Bleep

As Berlin’s legendary techno imprint Tresor Records approaches 30 years, some reflection is in order. A mere three years after the wall came down in their fair city, a musical link from further afield was cast in 1992. Berlin residents Thomas Fehlmann and Moritz von Oswald, masterminds of the 3 Men in Berlin project, and Detroit techno figurehead ‘Magic’ Juan Atkins were somewhat known in their respective fields as DJs and owner-operators of electronic instruments. What they achieved together with 3MB feat. Magic Juan Atkins is a remarkably prophetic document of what club music could — and eventually would — become.

Still in its infancy in the early 1990s, all the consummate pieces of acid, techno and rave are in their full glory here — a modulated 808-esque bass, buzzing hi hats, a sense of communal euphoria and harmonious cohabitation — duly presented in the three collaborators’ admiration of kosmische. They make the fact known on the winding synth trajectory of ‘Die Kosmischen Kuriere’, named for the influential label which once hosted Klaus Schulze and Manuel Göttsching in the early 1970s. The album as a whole serves to modernise a similarly hypnotic musical mode, having since proven to be just as impactful.

While their album is justly regarded as a stone-cold classic of techno, 3MB feat. Magic Juan Atkins also represents the utopian potential of dance music, adjoining the transcontinental cultures of two vital city hubs in the process.