Techno Body Music
Industrial · 2015 · 125 to 140 BPM · also known as TBM
Techno body music is the return of EBM inside the body of techno, forged in Berlin during the 2010s: distorted sequenced basslines inherited from DAF and Nitzer Ebb, techno kicks, shouted vocals drowned in reverb, and an aesthetic of leather and cold neon. The term took hold around 2017 through the Berlin club scene and labels like aufnahme + wiedergabe and Fleisch, and through a compilation that literally carries the genre's name. It is music of sweat and living machines, played as often live as in DJ sets, that brought industrial new wave back onto techno dancefloors, closing a loop between two scenes that had drifted apart for decades.
6 reference tracks
- Fixmer McCarthy: Freefall (2002)
- Boy Harsher: Pain (2016)
- Phase Fatale: Anubis (2017)
- Kris Baha: Palais (2018)
- Kontravoid: Undone (2019)
- Years of Denial: Suicide Disco (2019)
At a glance
- Tempo: 125 to 140 BPM
- First appeared: 2015
- Machines: Roland MC-202, Roland SH-101, Boîte à rythmes
- The sound: Séquenceurs analogiques (MC-202, Basses distordues, Boîtes à rythmes dures, Voix criées traitées, Réverbérations métalliques
- Labels: aufnahme + wiedergabe, Instruments of Discipline, She Lost Kontrol, Fleisch Records
- Key artists: Schwefelgelb, Years of Denial, SARIN, Phase Fatale, Kontravoid, Sydney Valette
Producing Techno Body Music
Start around 130 BPM, straight, with techno's drive and EBM's weight. Hardware sequencers like the MC-202 and SH-101 give the genre its slight timing drift and per step accents, imitated with a lightly swung groove. A big layered techno kick, a saturated 909 plus a long, sidechained reverb tail, holds every beat, with a clap on two and four, closed hats in sixteenths opening on the offbeats, and repitched metal hits for industrial percussion; the pattern stays simple, complexity sits in the bass. That bass, an SH-101 or MC-202 style sawtooth sequenced in sixteenths with an accented step pattern, pushed through fuzz or overdrive and filtered near 3 kHz, sits nearly as loud as the kick. Shouted vocals are driven into distortion and drowned in a long metallic reverb, the shared space for everything but the kick.
The full production course, in French: tempo, drums, bass, sounds, arrangement, mix, plugins and machines, and a step by step start.
Frequently asked
What is Techno Body Music?
Techno body music is the return of EBM inside the body of techno, forged in Berlin during the 2010s: distorted sequenced basslines inherited from DAF and Nitzer Ebb, techno kicks, shouted vocals drowned in reverb, and an aesthetic of leather and cold neon. The term took hold around 2017 through…
What tempo is Techno Body Music played at?
Between 125 and 140 BPM.
Who are the key Techno Body Music artists?
Schwefelgelb, Years of Denial, SARIN, Phase Fatale, Kontravoid, Sydney Valette.
In the same family
- Industrial
- EBM
- New Beat
- Electro-Industrial
- Dark Electro
- Aggrotech
- Futurepop
- Coldwave
- Darkwave
- Neue Deutsche Haerte
- Power Electronics
- Rhythmic Noise
Listen to Techno Body Music in the atlas · Cette page en français
