Berlin Techno

Berlin's techno story begins in 1982, four years after Dimitri Hegemann arrived from a village of 700 people with ideas too big for small-town Germany. He'd already tried founding a commune in the ruins of an old castle back home; the town's conservative elements told him to leave. “Such a country bumpkin, such a village dropout,” he called himself later. In West Berlin he found young people with similar stories, a city where, as he told Model D, “the air was thick with politics: riots, permanent debates about everything, heightened consciousness.”

He heard bands with names like Einstürzende Neubauten and Sprung aus den Wolken and felt, in his own description, like Curious George dropped into a strange, strong community of artists and thinkers. While studying musicology at the Free University of Berlin, he organized Atonal, a three-day festival devoted to the 'Geniale Dilletanten' movement, intended, in his words, to break lazy listening habits that had become boring and conservative. Throughout the 1980s, Atonal kept up a close British industrial connection through bands like Psychic TV, Test Dept. and Bourbonese Qualk.