Juan Atkins

All Music Guide:

At the dawn of the 1980s, Juan Atkins began recording what stands as perhaps the most influential body of work in the field of techno. Exploring his vision of a futuristic music which welded the more cosmic side of Parliament funk with rigid computer synth pop embodied by Kraftwerk and the techno-futurist possibilities described by sociologist Alvin Toffler (author of The Third Wave and Future Shock), Atkins blurred his name behind aliases such as Cybotron, Model 500, and Infiniti -- all, except for Cybotron, comprised solely of himself -- to release many classics of sublime Detroit techno. And though it's often difficult (and misleading) to pick the precise genesis for any style of music, the easiest choice for techno is an Atkins release, the 1982 electro track "Clear," recorded by Atkins and Rick Davis as Cybotron. He soon left the progressively album-oriented Cybotron to begin working alone, and released his most seminal material from 1985 to 1989 as Model 500. And while fellow Detroit legends Kevin Saunderson and Derrick May were known for their erratic output during the following decade, Atkins recorded much more during the '90s than he had during the '80s, soaking up new rhythmic elements from contemporary dance music but keeping his unerring, instantly recognizable sense of melody intact throughout. As the electronic scene began looking back to the past to find musical innovators, Atkins was a name much-discussed and -anthologized, hailed as the godfather of techno.

Born in Detroit in 1962 (the son of a concert promoter), Juan Atkins began playing bass as a teenager and then moved on to keyboards and synthesizers after being turned on to their use in Parliament records. Two local DJs, Ken Collier and the Electrifyin' Mojo, first introduced Atkins to a wide range of other synthesizer-driven bands -- Kraftwerk, Telex, Gary Numan, Prince, the B-52's -- in the late '70s. Atkins then turned on two friends he had met (initially through his younger brother) while attending Belleville Junior High School, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. He also bought his first synthesizer, a Korg MS10, and began recording with cassette decks and a mixer for overdubs.

Hoping to learn more about the burgeoning field of musical electronics after high school graduation, Atkins studied at Washtenaw County Community College in nearby Ypsilanti; there he met Rick Davis, a Vietnam War veteran, synthesizer expert and fellow Electrifyin' Mojo devotee -- Davis had even released an experimental record used by Mojo to open his radio show. The two began recording as Cybotron and released their first single, "Alleys of Your Mind," in 1981 on their own Deep Space Records. The clever balance of urban groove and synthesizer futurism signaled the new electro wave in black music; though crossover success for electro was quite limited, it went on to become one of the most influential styles for the new electronic music of the next decade.

"Alleys of Your Mind" got immediate play from Electrifyin' Mojo and became a big local hit, even though most listeners had no idea it was recorded in Detroit, or America for that matter. The 1982 single "Cosmic Cars" also did well, and Cybotron recorded their debut album, Enter. Then the group signed a deal with Fantasy Records to reissue the album. One track, "Clear," was a quasi-instrumental which set the blueprint for what would later be called techno. Instead of merely reworking elements of Kraftwerk into a hip-hop context (which proved the basis for many electro tracks), "Clear" was a balanced fusion of techno-pop and club music. Unfortunately, competing visions for the future of the group forced him to leave the group by 1983. Davis and new member Jon 5 argued to pursue a musical direction closer to rock & roll, while Atkins wanted to continue in the vein of "Clear." (Cybotron carried on in the direction proposed by Davis, and was promptly forgotten.)

Juan Atkins had no trouble staying busy during the mid-'80s. He continued working with the music collective Deep Space Soundworks which he, May, and Saunderson had founded in 1981 to provide a club-based forum for their music. Later, the Deep Space family founded their own club, the Music Institute, in the heart of downtown Detroit. It soon became the hub of the Motor City's growing underground family, a place where May, Atkins, and Saunderson DJed along with fellow pioneers like Eddie "Flashin" Fowlkes and Blake Baxter. The club invigorated the fractured sense of community in Detroit, and inspired second-wave technocrats like Carl Craig, Stacey Pullen, Kenny Larkin, and Richie Hawtin (Plastikman).

Of course, Atkins continued recording during this time, and the period from 1985 to 1987 proved to be his most influential period. He founded his own label, Metroplex Records, in 1985 and recorded his first single as Model 500, "No UFO's." Derrick May, who was living in Chicago at the time, invited Atkins over and told him to bring his records. The duo sold thousands of copies, and "No UFO's" soon became a hit with Chicago mix shows like the Hot Mix 5. Later Metroplex singles like "Night Drive," "Interference," and "The Chase" also sold well and set the template for Detroit techno; moody and sublime machine music, inspired by the drone of automated factories and trips down the I-96 freeway late at night.

By 1988, Britain had caught up with the advanced music coming from Chicago and Detroit; soon Atkins, May, and Saunderson made their first trip (of hundreds) across the Atlantic, in Atkins' case before thousands of people at one of the open-air raves typical of England's Summer of Love. Acts like 808 State, A Guy Called Gerald, LFO, and Black Dog began due in large part to the influence of Atkins, and the man himself was invited to remix current pop acts like Fine Young Cannibals, Seal, Tom Tom Club, the Beloved, and the Style Council. Though dance music in Great Britain shifted its course radically from 1989 to 1991 (to the burgeoning, cartoonish sounds of rave and hardcore), others in Europe were quick to take up the cause of championing Detroit's techno elite. First, the Belgian R&S Records began releasing stellar work by a cast of techno inheritors including New Yorker Joey Beltram and Europeans C.J. Bolland and Speedy J. By 1993, Berlin's Tresor Records had picked up the baton as well, issuing American projects by second-wave Detroit producers Underground Resistance (as X-101), Jeff Mills, Blake Baxter, and Eddie Fowlkes.

Atkins visited the label's studio in 1993 and worked with 3MB, the in-house production team of Thomas Fehlmann and Moritz Von Oswald (both of whom were to go on to better things, in Sun Electric and Basic Channel/Maurizio, respectively). He returned to Berlin several years later to begin recording what was, surprisingly, his first album since the days of Cybotron. Finally, in mid-1995, R&S released the debut Model 500 album, Deep Space; more importantly, the label also released Classics, a crucial compilation of Model 500's best Metroplex singles output. Another retrospective, Tresor's Infiniti Collection, traced Atkins' work as Infiniti, recorded from 1991 to 1994 for a variety of labels including Metroplex and Chicago's Radikal Fear.

Several years passed before he released any additional material, but it came with a rush during 1998-1999. First in September 1998, Tresor released an album of new Infiniti recordings named Skynet. One month later, the American label Wax Trax! released a Juan Atkins mix album. The second full Model 500 album, Mind and Body, was released in 1999 on R&S.

Atkins remained active throughout the early 2000s. He put together Classics (2002), a mixed compilation of Metroplex highlights. An album of new productions, The Berlin Sessions, came out through Tresor, and so did the double-disc 20 Years Metroplex. Both of them were released in 2005.

Wikipedia:

Juan Atkins (born December 9, 1962) is an American musician. He is widely credited as the originator of techno music, specifically Detroit techno along with Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. The three, sometimes called the Belleville Three, attended high school together in Belleville, Michigan, near Detroit.

Biography

Early life

Born in Detroit, Michigan, United States as the son of a concert promoter, Juan Atkins learned how to play bass, drums, and "a little lead guitar" at an early age. Atkins, along with school friends Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, tuned in regularly to WGPR to hear DJ Charles "The Electrifying Mojo" Johnson's genre-defying radio show.

At age sixteen, Atkins heard electronic music for the first time, which would prove to be a life-changing experience. In late-1990s interviews, he recalls the sound of synthesizers as being like "UFOs landing." He soon had his first synthesizer and abandoned playing funk bass.

Deep Space Soundworks

He bought his first analogue synthesizer, a Korg MS10, and began recording with cassette decks and a mixer for overdubs. He subsequently taught Derrick May to mix, and the pair started doing DJ sets together as Deep Space. They took their long mixes to Mojo, who began to play them on his show in 1981. Atkins, May, and Saunderson would continue to collaborate as Deep Space Soundworks, even starting a club in downtown Detroit for local DJs to spin and collaborate.

The 1982 single "Cosmic Cars" also did well. Cybotron recorded their debut album, Enter, and were soon signed to Fantasy Records. One track, "Clear," struck out in the direction that Atkins would pursue with what would later be called his "techno" music. Instead of merely reworking elements of, "Clear" fused them with club music.

Atkins considered Cybotron's most successful single, "Techno City" (1984), to be a unique, synthesized funk composition. After later hearing Afrika Bambaataa's "Planet Rock" (1982), which he considered to be a superior example of the electro funk style he was aiming for, he resolved to continue experimenting, and encouraged Saunderson and May to do the same.

In 1985, Atkins left the group due to artistic differences with bandmate Rik Davis. Davis wanted the group to pursue a musical direction closer to rock, while Atkins wanted to continue in the electro-style vein of "Clear".

Model 500

Atkins began recording as "Model 500" in 1985 and founded the Metroplex label. His friends Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson all recorded singles on the label.

Atkins' first single as Model 500, "No UFOs," was a hit in Detroit and Chicago. He followed it with a series of landmark techno tracks, earning him the nickname "the godfather of techno." Within a few years, Atkins' work was re-released in Europe.

Infiniti

Over the years, Atkins has also released works under the name Infiniti. He explained the difference in a 2007 interview: "Model 500 is really a continuation of Cybotron. That's one thing that I've always stayed the course with and I've always wanted to not deviate when I do stuff with Model 500. In the past year it's probably what Cybotron would have done had the partners not split. Its more song-oriented with melodies, not just dance track - that's always been my experiences with Model 500. Now if I do stuff under the name Infinity [sic], that would be the more straightforward form of pure techno, the purest techno what is deemed as techno right now in North America and in Europe."

Musical style

Atkins' earlier works are generally considered electro. Over the years, his sound matured and grew in complexity, and many of his more recent works are heavily layered rhythmic soundscapes. Today, this techno is considered its own genre.

Influences

Atkins and other Techno artists have cited the long-running Detroit radio show of Charles "Electrifyin' Mojo" Johnson as a musical influence. Mojo, a local legend in radio, played an eclectic mix of music including Parliament, and Prince. Atkins and May got their start recording from the radio and remixing for the radio, specifically, Mojo's show; after this apprenticeship, they began producing original music.

The Detroit Sound

"Maybe techno coming out of Detroit had more of the black experience involved, and of course what we've grown up with is soul music and R&B stuff, and then there's funk itself," Atkins told Melbourne magazine Zebra in 1999. "It would be only natural that more of these elements would show up."

Filmography

Catalog No.: PLX-029

Label: Plexifilm

Released: 09/19/06

Director: Gary Bredow

Length: 64 minutes

Summary: HIGH TECH SOUL is the first documentary to tackle the deep roots of techno music alongside the cultural history of Detroit, its birthplace. HIGH TECH SOUL focuses on the creators of the genre—Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson—and looks at the relationships and personal struggles behind the music. Artists like Richie Hawtin, Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Eddie Fowlkes and a host of others explain why techno, with its abrasive tones and resonating basslines, could not have come from anywhere but Detroit.