“Es gab einen Moment 1994, wo ich im Tresor stand, da hätte ich heulen können. Jonzon ging das auch so. Nichts mehr von dem, was den Laden ausgemacht hatte, war mehr da. Ich konnte mir das nicht mal mehr schönsaufen. Ich stand da und sah, dass sich die Seele des Ganzen verflüchtigt hatte.”
Rok, quoted in “Klang Der Familie”

The unique conditions following the dramatic fall of the Berlin wall created the exceptional socio-political situation in which Berlin's techno scene was born. The euphoria of Germany reunited fuelled its infamous raves Tekknozid, Mayday, Tresor, and Love Parade, and saw the small parties of the early 90s grow to the global techno hub they are today. The inner workings of these early scenes have received in-depth historic interest, recently with Felix Denk and Sven von Thülen's book “Der Klang Der Familie” and Ulrich Gutmair's upcoming “Der Sound der Wende”. In the more than twenty years which have passed, the debate between “underground” and “mainstream” continues within a diverse sonic ecology while the recently hotly disputed GEMA tariff reforms currently threaten the existence of many of Berlin's clubs; as the city transformed into the dynamic capitalist metropolis it is today, the early DIY-days of illegal parties in temporary spaces seem distant compared to the regulated, administered spaces of many of Berlin's most famous clubs today.

QRT (Markus Konradin Leiner) was active in the mid-90s in Berlin. His anarchic media-theoretical writings were published posthumously on Merve. Similarly antagonistic towards the academic establishment as the UK's CCRU, QRT's writings have hitherto remained somewhat neglected. His writings, inspired by Berlin's early techno scene as the electrification of archaic rituals, the body within the media-war, and the virtualisation of the present, question the current state of techno and techno-culture as part of today's changed discourses.