“A personal account of first contact with Detroit’s techno underground — from a $89 hotel room near Hart Plaza to a basement at Submerge Records with Underground Resistance co-founder Mike Banks — tracing how Detroit techno’s genre-crossing roots, from the Electrifyin’ Mojo to Jeff Mills’ Wizard persona, reveal a music built not on walls between sounds but on the joy of tearing them down.”

“The key is trust. If you win the crowd over early, you can push and pull the energy in ways that keep them engaged for the long haul. I try to avoid the trap of playing constant bangers with no breathing room — that lacks nuance and becomes exhausting for the listener.”

“Belying his reputation as an innovator of pummelling and percussive techno, much of the music is decorative, beatless and attuned to the characters’ emotions, revealing ideas not necessarily reflected on screen.”

“When Jeff Mills started DJing, the place went completely mental. I had never seen anyone mix techno at that pace before, three turntables, swapping records so fast he didn’t have time to put them back in their sleeves. He was a force of nature, simultaneously lifting everyone up in that circus tent as he destroyed them with a relentless barrage of beats.”

“I drunkenly waltzed into a dorm where someone was blasting Daft Punk’s ‘Robot Rock’ and in a flash gained appreciation for electronic dance music the way a Zen student suddenly attains enlightenment.”

A firsthand account of the night Detroit’s Belleville Three — Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson — hosted Kraftwerk for an afterparty at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit in 2015, documented for Detroit Public Television.

Dan Bain and Mister Joshooa — two of Detroit’s underground scene custodians — discuss vinyl, improvisation, marathon sets, and two decades of building and protecting the culture, alongside their AYLI Ground Level 26 B2B mix.

“I play this music because it gave me a home when I felt like I didn’t have one. It introduced me to the Midwest hospitality that felt like a warm, motherly hug, and most importantly, it instilled the knowledge that it is a sound of freedom, expression, and liberation for Black folks and everyone else.”

An in-depth interview with Stacey ‘Hotwaxx’ Hale — Detroit’s first female house DJ and Godmother of House Music — on 40 years behind the decks, mentorship, representation, and keeping the soul in the music.

A deep dive into how Fritz Lang’s 1927 silent film Metropolis built the visual language of modern sci-fi — from Robot Maria’s influence on C-3PO and Ex Machina to its prescient themes of AI, surveillance, and class conflict that still resonate today.