Of all forms of dance music, techno is probably the most misunderstood. It's the difficult middle brother of universally accepted house music. Its immaculate basslines are the obsessive-compulsive aunt to the wild energy of drum 'n' bass. And for non-fans of electronic music, techno is the blanket term for all of it.
That's why people such as French DJ/producer and scene stalwart Laurent Garnier need to keep making music. He's the techno DJ who plays techno about half the time - and if you check out his albums, you'd assume he's not a techno producer at all.
Where he was previously more regimented in playing a harder brand of techno, Garnier reached a turning point as a DJ when he wrote his autobiography, Electrochoc. 'Every week for two-and-a-half years, the journalist I worked with would come to my house and ask me millions of questions,' he says. 'It became therapy - why, where, how. I started to ask myself very deep questions, and that was when I felt I knew where I stood. I thought, 'You know what, if I feel like playing a disco record, I should just do it and not be scared of the crowd.'
'Because of all this talking and thinking, when I started my next tour I played funk, soul, reggae, punk, hip hop - everything but techno. That's when DJing changed a bit, got more colourful. Eight years later, I'm so happy I did it.'
Garnier speaks confidently and quickly with a French accent that's survived his years in England, DJing first during Manchester's burgeoning house scene. At 14, he was already obsessed with music and clubs, and four years later moved from hometown Paris to London. When he chanced upon Manchester's infamous Hacienda club, he started playing there and was instrumental in the 'Madchester' movement where iconic bands such as the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays mixed psychedelic rock with the Chicago house and Detroit techno that was seeping into Britain.
'It was very different. You've got to understand - 20 years ago we discovered a new kind of music. The kids were a part of it. House and techno belonged to us. It was not our parents' music,' says Garnier. 'Today, we're still listening to the same form of music - but it's been there since 1987. A 20-year-old today grew up with it; it's not him who invented it. It's not part of his youth, but his life.'