Spirit Animal + Caleb L'Etoile (+ Happy 7/4!)

Since about half of our dear readers are American, I think it's appropriate to wish all you yanks out there a happy 4th of July! Obviously we music lovers from the rest of the world have a lot to be thankful for American music culture, both in a broader sense and in our more niched corner of it, since both house and techno are American inventions.

It's just too bad that you Americans have, up till now at least, been so bad at appreciate the music that have been made in your own backyard. For a while especially the American techno went straight to export. So don't complain about this EDM trend - you brought it on yourselves. Much of it could have been avoided if you would have had stronger house and techno sub-cultures.

An equally educating and patriotic way to spend your 4th of July is to listen to Kevin Saunderson discussing the emergence of techno in the young black communities in Detroit in the mid-80s on his Soundcloud. Saunderson, one of the Great Americans, is obviously one of the three guys credited for inventing techno as we know it, the other two being Juan Atkins and Derrick May. Apart from pioneering techno under different aliases, he was half of Inner City, producing all the music while Paris Grey brought her lovely voice. "Good Life" was a huge hit in the late 80's. And although I always preferred their prior single "Big Fun", their "Paradise" album is probably my all-time favourite album. I still to this day love it as much as I did when I bought it as a kid in '89 or '90.


So, after that little comment on the history of American techno, I thought I'd post one of my favourite American tracks at the moment: Washington DC producer Caleb L'Etoile's remix of Brooklyn's Spirit Animal. What's great about it is that it captures that soulful American early house/techno feeling, down to the flutes! This is a track that could have been played on Detroit's pirate Deep Space Radio back in its heydays.