Chapter Eight

The Future Sound of Detroit

42 records, in the order the book names them

• 001

  Sonic EP

  Underground Resistance

  After debuting with a vocal house track featuring chanteuse Yolanda, Underground Resistance released the ‘Sonic EP’.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 002

  Predator

  Shimon

  Tracks like ‘Predator’ and ‘Elimination’ resemble target-seeking missiles, remorseless and implacable killing machines.

  Ram
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 003

  Elimination

  Underground Resistance

  Tracks like ‘Predator’ and ‘Elimination’ resemble target-seeking missiles, remorseless and implacable killing machines.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 004

  Waveform EP

  Underground Resistance

  After the malignant-sounding ‘Waveform EP’ and ‘Gamma-Ray’, Underground Resistance upped the ante with a series of insurrectionary 1991 releases.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 005

  Riot EP

  Underground Resistance

  On the label of the ‘Riot EP’, the ‘I’ in ‘RIOT’ is a drawing of a masked and sunglass-wearing UR trooper dressed in black, resembling a PLO hijacker.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 006

  Fuel For The Fire

  Underground Resistance

  What Underground Resistance seem to herald on ‘Riot’ and its sister 12-inch ‘Fuel For The Fire’ is a kind of Dionysian politics, a cult of orgiastic, unconstructive anger.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 007

  Sonic Destroyer

  X-101

  After ‘Fuel For The Fire’ (a 12-inch which formed a double-pack with ‘Riot’) UR released ‘Sonic Destroyer’ under the alter-ego X-101.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 008

  Fury

  Underground Resistance

  ‘Fury’ is similar to T99’s ‘Belgian hoover’ classic ‘Anasthasia’, heavy me(n)tal techno with Carmina Burana-like choral stabs.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 009

  Anasthasia

  T99

  ‘Fury’ is similar to T99’s ‘Belgian hoover’ classic ‘Anasthasia’, heavy me(n)tal techno with Carmina Burana-like choral stabs.

  Who's That Beat/XL
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 010

  Revolution For Change

  Underground Resistance

  The only difference is that the fuel for UR’s (f)ire isn’t amphetamine psychosis but their peculiar brand of non-specific belligerence (hence the vague album title Revolution For Change).

  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 011

  The Force

  Underground Resistance

  This time the slogan carved into the vinyl is ‘Unit Deathstar Mission – Eliminate Anti-Underground Forces’, making explicit the Star Wars-derived allegory of UR as Jedi Knights resisting the Evil Empire of the music industry; UR as gnostic warrior-priests who can channel ‘The Force’ (as one of the B-side tracks is titled).

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• 012

  Belgian Resistance

  World Power Alliance

  Last in the series was Hood’s ‘Belgian Resistance’.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 013

  The Bubble Metropolis

  Drexciya

  Underground Resistance the label wasn’t just an outlet for Banks’, Mills’ and Hood’s collective output as UR. They also released tracks by other second-wave Detroit artists, such as Drexciya (the sub-oceanic science fiction of EPs like ‘The Aquatic Invasion’ and ‘The Bubble Metropolis’), Scan 7 and Suburban Knight, aka James Pennington.

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• 014

  Big Fun

  Inner City

  Born in 1965, Pennington was actually a first-wave Detroit techno producer; a room mate of Kevin Saunderson’s, he’d contributed to Inner City’s ‘Big Fun’, and his first two Suburban Knight singles came out on Derrick May’s Transmat label.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 015

  The Art of Stalking

  Suburban Knight

  Recorded in the mid-eighties but released only in 1990, Pennington’s second release via Transmat – ‘The Art of Stalking’ – launched him on an obsession that runs through all his Underground Resistance work: nocturnal predators.

  Transmat
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 016

  By Night

  (with Mad Mike)

  Specifically, Pennington was inspired by the way the bat evolved radar to achieve an evolutionary edge, a topic he returned to with 1996’s ‘Echo Location’ (on the ‘By Night’ EP).

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 017

  X-102 Discovers The Rings of Saturn

  X-101

  With the album X-102 Discovers The Rings of Saturn (1992), the trio left behind terrestial alienation for alien realms.

  Tresor
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 018

  Atlantis

  LTJ Bukem remix of Apollo Two

  For the next instalment in the series, X-103, Mills and Co turned from one Sun Ra obsession (Saturn) to another: Atlantis.

  both Good Looking
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 019

  Technarchy

  Cybersonik

  When the track became more widely available in late 1990, ‘Technarchy’ by Cybersonik (Hawtin, Aquaviva and their mate Dan Bell) became a huge anthem in the European rave scene.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 020

  Vortex

  Final Exposure

  ‘Vortex’ by Final Exposure (a collaboration between Hawtin and Joey Beltram and Mundo Muzique of Second Phase/‘Mentasm’ fame) is like being sucked up inside a cyclone composed of African killer-bees.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 021

  Overkill

  Circuit Breaker

  +8’s headlong escalation to harder-faster extremities peaked in early 1992 with Circuit Breaker’s ‘Overkill’ / ‘Frenz-E’ and Cybersonik’s ‘Thrash’.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 022

  Thrash

  Cybersonik

  +8’s headlong escalation to harder-faster extremities peaked in early 1992 with Circuit Breaker’s ‘Overkill’ / ‘Frenz-E’ and Cybersonik’s ‘Thrash’.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 023

  Sheet One

  Plastikman

  Plastikman’s 1993 debut album Sheet One was one long paean to the synergy of 303’s and LSD. Tracks like ‘Plasticine’ offer a kind of monochrome, sensory-deprivation version of psychedelia.

  +8/Warp
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 024

  Berlin – Detroit: A Techno Alliance

  Tronikhouse

  Tresor subtitled their second compilation: Berlin – Detroit: A Techno Alliance.

  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 025

  Frontal Sickness

  Mescalinum United

  Underground Resistance were particularly influential on the Frankfurt labels Force Inc and PCP. Citing ‘The Art of Stalking’ as his favourite track of all time, PCP’s The Mover offered a Teutonic take on Suburban Knight’s creepy, crepuscular sound – tracks like ‘Nightflight (Non-Stop To Kaos)’, post-apocalyptic EPs like ‘Frontal Sickness’ and ‘Final Sickness’, and a 12 inch on R & Sreleased under the very UR-like alter-ego Spiritual Combat.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 026

  Final Sickness

  Mescalinum United

  Underground Resistance were particularly influential on the Frankfurt labels Force Inc and PCP. Citing ‘The Art of Stalking’ as his favourite track of all time, PCP’s The Mover offered a Teutonic take on Suburban Knight’s creepy, crepuscular sound – tracks like ‘Nightflight (Non-Stop To Kaos)’, post-apocalyptic EPs like ‘Frontal Sickness’ and ‘Final Sickness’, and a 12 inch on R & Sreleased under the very UR-like alter-ego Spiritual Combat.

  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 027

  Strings of Life

  Derrick May

  Falling under May’s tutelage, he toured Europe as a member of Rythim Is Rythim, worked on the 1989 remix of ‘Strings of Life’, and in 1991 co-wrote the sublime ‘Kao-Tic Harmony’ (which was released as the flipside of Derrick May’s only nineties release to date, ‘Icon’).

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 028

  Kao-Tic Harmony

  Rhythim Is Rhythim

  Falling under May’s tutelage, he toured Europe as a member of Rythim Is Rythim, worked on the 1989 remix of ‘Strings of Life’, and in 1991 co-wrote the sublime ‘Kao-Tic Harmony’ (which was released as the flipside of Derrick May’s only nineties release to date, ‘Icon’).

  Transmat/Zomba
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 029

  Icon

  Rhythim Is Rhythim

  Falling under May’s tutelage, he toured Europe as a member of Rythim Is Rythim, worked on the 1989 remix of ‘Strings of Life’, and in 1991 co-wrote the sublime ‘Kao-Tic Harmony’ (which was released as the flipside of Derrick May’s only nineties release to date, ‘Icon’).

  Transmat/Zomba
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 030

  Galaxy

  Underground Resistance

  On BFC’s ‘Galaxy’, the glowing synth-pulse really sounds like the spermazoic spangle of the Milky Way; on ‘Evolution’, the whispery treated breakbeat is a rustle that makes your brain itch, rather than your feet twitch.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 031

  Evolution

  Orbital

  On BFC’s ‘Galaxy’, the glowing synth-pulse really sounds like the spermazoic spangle of the Milky Way; on ‘Evolution’, the whispery treated breakbeat is a rustle that makes your brain itch, rather than your feet twitch.

  Evolution/Warp
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 032

  Desire

  Dica & DJ Big Vern

  Journalist Tony Marcus’s verdict on the Six Nine track ‘Desire’ – closer to ‘an emotion bomb than a dance record’ – applies to most of Craig’s work.

  Boogie Beat
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 033

  At Les

  Carl Craig

  As with the May/Craig collaboration ‘Kao-Tic Harmony’, ‘Desire’ features a keening synth melody that soars up and slides down the octave in fitful lurches; it feels like a kite, whose strings are attached to your heart, being tugged and buffeted by the wind. 1993’s ‘At Les’ – released under Carl’s own name – is even more moistly melancholy.

  Planet E/Eevolute
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 034

  More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art

  Carl Craig

  Like a couple of other early Craig classics, the song reappeared on his 1997 album More Songs About Food and Revolutionary Art.

  Planet E
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 035

  Jupiter Jazz

  Underground Resistance

  On the ‘Galaxy 2 Galaxy’ double-EP, Banks abandoned juggernaut industrialism for a rhapsodic fusion-tinged sound (‘Hi-Tech Jazz’, as the opening track put it), hints of which had been heard in earlier UR classics like ‘Eye of the Storm’ and ‘Jupiter Jazz’.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 036

  Waveform Transmission

  Jeff Mills

  Mills and Hood, meanwhile, were developing their enormously influential brand of minimalist techno with the Waveform Transmission album series. 1993’s Vol. 2 – recorded by Hood as The Vision – proclaimed: ‘This release is dedicated to the form of simplicity the reasoning of vision.’ Hood’s 1994 double-pack ‘Minimal Nation’ and Internal Empire album offered the aural equivalent of a bread-and-water regime.

  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 037

  Vol. 2

  DJs Unite

  Mills and Hood, meanwhile, were developing their enormously influential brand of minimalist techno with the Waveform Transmission album series. 1993’s Vol. 2 – recorded by Hood as The Vision – proclaimed: ‘This release is dedicated to the form of simplicity the reasoning of vision.’ Hood’s 1994 double-pack ‘Minimal Nation’ and Internal Empire album offered the aural equivalent of a bread-and-water regime.

  Rogue Trooper/Death Becomes Me
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 038

  Internal Empire

  Robert Hood

  Mills and Hood, meanwhile, were developing their enormously influential brand of minimalist techno with the Waveform Transmission album series. 1993’s Vol. 2 – recorded by Hood as The Vision – proclaimed: ‘This release is dedicated to the form of simplicity the reasoning of vision.’ Hood’s 1994 double-pack ‘Minimal Nation’ and Internal Empire album offered the aural equivalent of a bread-and-water regime.

  Tresor
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 039

  Cycle 30

  Jeff Mills

  ‘Cycle 30’, for instance, took the vinyl-innovations of UR to the furthest degree: the release consisted of nine locked grooves, five second riffs and beat-loops that were designed for DJs to use as mixing material.

  Purpose Maker
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 040

  True People

  Tronikhouse

  Many of these producers were corralled on to a 1996 double CD compiled by Eddie ‘Flashin’ ’ Fowlkes, which he titled True People as a stinging rebuke to the rest of the world for daring to tamper with the Detroit blueprint.

  React
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 041

  Uptempo

  Tronikhouse

  For instance, Kevin Saunderson (the most impurist of the Belleville Three – he even put out great hardcore tracks in 1992 like ‘Uptempo’ and ‘Mental Techno’, using the alter-ego Tronikhouse) has inspired some exciting records, like Dave Clarke’s ‘Red’ series.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 042

  Mental Techno

  Tronikhouse

  For instance, Kevin Saunderson (the most impurist of the Belleville Three – he even put out great hardcore tracks in 1992 like ‘Uptempo’ and ‘Mental Techno’, using the alter-ego Tronikhouse) has inspired some exciting records, like Dave Clarke’s ‘Red’ series.

  track Open ↗ YouTube