A Black group of Motor City kids started Detroit’s techno scene. Here are 15 of those acts worth listening to – Houston Chronicle
Techno often is thought of as the most European form of pop music, a style of electronic beeps and blips engineered in a lab outside Berlin. But the machine-like beats of techno are also rooted in the African-American experience.
In fact, Detroit in the ‘80s was the spawning ground for a movement that would reach far beyond Eight Mile Road to Europe and back again.
It was a mostly Black group of Motor City kids, influenced by everything from science fiction and the acid-trip funk of George Clinton to German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk, who took ideas associated with the European avant-garde — from minimalism to industrial to “music concrète” — and combined them with an often startling Afro-futurism that resulted in something uniquely their own.
While largely ignored at home, the Detroit techno scene — including such acts as Inner City, The Belleville Three, Underground Resistance, Cybotron, Drexciya, Model 500 and many more — bloomed in Europe where it, along with Chicago house music, influenced a new generation of electronic music.
This underground musical conversation between America and Europe, Detroit and Dusseldorf — what The Guardian called “a cultural feedback loop” — didn’t rise to the level of being audible for most of the American mainstream but rang loud and clear for global dance-music aficionados.
With that in mind, here are 15 of the Detroit techno acts worth investigating. Click here for a curated Spotify playlist of Detroit techno, or search on Spotify for “A Detroit Techno Collection.”
The Belleville Three
The group featuring the three titans of Detroit techno — Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May, Juan Atkins — that is credited with kickstarting the Detroit techno scene. More recently, they reassembled to work on a track with Depeche Mode.
Jeff Mills
PARIS, FRANCE – SEPTEMBER 20: Portrait of American musician, producer and DJ Jeff Mills, photographed at Studio Ferber in Paris, France, on September 20, 2018. (Photo by Kevin Lake/Future Music Magazine/Future via Getty Images)
Future Music Magazine/Future Music Magazine/Future via
Mills changed the game, and expanded the sonic palette of techno, by collaborating with France’s Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra and the Regional Orchestra d’Avignon. Mills and May also went on to work with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Inner City
One of several post-Belleville projects involving Saunderson, the project enjoyed one of the biggest crossover successes in the Detroit scene with such sweetly melodic tracks as “Big Fun” and “Good Life” as well as, more recently, the steamroller of a dance track with Idris Elba, “We All Move Together.”
Juan Atkins
Juan AtkinsForward Management
Like Saunderson and May, Atkins had his hands in many musical pots. Yet he also released several influential tracks, such as “Track Ten,” under his own name.
Derrick May
Detroit techno producer and electronic musician, Derrick May, is in Melbourne, Australia, January 28, 2016. May will perform with fellow DJ, Jeff Mills, and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) in a one-night-only concert at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.
Photo by Wayne Taylor/Fairfax Me/Fairfax Media via Getty Images
His “Strings of Life” track is a classic of the genre and was a huge hit in British dance clubs. He also recorded under the name Rhythim Is Rhythim.
Underground Resistance
A secretive collective of various Detroit producers/musician, UR combines science fiction, social consciousness and a tight, Teutonic groove — it’s not for nothing that one of their best tracks is called “Afro-Germanic” — into an irresistible force.
Moodymann
A current star of the scene, Moodymann (Kenny Dixon Jr.) crafts jazzy, souful R&B beats that feel like a throwback to another era.
Carl Craig
Detroit techno producer Carl Craig poses on the balcony of his apartment in West London, circa 2003.
Photo by Jim Dyson/Getty Images/Getty Images
A prominent remixer (working with the likes of Depeche Mode and Tori Amos), Craig released several essential albums including “Landcruising” and “More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art.” Like Mills, he also collaborated with a French orchestra, Les Siècles.
Eddie Fowlkes
DETROIT, MI – AUGUST 03: Juan Atkins and Eddie Fowlkes (R) perform at the Backpack Music Festival, part of Arise Detroit Neighborhood Day on August 3, 2013 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Paul Warner/Getty Images)
Paul Warner/Getty Images
This performer dubbed his blend of Detroit techno and house music “techno soul.”
Aux 88
Aux 88 backstage at the Bloc Weekend at Pontins holiday camp in Hemsby, Norfolk. 24th March 2007.; Job: 20548 Ref: JHY – (Photo by John Horsley/Avalon/Getty Images)
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This group’s post-Kraftwerk rhythms are particularly infectious on “Electro Slaves” and “Step Into the Light.”
Drexciya
Though their music was largely instrumental, the duo of Gerald Donald and the late James Stinson created a concept involving Black babies, whose mothers had been thrown overboard from slave ships, living underwater.
Kenny Larkin
Carl Craig (right) and Kenny Larkin standing at a bar 1993. (Photo by: Marcus Graham/PYMCA/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Photo by: Marcus Graham/PYMCA/Un/Universal Images Group via Getty
While Larkin could be as spacy and minimalist as his co-horts, he also could be more traditionally soulful and jazzy as well on such songs as “Cirque du Soul” and “Flip Flop.”
Model 500
Techno originator, Juan Atkins, Detroit, USA 1990. (Photo by: Peter J Walsh/PYMCA/Avalon/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
PYMCA/Universal Images Group via Getty
Under this moniker, Atkins created some of his most Kraftwerk-inspired grooves such as “Time Space Transmat.”
Cybotron
The collaboration between Atkins and Richard “3070” Davis resulted in the classic Detroit techno tracks “Clear” and “R9.”
Robert Hood
Courtesy
A co-founder of Underground Resistance (along with Jeff Mills and ex-Parliament-Funkadelic bassist Mad Mike Mills), Hood specializes in a stripped-down, minimalist style of techno.
