But it also underscores how, if sci fi isn’t a prediction of the future so much as a reflection of the present, then the future evoked by classic 80s and 90s Detroit techno isn’t sci fi anymore. It doesn’t feel anything like the present.
as a pretty dedicated detroit techno fan I agree with this to an extent, the weirder jeff mills/rob hood/jay denham/Stacey Pullen/Shakir etc etc etc end of techno still sounds very much relevant today but Atkins, May et al are very 80s. Patty is right that that things come and go, so things have to be appreciated on their own terms. But I do wish chicago acid was offered the same reverence as detroit, because it still sounds like music of now. I guess those boys didn't have the same kind of mythology to market to a mostly European public though. In fact relative to detroit a lot of early chicago jack tracks were dirty rather than slick and clean.
Techstep sounds contemporary though, weirdly. which is where barty went a bit ott with bladerunner jungle. Or maybe it's that bladerunner the book, as in Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep is still presentist, rather than the film. Listen.