For Juan week only... (part 9)
2007-10-04 by The Mighty Alboy
cybotron “alleys of your mind”
I picked this one because it really shows where parliament left off, and juan picked up the torch of Detroit funk back in 1981.
Clearly inspired by Parliament’s synth-nutter genius Bernie Worrell’s work on tracks like Flashlight, Juan re-invents the jubilant 70’s P-funk sound, bringing a machine driven futuristic and alienated vibe (check the paranoid vocals) that better reflected the spirit of the times.
(I never knew that Bernie Worrell played with Talking Heads in the 80’s- explains a lot)
Kraftwerk are the more obvious comparison, but like funk before it, as if it has to be said, techno’s roots are very much all about the “D”.
Cybotron were originally a two piece outfit, featuring Juan Atkins and Rick Davis. They parted company after a few years- Rick liked the Rock/Pop bit, but Juan was into creating his new sound. Sounds like it was a good thing- judging by the tracks Rick released as Cybotron after Juan left, I reckon it was Rick who marred Industrial Lies with rambling fret-spanking lead guitar solos. Thankfully, I havent heard any of those in Juan’s later work…
This version is off the 1983 Cybotron LP Enter- but the original 7” has a different more vocoded vocal. Addressing surveillance, alienation, information overload and paranoia, and at least partly inspired by the musings of Alvin Toffler (author of 70’s futurist works like future shock and
I reckon 19 year old Juan felt that this should be the soundtrack for the dawn of the information age. Sounds about right to me.
Download MP3 (0:00min / 0MB)
- Detroit Digital Vinyl
- down at the moment...
- Alvin Toffler digest at Wiki
- buy Cybotron
- sorry, it's amazon
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