Juan Atkins, the Detroit Techno Pioneer Behind Model 500, Dies at 64

Juan Atkins was found unresponsive in his hotel room in Mexico City on October 31, hours before he was booked to play a set at YuYu Cine Club. He was 64. His management agency, Greensmith Artists, confirmed the death on November 1. Resident Advisor reported he was pronounced dead after being taken to hospital. No cause of death has been given.

Atkins built techno's first blueprint as a teenager in Belleville, Michigan, alongside two friends from junior high, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. The three later got a collective name, the Belleville Three, and dance music has been running variations on what they worked out together in the early 1980s ever since.

He'd already played guitar and bass in a funk band as a kid when he got his first synthesiser, a Korg MS-10, at 15. The sound he built on it drew from Kraftwerk's rigid electronic pop, the live instrumentation of Parliament-Funkadelic, and the futurist writing of Alvin Toffler.

Cybotron, Metroplex and "No UFOs"

In 1980, Atkins formed Cybotron with Richard Davis, mixing Kraftwerk and Parliament-Funkadelic with the late-night radio sets of Detroit broadcaster the Electrifying Mojo. Cybotron's 1983 debut album, Enter, included "Clear" and "Alleys of Your Mind," both now counted among techno's founding records.

When Cybotron split in 1985, Atkins kept going alone under the alias Model 500 and started his own label, Metroplex, to put the music out himself. The first single was "No UFOs." Metroplex went on to release other early Detroit techno records, including Saunderson's "Triangle of Love."

"He Opened the Door for So Many of Us"

Saunderson posted a tribute on Instagram after the news broke: "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."

Cover photo: Juan Atkins performing as Model 500 at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, 2007. Dave Walker, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.