Much like the UK adopted house music from the US and ran with it in the late ’80s, techno owes much of its contemporary identity to what German innovators have done with the genre. Perhaps none of them have made as lasting an impression on the world of techno as Sven Väth has, which makes him a fitting guest for the latest installment of BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix Masters series.
A spinoff of the regular Essential Mix series, Essential Mix Masters pays homage to figures crucial to the shaping of dance music history – like their last subject, deceased house music godfather Frankie Knuckles, for instance. Seeing as how Väth opened the Frankfurt nightclub Omen all the way back in ’88 and transformed it into a breeding ground for the country’s burgeoning techno scene and then founded Cocoon Recordings after the party series of its namesake in ’96, his credentials to that end speak for themselves.
As for the mix itself, Väth takes the listener on a decades-spanning journey that explores the dark, sterile beauty that is techno. Any music fan who harbors even a passing in the genre owes it to themselves to check it out.
Listen to Sven Väth‘s Essential Mix Masters mix above and tell us what you think of it in the comments.
