With more than 1,000,000 people on their way to attend Detroit's DEMF – The Movement, the capital of Michigan is to be once more the worldwide center of modern jam on this Memorial Day Week-End. And the fact that we're talking about said electronic concepts doesn't change anything as long as these are nothing but ultimate forms of groove…

March 2001 (WMC' Miami) Glenn Underground is in full effect, purveying an interrupted bunch of goodies at some party dedicated to the Chicago scene at Opium Gardens. All of a sudden, an unknown guy to me gives him a white label that he plays almost instantly to a joyful crowd. The track in question – "Believe" – is the one of a new female vocalist called Miyon and the man who's dropped it to Glenn is a certain Norman Talley, hailing from Detroit. A man (and now a true bro) who would devote himself to become a guide for me almost three months later while coming for the very first time to his city. We was not talking about The Movement at the time but the DEMF, in other words : the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, a sort of giant version of what its DJ ambassadors provide us with each year during the WMC' with their nights dedicated to the spirit of this city, from Carl Craig back in the days who would invite people like 4Hero and DJ Gilb'R to the Beatdown party this year featuring Norman Talley and Mike 'Agent X' Clarke to name but a few, not to mention those Detroit meets Miami sessions with the likes of Kevin Saunderson, Alton Miller and Scott Grooves amongst others. All on all, not a format as too often written here and there, but the many sides of a spirit that you won't find anywhere else but in Detroit. That precise thing that too many people have reduced to a single word – techno – before trying to recapture its original spirit for themselves, as most notoriously shown in Europe.

Gotta remember that very first time I saw Malik (Malik Alston). He was in the middle of an impressive afro influenced live performance. Atlanta based percussionist Sundiata OM who was around for visiting his family at the same time tells me all about the (good) way he thinks about this relatively new face. Enuff said to make me want to know a bit more about him. Malik and I would meet the following year in Miami (and at every occasion since). Him providing me with a few demos showing the face of a man able to do as good from organic ambient to almost mechanic jazz : the sign of a multi facetted talent. The Detroit meets Miami night is an absolute delight that same year, including a memorable live PA from Kevin Saunderson,'s protegee Randolph Paul with a single on KMS at the time. Then, we would have the Detroit Beatdown compilation that Norm (Talley) manages to send me in 2002, but also Carl Craig uniting local jazzmen on his Detroit Experiment Project. Malik Alston working with Chicagoan producer Roy Davis Jr on "Back 2 Chicago", a cut that to me would stand as one of the best ones to be remembered from WMC' 2003 prior its release on King Street at the fall of last year. And also Dwele releasing his awaited debut LP on Virgin, then Amp Fiddler after an oustanding live performance exactly a year ago at the Movement. Not to mention those true funk sorcerers by the likes of Theo Parrish and Kenny Dixon Jr. Recloose, Jaydee, Slum Village, Delano Smith, Mike Grant, Mike Huckaby but also R&B singer Lathun adding their names to that ever versatile list.

Some of you may say that we're somehow far from that approach which had led to the recognition of the Detroit scene on the so called electronic music field some 20 years ago. Right, but let's not forget the history which would make Detroit as the cradle of soul (embodied by Berry Gordy's Motown experience back in the days), then funk later on with faces like Al Hudson (Al Hudson & The Soul partners then One Way), The Dramatics, the (Detroit) Spinners and Oliver Cheatham. Not to say that if Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Jeff Mills, Carl Craig and Mike Banks are all hailing from this city, they are first and foremost remembered because of their particularisms (exactly like The Whispers, Dynasty, Shalamar and Midnight Star at the SOLAR label period) and not because of their affiliation to a precise spectrum (techno !) as many journos have reduced them throughout the years… Detroit as a whole would exactly be what was to be brilliantly shown a year ago at The Movement.

The faces who've given birth to this Detroit… movement back in the days are now surrounded by a bunch of people who, by the works, have much contributed to break that sort of ideological ghetto that so many critcs worldwide had built around them in their obsession to labellize everything.

Theo Parrish explains : Eddie 'Flashin' Fowlkes is the first one who came up with that 'Beatdown' expression to put a name to Norman Talley's music. For me, it was still techno, although it was much slower that everything I'd heard before. It's nothing but some sort of deep music and when I've asked Eddie to give me a sort of description of it, he's simply said : beat-down, downtempo…

Can it be that techno, as seen (and initiated) in Detroit would be nothing but the result of a local reality ? A reality that had pushed Detroit people to commit themselves in music with the means that were their ? In other words, without those budgets normally dedicated to production in cities like NYC or L.A. ? A reality that would have been the epicenter of that state of mind and those particular approaches that have seen the daya long the years ??? A sort of local response to the British punk attitude as opposed to what many have depicted as a genre on its own before trying to recapture it in Europe and soon to sort of monopolize it for themselves the way their fathers would do with rock & roll ?!? Parrish's explanations are more than edifying : Terence Parker is considered as the leading head of Detroit house. Norman Talley, apart from his deep minimal techno works is able to produce the most uplifting house as well as the most subtle disco/house sets. Mike Clark does outstanding pieces of music, but on which niche would you be tempted to put him ??? Eddie 'Flashin' Folkes's reputation has been a reality for a while in terms of techno music, but he's also able to create pieces of music infected of soul like no one else and play a wide variety of things on a DJ set… As for Theo and Moodymann who're able to embrace the whole spectrum of Afro-American music on their works, who could really put a name to what they're doing thus making them stucked in a predefined label ?

Music is in perpetual evolution, thus making it like an alive language able to produce new words at every moment.  

That's how much we love Detroit. MFSB

DEMF – THE MOVEMENT'04 : 05/29, 30 & 31 Hart Plaza – DETROIT, Mi

More infos : movementfestival.com

Thank you for welcoming me as one of yours : Mike 'Agent X' Clark, Norman Talley, Dewayne Jensen, Randolph Paul, Theo Parrish, Malik Alston, Scott Grooves, Alton Miller, Eddie 'Flashin' Fowlkes, Sundiata OM, Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson and Jeff Mills