In the late 1970s, in Detroit, there was a local radio show hosted by a DJ called The Electrifying Mojo. He played a mix of soul, funk, new wave, hip hop, rock and electronic music. His passion was letting records speak for themselves, to the music breathe by itself – by playing the tracks in their entirety. No waffle, no interruptions.
All of Techno’s early inventors credit The Electrifying Mojo for opening their ears to a new sound – but one producer in particular, Juan Atkins, cites Mojo’s playing of Kraftwerk as having a significant impact upon his development as an aspiring musician. Whereas Kraftwerk had honed the art of synthesis, Atkins, as a mere teenager, was still learning.
Juan Atkins, along with Richard Davis, subsequently created Alleys Of Your Mind in 1981 – a record known amongst many as one of the first pieces of Detroit Techno ever made, hailed as a classic.
Alleys Of Your Mind, the title track, audibly has huge Kraftwerk influences, most notably the synth-funk and slap-back reverberating vocals. The drums were clearly challenging to create – mostly comprised of a snare that fizzes – the clear result of hours experimenting with white noise shaping.
However, the B-side, Cosmic Raindance, in spite of its lesser fame compared to the A-side, is actually far closer to proto-Techno than its illustrious counterpart – in fact, I would call it one of the most criminally overlooked B-sides of all time. It crackles with otherworldly emotion with a wild, screaming lead that is reminiscent of the acid-drizzled psychedelia of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain. What truly makes it proto-techno is the constant pulsing of the rhythm, laying down a model that would still be heard in club tracks 35 years later.
The theme that stands out in this record, above all, is the imagery; Deep Space Records, Cosmic Raindance – do you get the idea? Kraftwerk explored the tic-toc of modern technology, whereas Juan and Richard had already begun using cosmology and afrofuturism to define their ethos – a theme, once again, often explored within P-Funk’s mythology.
The simple beauty of this record is that it received heavy play on The Electrifying Mojo’s show, giving Juan and Richard that wonderful, irreplicable experience of hearing their own song on the very radio show that inspired them – a moment of catharsis for two artists who were inspired by the musicians before them to create a beautiful sound from finnicky, rudimentary equipment.
Stereo Output 