While it encompasses an entire genre of electronic music, mostly associated with raves, it is in itself a separate musical category within the larger techno classification. You can tell a techno track from other forms of electronic music (i.e. house, trance, jungle, etc), because of the heavy emphasis on very mechanical sounds, lots of repetition, sometimes an almost but not quite hardcore beat, and the almost always present sound of some kind of 909 bass drum kick.