chapters:
Bring the Beat Back!
The KLF - The Rites of Mu (1991) [trailer]
The KLF - The Rites of Mu (1991)
In Bring the Beat Back! British electronic dance music journalist Graham Sherman regrets that techno is underestimated even though it is the biggest thing since rock 'n' roll. He compares techno to jazz because it is completely free expression. On the other hand, Sherman thinks there are too many "plastic ravers" for whom the techno music culture is just a fad. He predicts, though, that after a while techno will return underground. "This music controls the whole generation, it's a way of life for the people, it's a culture", Sherman concludes. Flyer designer Pez suggests that everyone has the opportunity to show their skills and rise to become a dance star. Rave parties are not advertised with posters but with hand-distributed flyers.
Captain Freedom
According to Helsinki rave promoter Captain Freedom, techno is "the new religion", and today’s youth "believe in the only true god, themselves."
Captain Freedom continues that:
"Technohouse is not music, not a trend, not a cultural phenomenon. Techno is not the rebellion of the young generation, not a terrorist attack, not a comeback of hippie psychedelia. No. Techno is a new religion, its believers are fanatics. Techno is a nuclear explosion in your own head."
"Today's youth wants Molotov cocktails, explosions, and the fiery power of machines. They get intoxicated in Disneyland, in the Terminator video game, and dive laughing into virtual reality. In a word, they bypass the tax collector and the torturer, the master’s degree holder and the minister, turn a minor key into a major, accelerate zero into infinity, and believe in the one true god, themselves. That is why techno clubs are like a postmodern church, rave parties like the Nuremberg party rallies, and DJ the cool Führer of the Age of Aquarius. All this is machines, power, and defiance in an era where 'reality' has become the most relative word since 'honest'."
"So let them party, these pagans of the age of technology, let them lose their minds, for techno is the Theatre of God of the atomic age, a futuristic bedtime story, and a way of life of cyberpunk."
It's easy to find this sort of hyperbole-filled rhetoric only baffling, for many amusing too, but it was typical for the early 1990s techno music generation who seriously felt like they were in the middle of something important, like any political or religious movement in any era, the only difference being that it was all strictly secular and hedonistic and no votes were cast.
Rock Is Dead?
"For me, house means liberation from the burden of history and musical tradition: rock is dead", says MC Pixy, repeating exactly the same phrase that was often heard during those years. Rather than seeing techno and house as part of the same musical continuum as rock music (and blues and jazz before that), the emphasis was that electronic dance music marked a total historical separation from the earlier tradition.
MC Pixy was a key member in a group of people who in the early 1990s organised in Tampere such now-legendary indie dance parties as Plastic Factory and NoGo!, taking place at the third floor of the traditional Laterna restaurant of Puutarhakatu 11, in a small and intimate clubspace. Everything from rave techno and house to the latest British and American indie and alternative guitar sounds could be heard there, making Laterna a cultish gathering place for Tampere's hip cognoscenti at the time.
Named after 'Say No Go' by De La Soul, the first NoGo! club was organised in summer 1990. There was an occupancy permit in Laterna's third floor for only 82 customers, but at best, there were four times the allowed number of partygoers.
[Photographer unknown, the name will be added by request.]
"There were a few of us guys in Tampere who realised that something had to be done. We had to offer the people opportunities to party, since no one else seemed to be doing it. I wasn't any kind of DJ, none of us were, but that's how the NoGo! club was born. And I became an MC. Since then, several parties and clubs have sprouted from NoGo!: Space, Hype, Lift, Muovitehdas [Plastic Factory], Mu Mu, and so on. Around the same time, pioneers in other cities also got started, along the Helsinki-Tampere-Turku axis. Strange things have also been heard from Rauma."
Techno scene was already divided into those who were into some more mellow vibes and those who liked the rougher sounds of hardcore techno, made in such places as Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, Pixy commenting on the latter genre:
"The hardcore stuff that is prevailing here now, that's too easy stuff. It's that heavy-metal vibe or “you have to have balls” vibe. Too easy, too easy."
Hz Raivio
Philosopher Hz (Herman) Raivio of Helsinki's Theory Factory group, on the other hand, believes that "the mechanical dancers are pleased with themselves and, as a consequence, forget themselves."
According to Hz Raivio:
"Nietzsche said that style arises from being satisfied with oneself. The mechanical dancer is satisfied with themselves, and as a result, forgets themselves. Dancing is characterised by synthesis, plasticity, whiteness, and neatness. It has been acknowledged that we mechanoids are born into a ready-made world, which is set with positions of profit. The gestures of techno dancers are mimetic, learned from the patterns of others; dancers are biomechanical machines.
The metaphysics of techno is all about transparency; at parties, everything is public and visible. People will arrive at the dance events with the same fervour as they go to witness accidents. Dancing reflects one's merging into panic and catastrophe. Dancing reflects the doctrine of ecstasy. A well-dressed noblesse dancing or a seductive woman as an object will cause in one psychotropic dizziness. The doctrine of ecstasy emphasises purity, clarity, and definitely speed. Things in techno are self-evident and rapidly changing. Spinoza knew what techno is: accelerations and decelerations."
The KLF
For the documentary Finnish writer Roo Ketvel analyses The KLF:
"The contradiction of The KLF is ambition. It aims at the same time for the greatest possible clarity and telling the whole truth without adding anything, without leaving anything out, without changing anything. The KLF is impossible. Jimmy Cauty is better than Bill Drummond. The KLF is an object of envy formed by a genius and a talented salesman. Jimmy Cauty hardly bothers to greet Yves Klein while floating in space, who walked like StockAitkenWaterman. Is there any other genius left than the one that does not articulate itself? Bill Drummond has been influenced by the Sex Pistols and gives all the interviews. The KLF is the complete image of the liberated subconscious, not a map but a life-size likeness."
Bill Drummond of The KLF (a.k.a. The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu) reflects that at another time he could have been, for example, a writer or a carpenter:
"Any truly great music can be totally meaningless. The greatest Elvis records are, Little Richard records. There’s no intellect there at all. Intellect gets in the way. I know at the same time I’m riddled with reference points and irony. It’s a kind of white man’s burden, you know. I’m basically a frustrated writer. I’ve made myself a promise that when I get forty I’ll stop everything else and become a writer. If I lived in another culture, hopefully that’s what I’d get to do, could basically be a carpenter or something, I don’t know."
"There’s nothing in the house I live in that has anything to do with pop music. You know, I don’t have a record player. I don’t have anything on the walls, I only have watercolour paintings on the walls and I live in a village in the English countryside. Nobody in my village knows what I do. There’s nothing about the way I look that would give me away. You know, I’m embarrassed about pop music most of the time, on television and so on. But I know it reaches, it touches something very deep inside of me."
The KLF feat. Tammy Wynette - 'Justified & Ancient' (1990)
The KLF - 'America: What Time Is Love?' (1990)
The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu - 'It's Grim Up North' (1990)
LFO
"We met in 1985. When we were about 10, the youth of Leeds used to go to the local shopping centre. There, they would breakdance to the accompaniment of a ghettoblaster. That's where we met, even though we lived in different parts of Leeds. We continued listening to electro and hip hop. Then the connection was lost, and we met again at the age of 18. We studied graphic design, photography, and video production. At first, we did not recognise each other. We brought music cassettes to school. Others listened to the popular bands of the time, like U2 and Simple Minds. We, on the other hand, listened to our own favourites."
LFO - 'LFO' (1990)
LFO's debut 12", also called 'LFO', was released by the Sheffield-based Warp Records in 1990, and it was a Top 20 hit in the UK, reaching number 12 in the singles charts in July 1990.
"We didn't think about sales numbers. We just did what we liked. Even the raw sounds were included if they sounded good. We expected sales of 5,000, but the record sold 130,000 copies. We were completely stunned. We were invited to Top of the Pops. Magazines asked for an interview. It was really amusing."
Even the members of Kraftwerk got interested in LFO and contacted Warp:
"We were totally amazed. Our record label Warp received a fax from them. We showed it to everyone. First we just thought they were joking at our expense. Kraftwerk suggested collaboration, but we hesitated because they supposedly work like crazy. They start in the morning and go on until six in the evening. After a small evening snack, they continue working until two in the morning. We fell ill."
LFO are asked what their name means:
"LFO is Leeds Football Organisation. No, actually it's 'low frequency oscillation'. We both grew up with computer games. We had a Spectrum like everyone else. Others always went to play football after school. We went to play computer games. They preferred to use their feet, we on the other hand, used our brains."
Jon Savage
Punk historian Jon Savage sees techno as part of the same current as punk music, even though the sounds are different:
"I think it must be very boring, people involved in techno now being constantly compared to punk. I think it's not really relevant. I mean it's part of the same ever-playing stream, it's just the way pop culture works. Sounds change but there's no difference in how it actually works. You know, everybody throws their ideas in the melting pot. Technology changes, drugs and social environment change, the impulse. The method remains the same, however."
"A friend of mine asked me a very interesting question. He [Bob Stanley] was a journalist when he founded a group called Saint Etienne. He said to me 'Why didn’t you form a group, why didn't you make music like I’m doing?'. I answered the reason I'm not doing music like you do is because technology wasn’t available where you could sample your favourite records over the rhythm track. Otherwise, I would have made records. But in 1977 to do records you had to form a four-man rock band and drive in a van to gigs to be spat on. I wasn't interested in that."
Richard H. Kirk
Cabaret Voltaire - 'Nag Nag Nag' (1980)
Cabaret Voltaire - 'Sleepwalking' (1985)
Cabaret Voltaire - 'Sensoria' (1984)
As Sweet Exorcist with DJ Parrot, Kirk was starting both Bleep and Clonk, which became popular subgenres after the record releases on Warp Records.
Sweet Exorcist - 'Testone' (1990)
"The whole Bleep craze was initiated by our ‘Testone’. That record spawned a lot of imitations. And at one point, if you went to London and listened to pirate radio, every record was made to sound like Bleep. Clonk thing was just a joke. We invented it to just to take the Mickey. The press picked up on that which was quite funny."
There’s also a record company called Clonk, Hannu Puttonen tells Kirk.
"So I’m told, yeah!" Kirk chuckles.
"DJ Parrot is involved with Sweet Exorcist. He also made music with other artists, too. Parrot had an idea that he wanted to make a dance record."
"There’s in the studios a test tone tape, the pulse of which goes through the equipment, to calibrate them. Parrot had an idea to make a record sampling these different tones, play it through a sampler. He asked me to become involved and I liked the idea. We came to the studio and sampled, we used the oscillator in the mixing desk. It lines up the channels in the desk. We sampled different frequencies of this oscillator and basically made a record."
"We sample from old machines and reassemble them in the computer, use the sound from those old machines, synthesizers and drum machines."
Richard H. Kirk tells they use natural sounds only if they can be taken from a record.
"We have always been interested in the tribalistic aspect of the music. Repetition produces some kind of hypnotic effect on people. That’s the root of all the best dance music, anyway. Disco or whatever you wanna call it."
About hardcore techno, Kirk thinks:
"For me, some of the techno records from Germany, it’s just too fast. How can anyone dance to that? I mean it’s like trash metal or something."
Russia House
"This is a huge tradition that began in 1961 when Yuri Gagarin flew into space. In fact, the first Sputnik is the foundation of everything. This tradition can and should be utilised. If its best aspects were brought into everyday life, the entire culture would receive a tremendous boost. Technohouse is the culture of the next generation. It is already visible that some young people have embraced it down to its roots. It is only at the beginning, but it is already clear that it will develop into something new and significant. It will give its colour to the entire culture of St. Petersburg in the 1990s."
According to Misha Malin, composer of Novyje Kompozitory (a.k.a. The New Composers), there is little house music in Russia because equipment is scarce and few have travelled West to gather influences.
"Russian house music has its own characteristics. You can count the creators on one hand. Bands include Not Found, Fantomasy, also Lyuki. There are probably some in Moscow too. Now I only know Yuri Orlov's Nikolay Copernicus group. Why so few? First, the equipment is limited. Second, few people go West and see what it's about. Adoption happens when you can internalise the systems."
Feedback
Although contemporary Finnish critics acknowledged the film's visual merits, they also felt that the interviews contained too many "exalted exaggerations and pseudo-intellectual nonsense" [Tarmo Poussu], were of the opinion that the film "does not really analyse the historical or social significance of techno music, even though there is a lot of talk and text about it" [Poussu], and that "Any potential questions or interest are dismissed with vague and meaningless philosophising" [Kari Siirtonen].
Whatever the case, Bring the Beat Back!, together with the short-lived ex magazine and Sam Inkinen's book Tekno (both 1994), form a triumvirate of media works that, with the benefit of hindsight, offer a time capsule-like view on the early-1990s electronic dance music scene in Finland and how it was received by those contemporaries who participated in it; with all the innate hopes, expectations and hype surrounding it.
Acknowledgements from the film's end credits:
Bill Drummond & Jimmy Cauty (KLF), Eliot Ness, Samu Mielonen, Kari Kallioniemi, Veikko Somerpuro, Jakke Holvas, Sam Inkinen, Johanna Kantola, Sari Volanen, Marika (Mega Records), NME, Virgin Records, Fran (Warp Records), Kevin (Rage), Ray (Raindance), Sasha (Fontanka), Hyperdelic Housers, Vision, Probe, Pulse, Destroit III, Plastic Factory, Theory Factory, Berlin, KY, Happy Ever After, KSL Video Workshop, Ecstasy, Roland, Strobo [strobelight], Savukone [fog machine], Avaruus [space], Kaaosteoria [chaos theory], Rock'n'roll – for its timely Death.
Elonet (with info on the film's locations, full music credits, etc.)
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