This is from Detroit in 1981. Juan Atkins would go on to become one of the true godfathers of what we now call techno, but a whole decade earlier he was collaborating with one Richard Davis, a spaced out ex-Vietnam vet, under the Cybotron moniker.
While the history books often record that it was Afrika Bambaataa's ‘Planet Rock’ that took the white European electro sounds of Kraftwerk to the black dancefloors of the USA, we can see that Atkins was already exploring a similar path a year or so earlier.
It’s certainly true that Bambaataa took those cold crisp electronic beats to the mainstream clubs of NYC, but Atkins was already cultivating something of an underground scene in Detroit. Once disco started morphing into house just down the road in Chicago a few years later, Atkins was in a prime spot to seize the initiative, upping the bpm factor on his old school electro experiments to change the course, shape, and speed of dance music for years to come.
Here’s some experimental electro/techno from Cybotron, ‘Cosmic Raindance’ from 1981:
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