walking upstream…
Juan Atkins
Juan Atkins is the Detroit producer widely credited as the originator of techno, first fusing the icy machine-precision of Kraftwerk with the cosmic low-end of Parliament-Funkadelic as one half of Cybotron, then refining that vision alone as Model 500 and via his own Metroplex label. A former high-school Future Studies student steeped in Alvin Toffler's speculative sociology, he borrowed the genre's very name from Toffler's writing and, alongside Belleville High School friends Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, built an entire Detroit scene out of the idea that funk, science fiction, and drum machines were never separate things.
the sound in question
1981
Alleys of Your MindJuan Atkins
walk the tributaries ↓
Kraftwerk1970s · Electronic / Krautrock / Synth-pop
Atkins has described hearing Kraftwerk's "The Robots" on Detroit DJ Electrifying Mojo's show as a threshold moment - "it froze me in my tracks, man" - and by the time of Cybotron's debut he called their sound "clean and precise" next to the "weird UFO sounds" he was chasing himself; that precise, regimented machine-pulse became the chassis Cybotron built its own cosmic funk on top of.
listen: upstream & heresource: Wikipedia - Techno (Atkins on Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Alvin Toffler) ↗
1978
The RobotsKraftwerk
1983
ClearJuan Atkins
listen forCue up "The Robots" and lock onto that clipped, unwavering synth-and-vocoder lockstep, then play Cybotron's "Clear" - the vocoder hook and the same metronomic machine tempo are Atkins translating Kraftwerk's Dusseldorf severity into Detroit's cosmic-funk chassis.
George Clinton1970s · Funk / Psychedelic soul / R&B
Atkins has named Funkadelic's "Flash Light" as maybe his single most direct influence - "if I had to point to a direct influence, I'd have to say Flash Light" - after growing up on Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic broadcast constantly on Detroit's Midnight Funk Association radio show; that cosmic, science-fiction-as-funk stance resurfaces directly in the interplanetary cruise of Cybotron's "Cosmic Cars."
listen: upstream & here
1977
Flash LightGeorge Clinton
1982
Cosmic CarsJuan Atkins
listen forDrop the needle on "Flash Light" and catch that burbling Moog bassline carrying the entire song by itself, then hear Cybotron's "Cosmic Cars" answer it with a synth-bass pulse doing the same job under Rik Davis's spoken-sung drive through outer space.
Giorgio Moroder1970s · Italo disco / Synth-pop / Euro disco
Atkins has said he had an early enthusiasm for Giorgio Moroder specifically, citing Moroder's all-electronic album E=MC2 - around 1980 he kept a car mixtape of nothing but Kraftwerk, Telex, Devo, Moroder and Gary Numan - and that faith in a record built entirely on sequenced synthesizers rather than a live rhythm section carries straight into Model 500's clipped, futurist productions.
listen: upstream & heresource: Wikipedia - Techno (Atkins on Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, Parliament-Funkadelic, and Alvin Toffler) ↗
1979
E=MC2Giorgio Moroder
1985
No UFO'sJuan Atkins
listen forListen to how the E=MC2 title track rides one relentless sequenced arpeggio with almost no live instrumentation, then play Model 500's "No UFO's" - the same total commitment to a sequencer-driven groove, just filtered through Detroit's colder, more minimal drum-machine attack.