Town techno may be the Bay Area's most exciting new music genre. It takes hip-hop's basis of beats and rhymes, filters them through an uptempo techno influence, and then liberally swathes it all with synthesizer riffs. The music's foremost proponent is League510, a quartet whose backstory has the members beaming down from outer space and landing in Oakland. League510's early anthem, "To the Beat," is propelled by burnished synth lines, frenzied hi-hat patterns, and a chorus that comes over like a futuristic aerobics instructor when it commands, "We're moving and grooving to the beat." But what sets town techno apart from other regional musical movements is that it's a scene you cannot yet physically experience. If you were cynical, you might wonder whether it exists at all — and at least in the traditional... More >>>