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Aux Men is the new name of Detroit's Aux 88 collective, which lost a key member in the mid-'90s and recently got back together. The Men played a "history of techno 1976-present" set at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival last May (along with some of the "names" from techno groundbreakers A Number of Names), and were
profiled in the Detroit Free Press. According to the label notes to their new EP
"Project 1" (Puzzlebox records): "The electro revival can attribute some of its early beginnings to Tom Tom, DJ K-1, Posatronix, and Black Tony, all formerly of Direct Beat Records..." Nevertheless, the act has never been pure electro: as Brendan M. Gillen (aka BMG of Ectomorph) writes in the
Detroit News, Aux 88 "blend[ed] smooth Detroit techno with rough street rhythms." The new EP continues that mixture: "The Vibe" features the synthetic boing-boom-tschak of the Dynamix II school of beatmeistering but "Condor," my favorite cut, has the slithery high hats and mellifluous hooks of more jazzy May/Atkins-style techno (it's a fantastic track; I've been playing it over and over). Somewhere in the middle is the excellent "Behind the Lines," which starts with a rave-y power-line purr and ends with sampled strings.
Determining whether something is electro or techno may seem pointless and/or arcane, but both influences are still vital and usually one is clearly ascendant over the other: figuring out which helps to convey the flavor. One thing gumming up criticism, though, is the indiscriminate use of electro to describe what is clearly just synthpop. If the Industry's idea of an "electro revival" is just a retread of early-'80s-style songs (Human League, Yaz, etc., a trend touched off by the campy Fischerspooner) then lets hope it's over soon. It'd be great to see Drexciya and Aux Men topping the charts but that's not likely since there's no "star."