Data Breaker

For years, Seattle’s electronic-music scene has benefited from a
steady influx of Midwesterners migrating to our tech-friendly milieu.
Wisconsin DJ/producer Computer Controlled (aka Larry
Kleinke, aka DJ Frantik) is the latest to make an impact.
He’s one of America’s foremost practitioners of acid techno,
which sprang from the sonic DNA of the 1980s Chicago acid-house
movement. Acid techno had its heyday in the early ’90s, but some
diehards like Computer Controlled are keeping the genre vital into the
’00s.

CC began his music career in 1996 after obtaining a Korg Polysix
analog synth and a Roland TR-626 drum machine, learning production
techniques by reading library books. “Luckily, their books were so
outdated, they were exactly what I needed,” Kleinke quips. Since then,
Kleinke’s reliance on a battery of synths has rendered his moniker
facetious. “I’ve gone though more gear than most music stores have! But
once I finally scored a TB-303 and a TR-909, I really started getting
serious.”

Coming up in Madison’s thriving ’90s dance scene, Computer
Controlled started playing live and quickly drew the attention of
promoters. He gradually ascended to the level of acid-techno savants
Woody McBride (boss of the seminal Communiqué label, for which CC has recorded) and DJ Hyperactive.

Kleinke acknowledges acid techno’s Midwestern roots and importance;
however, he notes, “[Acid techno] was really embraced and flourished in
the arms of the Europeans, especially the Germans. They were ahead of
the game back in the early ’90s, as far as techno was concerned. Also,
the Underground Resistance guys in Detroit were really into that
sound. It all just converged once again in the Midwest. The biggest
influences we had were the Germans and Detroit. When local promoters
Drop Bass Network started their label Drop Bass Records,
that really blew the doors open.”

Computer Controlled’s recorded highlights—culled from releases
on various French, German, American, and Canadian labels—include
“Roughed Up,” a surging, peak-time bullet train to the center of your
insect mind, with CC morphing the 303 into attenuated, warped cricket
chirps; “Momentary Lapse of Reason,” which recalls the tracks on the
Berlin-Detroit: A Techno Alliance comps that Tresor Records
issued in the early ’90s, all rampaging acid lines and KAPOW clapper
beats and 909s; and the absurdly intense “In the Hour of Darkness,”
which is sheer, relentless acid techno, two tons of Teutonic tautness
and frantic fibrillations.

There’s something innately riveting about the synthetic bass sound
produced by acid techno’s trademark gear, the Roland TB-303: like an
infinitely varied twanging of a massive rubber band.

“There’s just no other sound like the 303s,” Kleinke enthuses.
“After 15 years of listening to it, I’m still not bored of it.”