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Techno Tales

Techno Tales

By: Will Johncock
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About this listen

 Explores important tracks from the histories of techno, trance, and acid house. Each episode is told through a short story, inspired and informed by actual events.Copyright 2026 Music
Episodes
  • Episode 33 –Ellen Allien - Shorty

    Episode 33 –Ellen Allien - Shorty
    Mar 15 2026
    It’s November 9th, 1989, in Berlin, Germany, and the wall dividing the eastern and western sides of the city, and the country, is today being torn down. A 21-year-old West German woman, Ellen Fraatz, spends the day celebrating with her friends, riding around on their bikes and exploring spaces they had not been able to previously, on what she later describes as the happiest day of her life. In the months and years following this momentous occasion, Fraatz spends more and more time in East Berlin, in particular attending the clubs that start opening in warehouses and other unusual spaces there. On these adventures she begins going to acid house and techno parties, from which develops her love of the music, leading to Fraatz producing tracks such as “Shorty”, under the artist name, Ellen Allien.
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    21 mins
  • Episode 32 –Phuture - Acid Tracks

    Episode 32 –Phuture - Acid Tracks
    Feb 15 2026
    It’s 1985 in the largest Midwestern city of the United States, Chicago, and three friends are tinkering with a newly acquired device, the Roland TB-303 bass synthesiser. The 303 has been manufactured and marketed as a bass line generator, for solo musicians to use as an accompaniment in the same way they might use a drum machine for drum parts. Earl Smith, otherwise known as Spanky, Herbert Jackson, or Herb J, and Nathaniel Pierre Jones, DJ Pierre, find an entirely different personality and application though, for the 303. On the first day that DJ Pierre tinkers with the device, he extracts from it a squelchy, psychedelic sound, that has seemingly nothing in common with a bass guitar. With this sound he creates the core of the track that will become known as “Acid Tracks”, from which the genre of acid house will emerge.
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    23 mins
  • Episode 31 –The Future Sound of London - Papua New Guinea

    Episode 31 –The Future Sound of London - Papua New Guinea
    Jan 15 2026
    It’s the mid-1980s in Manchester, England, and Garry Cobain, originally from the town of Bedford, moves to the city to study electronics engineering. At the same time, Glaswegian Brian Dougans is also living in Manchester, having relocated there because it is home to one of the first sound recording technology courses in the United Kingdom. Cobain and Dougans work at the same bar, and after a reportedly tense initial period of knowing each other, they soon bond over music, and share ideas regarding how they each believe electronic music artistry should be explored. These common interests eventually lead to them instigating a collaborative project, which under the name, The Future Sound of London, will in only a few years spawn the ambient techno classic, “Papua New Guinea”.
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    22 mins
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