Techno Tuesday: MK talks Detroit techno and Halloween

Techno Tuesday is a feature on Dancing Astronaut documenting the culture of underground dance music. We’ll bring you exclusive interviews, tracks, and narratives from artists within the techno, tech house, and deep house world in an effort to shed light on some of the best talent outside the world of mainstream dance music.

Few people have been in the scene as long as Marc Kinchen, known to most as MK. Looking no further than the hundreds of releases under his name, it is obvious that he has clocked in his time as one of the underground’s top tastemakers. His catalog and career, spanning over three decades, features both commercial and underground successes. MK is one of the very few acts lucky enough to have learned from two of techno’s founding fathers in Detroit — Juan Atkins and Kevin Saunderson — and also work as Will Smith’s in-house producer.

His story is one that many people already know, as Kinchen remains quite the legendary figure. From his his humble Detroit roots, the artist has gone on to create a slew of chart topping tracks. He initially found international acclaim in the 90s, with singles like “Always” and “Burning ’95” gaining commercial success — especially in the United Kingdom. However, MK’s star-power lies in his ability to craft an amazing remix. From Bobby Brown to Nightcrawlers, Disclosure to Lana Del Rey, and countless more, the producer has the capacity to add his sound to almost any song he sees fit.

Now a seasoned veteran DJ, he can spend some of his time simply observing the culture around him. He has seen the recent growth in the city of Detroit, while also noticing the growth of a certain fall holiday in the UK. Dancing Astronaut had the chance to sit down with MK for a quick chat about Detroit, Berlin, and a DJ’s role in the social sphere, all ahead of his performance at Los Angeles’ extravagant and well-curated “Minimal Effort” Halloween event (tickets here).

It is incredible how different both cities are from each other. Even though the music from both cities have common threads, the scenes are so different. Techno in Detroit started in the clubs like the Music Institute where on any given day you could see people like Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Kevin Saunderson, Mike Banks from Underground Resistance or Derrick May, it was about dancing and sweating and just losing yourself in the music. The scene was influenced by Detroit life and culture, but in Berlin it always seemed like it was a bit darker a little more industrial. The dark mysterious vibe probably had something to do with the actual city of Berlin (after all thats where the Germany was split up with the old wall)  Also, there was a huge underground art the scene in Berlin influencing the music, it brought us a lot of industrial techno in the beginning and then there was Kraftwerk, who were a part of the German trailblazers for Techno, it became a movement and a lifestyle..   Both cities were great for nurturing early techno and I think that is what matters the most.