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Galaxy 2 Galaxy - Journey of the Dragons (Galaxy 2 Galaxy, UR, 1993)
“OK, so I’m a sucker for the stargazing, hope-filled, melodic, simultaneously-eulogizing-and-celebrating side of techno. I’m not apologizing—and I’m pretty sure Mike Banks wouldn’t either. This is epic techno—not your giant crowd epic, but just the sort of elevating, heroic epic Detroit needs. When I think of the music and its relation to the city, or even the beauty of human beings creating music during their blip on time’s radar, I go back to Galaxy 2 Galaxy, and everything makes sense.” — Dan Sicko
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Cybotron - Techno City (Fantasy, 1984)
Alleys of Your Mind, Cosmic Cars and Clear are all classics but Techno City is the one where it all comes together. It could easily soundtrack Blade Runner or Metropolis, the classic Fritz Lang silent film that gave Richard Davis the track’s underlying concept: “Techno City was divided into different sectors, the privileged sector in the clouds and the underground workers’ city.”
“The idea was that a person could be born and raised in Techno City, the workers’ city, but what he wanted to do was work his way to the cybodrome where artists and intellectuals reside. There would be no Moloch, but all sorts of diversions, games, electronic instruments. Techno City was the equivalent of the ghetto in Detroit, which is overlooked by the Renaissance Tower.”— Jon Savage on Cybotron: Techno City (Guardian, 2010)
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Abe Duque ft. Blake Baxter - Disco Lights (What Happened?, Abe Duque Records, 2004)
“House music to me is nothing more than an extension of disco,” says Juan Atkins, the senior representative of the “Belleville three”, the founding fathers of Detroit techno, who hailed from suburban Belleville (Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson completed the troika). “Chicago came out with its own version of techno a couple of years down the road with Larry Heard and Marshall Jefferson, but they didn’t call it techno because we already had the term, so they called it acid house.” Atkins adds: “It was a little take-off. I think there was somebody there trying to emulate a Detroit record… It seems like an awful coincidence that our records were selling so well in Chicago and all of a sudden acid house came on the scene.”
— Tim Lawrence, Acid: Can You Jack? (2005)
Club nights, disco lights… laser lights light the way… to the dance floor.
(footnote: track appears as “Disco Nights” on the 2006 mix CD, When The Fever Breaks)
