1970
Kraftwerk form in Düsseldorf
Roots
Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. The group that matters to techno emerges with Autobahn in 1974.
Timeline
The moments the six era articles hang on, in order.
1977
I Feel Love
Roots
Giorgio Moroder builds Donna Summer's backing track entirely from a sequenced Moog modular. A fully synthetic rhythm track becomes a global hit.
1978
Yellow Magic Orchestra form in Tokyo
Roots
Haruomi Hosono, Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto. Widely sampled by early hip-hop producers.
1980
Roland releases the TR-808
Roots
It sells poorly because it does not sound like a real drum kit. Discontinued a few years later and cheap second-hand.
1981
Roland releases the TB-303
Roots
Sold as a bass accompaniment for solo guitarists. Its resonant filter would become the sound of acid house.
1981
Cybotron, Alleys of Your Mind
Detroit
Juan Atkins and Rick Davis, on their own Deep Space label. A local hit on Electrifying Mojo airplay.
1983
Cybotron, Clear
Detroit
The record that travels beyond Detroit and shapes electro. The album Enter includes a track called Techno City.
1983
Roland releases the TR-909
Detroit
Partly digital, and the kick drum most people picture when they picture techno.
1985
Metroplex founded; Model 500, No UFO's
Detroit
Juan Atkins starts his own label and releases a record that sounds like a genre arriving fully formed.
1986
Transmat founded
Detroit
Derrick May's label. Eddie Fowlkes releases Goodbye Kiss on Metroplex the same year.
1987
Rhythim Is Rhythim, Strings of Life
Detroit
Derrick May's piano-and-strings track with no bassline becomes the closest thing techno has to a standard.
1987
Ibiza, and then Shoom
Rave
London DJs encounter Alfredo at Amnesia and bring the format home. Danny Rampling opens Shoom in a basement in late 1987.
1988
Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit
Detroit
Neil Rushton's compilation for Virgin's 10 Records. The working title was The House Sound of Detroit; Atkins supplied the word that stuck.
1988
Inner City, Big Fun and Good Life
Detroit
Kevin Saunderson and Paris Grey take Detroit techno into the British and European pop charts.
1988
The Music Institute opens
Detroit
1315 Broadway, Detroit. No alcohol, resident-driven, and closed within about a year.
1989
The first Love Parade
Berlin
Registered by Dr. Motte as a political demonstration, which is how it secured street closure. Around 150 people attend.
1989
The Wall opens
Berlin
9 November. East Berlin acquires a large stock of buildings with unclear ownership and working electricity.
1989
Warp Records founded in Sheffield
Rave
Its 1992 compilation Artificial Intelligence is framed as electronic listening music and seeds what gets called IDM.
1990
Underground Resistance founded
Minimal
Jeff Mills and "Mad" Mike Banks in Detroit, joined by Robert Hood. Anti-corporate, faceless, and explicit about the music's ownership.
1990
Joey Beltram, Energy Flash
Rave
On R&S in Ghent. Mentasm follows in 1991 and introduces the distorted stab that defines European hardcore.
1991
Tresor opens
Berlin
In the vault of the bombed-out Wertheim department store on Leipziger Straße. Its label releases Detroit producers in Europe from the start.
1992
Castlemorton Common Festival
Rave
An unlicensed event in Worcestershire attended by tens of thousands over several days. It makes UK legislation inevitable.
1993
Basic Channel
Berlin
Moritz von Oswald and Mark Ernestus submerge techno in dub processing. Ernestus already runs Hard Wax, open since 1989.
1993
Plastikman, Sheet One
Minimal
Richie Hawtin pushes the 303 into long hallucinatory forms on Plus 8, founded with John Acquaviva in 1990.
1994
Robert Hood, Minimal Nation
Minimal
A subtractive method: kick, hat, one bass figure, one stab. Hood founds M-Plant the same year.
1994
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act
Rave
UK law defines the target music as "sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats".
1997
Jeff Mills, The Bells
Minimal
On Axis, founded 1992. Mills's three-deck performance practice is as much the argument as the records.
2000
The first Detroit Electronic Music Festival
Modern
Curated by Carl Craig, free, at Hart Plaza. It runs today as Movement.
2001
Ableton Live and the Pioneer CDJ-1000
Modern
Both released this year. Between them they rebuild the studio and the DJ booth around software and CDs.
2004
Berghain opens
Modern
In a disused Friedrichshain power plant, succeeding Ostgut. Ostgut Ton follows in 2005.
2022
Assembling a Black Counter Culture
Modern
DeForrest Brown Jr. argues for techno as a continuation of Black American musical and industrial labour history.
2024
Berlin techno becomes cultural heritage
Modern
Added in March to Germany's national inventory of intangible cultural heritage, three years after the Bundestag reclassified Berlin's clubs as cultural institutions.