Juan Atkins, the Detroit visionary widely regarded as the originator of techno, has died at the age of 64. His management agency, Greensmith Artists, confirmed the news on 1st November. According to Resident Advisor, Atkins was found unresponsive in his hotel room in Mexico City, where he had been scheduled to play YuYu Cine Club on the night of 31st October. Pitchfork reports that he had suffered a heart attack and was pronounced dead after being taken to hospital.
Born in 1962, Atkins met Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson in junior high school, and the three friends would go on to be known as The Belleville Three, the founding fathers of Detroit techno. Having played guitar and bass in a funk band as a kid, he bought his first synthesizer, a Korg MS-10, at just 15. Drawing on Kraftwerk, Parliament-Funkadelic, the wildly eclectic radio shows of The Electrifying Mojo and the futurist writings of Alvin Toffler, he started shaping a sound that did not exist yet.
In 1980 he formed Cybotron alongside Richard Davis. Their 1983 debut album ‘Enter’ carried electro landmarks such as ‘Clear’ and ‘Alleys Of Your Mind’, records that still echo through dance music more than four decades later. After Cybotron dissolved, Atkins reinvented himself as Model 500 and in 1985 released ‘No UFOs’, another foundational moment for electronic music. Three years later, his track ‘Techno Music’ gave this new frontier its name.
That same year, 1985, he launched Metroplex, the label that became the launchpad for early Detroit techno. Home to Model 500 classics and to Kevin Saunderson’s debut ‘Triangle Of Love’, the imprint helped define a whole genre and remains active today, reissuing its catalogue and carrying the original, forward-looking spirit its founder gave it.
Paying tribute on Instagram, Saunderson wrote: “Juan was the originator of Techno, a true visionary who opened the door for so many of us, myself included. I’ll never forget how he showed me how to finish my first record, ‘Triangle of Love’. That meant a lot to me then, and it still does today. We shared a journey that changed music forever, and I’ll always be grateful for his friendship, guidance and everything he gave to our scene.”
Atkins never stopped performing, producing and looking ahead. Speaking to DJ Mag in 2019 about reviving Cybotron, he made it clear that nostalgia was never the goal: “I’m not looking at this as an opportunity to start where I left off. I wanna look at this as an opportunity to present new ideas, because that’s what Cybotron has been from the start.” For all his love of machines, he always kept the human side at the centre of his music: “Technology is nice, but we don’t wanna become total robots. We need to keep our creative minds working.”
Every techno record released since owes something to Juan Atkins. Rest in peace, Juan, and thank you for the future.
Juan Atkins: Instagram / SoundCloud
Metroplex: Instagram / Bandcamp