Model 500

In 1985 Juan Atkins released the first record on his fledgling label Metroplex, ‘No UFO’s’ and started the clock for Year Zero of the dance music movement. Like Ford’s Model T, the impact of these new machine rhythms was global, hitting especially hard in Europe, where dance music subsequently developed into a mass cultural phenomenon. Since then, Juan Atkins has built what stands as perhaps the most influential body of work in the field of dance music. Characterised by his ability to make machines speak, to give them soul, his style of production has inspired a legion of admirers and can still be heard on dancefloors across the globe as well as in Radiohead’s avant garde rock and the futuristic RnB of Timberland and The Neptunes. In 2007 Atkins form a Model 500 band. It wasn’t the first time they had played together as Model 500 but this time Atkins added Detroit DJ/producer DJ Skurge to the mix along with longtime associate and established funk and techno producer Mark Taylor. As the “new” Model 500, they began performing as a band, debuting at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, and not too long later, performing at festivals in Europe, Asia and Australia. Taking the band concept farther, the Model 500 has begun work on an untitled full length release “Digital Solutions” (2015 / R&S Records). Digital Solutions is the third Model 500 album, and the first in 16 years, following 1995’s Deep Space and ’99’s Mind And Body, both of which came out on R&S Records.