Business technology is used across the entire business world. Education is one sector where this is particularly prominent, with a large chunk of management reliant on the right systems and software. It covers everything from student engagement and information repositories to communications, staff management and teaching aids.
The rise of the social media megastar DJ – who sells out arenas, plays private parties for the offspring of oligarchs in Sao Paulo and Dubai and flits between the UK, Berlin and Ibiza for corporate gigs – naturally rankled with many of techno’s underground stalwarts, and gave birth to the micro-genre cum insult of Business Techno. It is a phrase that can also be applied to the big room techno ravers who are bringing strobe-lit warehouses into the mainstream, and to the DJs who have built their fortunes by playing that kind of music in clubs where people pay exorbitant entrance fees to hear ‘the sound of Berlin in London’.
This isn’t to say that genuinely underground or hardcore techno can’t be found in the mainstream. And for those who can sift through the noise, there are still plenty of brilliant and challenging artists – like this track by first-generation Detroit legend Eddie Flashin’ Fowlkes, which is slinky, sensual and drenched in jazz elements, yet still fiercely political thanks to Malcolm X samples – that are proving that techno can be both escapist fun and a force for change.