Start with Cybotron's 'Clear' below: it is the quickest way to hear what techno owes Juan Atkins, who has died at 64. His agency, Greensmith Artists, confirmed the news on November 1. He was found unresponsive in a Mexico City hotel room on October 31, the night he was booked to play YuYu Cine Club, and was pronounced dead in hospital.
Atkins formed Cybotron with Richard Davis in 1980, and their 1983 album 'Enter' carried electro landmarks 'Clear' and 'Alleys Of Your Mind'. In 1985 he released 'No UFOs' as Model 500 and started Metroplex, the label behind early Detroit records such as Kevin Saunderson's 'Triangle Of Love'. His 1988 track 'Techno Music' gave the genre its name.
Alongside Saunderson and Derrick May he made up the Belleville Three. Saunderson called him the originator of techno and said Atkins showed him how to finish his first record.
Every producer working in the genre today builds on that blueprint, including the ones behind our exclusive Techno tracks for sale.