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The Waxonia Desk on Detroit Techno

Where to go once Strings of Life has done its work. Four records that show the city arguing with itself about what the future was supposed to sound like.

Autoplay · 3 of 4 play here · plays through and starts again

  1. Model 500 / No UFO's

    1985 · Metroplex

    The map, drawn before anyone had agreed there was territory. Cold electro chassis and science-fiction distance, and the first record that is unambiguously techno rather than something approaching it.

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  2. Jeff Mills / The Bells

    1996 · Purpose Maker

    The other pole from Strings of Life entirely. No melody to speak of, no release, just a riff that tightens for six minutes. Techno as pure pressure, and still the most reliable weapon in the format.

  3. Drexciya / Bubble Metropolis

    1993 · Underground Resistance

    Detroit techno as mythology, made by people who refused to be photographed and built an underwater civilisation instead. Play it after the Model 500 and hear the same city imagining a very different exit.

  4. Carl Craig / At Les

    1997 · Planet E

    The argument's resolution, if it has one. Craig lets the melody breathe for nine minutes and proves the machine funk was always capable of tenderness when nobody was trying to prove anything.