Artist: Blake Baxter
Genre(s):
Techno
Discography:
Prince of Techno ep
Year:
Tracks: 4
Perhaps the most underrated figure of Detroit techno's number 1 wave, Blake Baxter began recording in the mid-'80s before Motor City mainstays like Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. Presaging the influence of erotic house during the late '80s, Baxter was inspired by the sexual soul of Barry White and Prince as well as cosmic funk machines like Parliament and Funkadelic. He released his number 1 single on the seminal Chicago sign label DJ International and recorded several classics for Saunderson's KMS Records, and by the '90s cultivated his connexion with Detroit's techno subversives Underground Resistance, for whom he served as a directing wanton.
With the Detroit scene on the prove after the spill of his DJ International and KMS material, Baxter ducked the hoopla centered around the important compilation Techno: The New Dance Sound of Detroit (though his productions figured prominently on it) and affected to the dark Incognito pronounce. Seminal releases Sexuality, the Crimes of the Heart EP, and his 1990 debut record album The Underground Lives signalled a freshly independent-minded producer, and he as well exhausted much time in Berlin during the early '90s. The extended stay put yielded several releases, including the Logic singles "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" -- later sampled by the Chemical Brothers -- and a 1992 record album highborn The Project. He also recorded with Orlando Voorn as the Ghetto Brothers. Back in Detroit, he recorded "Prince of Techno" for Underground Resistance and set up his have labels, Mix Records and Phat Joint (the latter focussed more on rap). In 1995, Baxter released a retrospective on Disko B entitled The Vault. Two years later, The H Factor (Hurricane Melt) followed, also on Disko B. The mix record album A Decade Underground appeared in 1998. Ambition Sequence was issued in 2000; Dream Sequence 3 followed a year later.
