Born 5 September 1964 in Brooklyn, Saunderson is widely considered to be one of the big four who pioneered Detroit Techno, along with Juan Atkins and Derrick May (often referred to as the Belleville Three). Inspired by the burgeoning House music coming from Chicago, producers and DJs from New York and Detroit returned to their home cities to create what would become Electro and Techno respectively.
Saunderson has experimented with a number of different aliases and groups over the years. In his early years he cut his teeth with Kreem (a partnership with long-time collaborator Juan Atkins) culminating in the 1986 hit ‘Triangle Of Love’. Since then his projects have included The Reese Project, Inter-City (which would later become Inner City to rapturous applause) and more recently E-Dancer (an alias he uses to explore the heavier side of Techno).
During 2005/2006 Kevin’s work was celebrated with a FUSE-In presents Kevin Saunderson/Elevator world tour which saw the big man take audiences on a guided tour through the annals of his musical history. Lucky ravers were treated to his pick of tracks recorded as Kreem, Reese/The Reese Project, Inter-City/Inner City, E-Dancer, Keynotes, K S Experience, Kaos and Esser’ay. The shows would prove to cement Saunderson’s status as someone who “elevated the deep sound of Detroit Techno and took it from the underground into the hearts and souls of music lovers the world over”. So that’s why the call him The Elevator.
Since then, Saunderson has returned to the studio to work on original material and remixes, the first of which was the critically lauded remix of Claude VonStroke’s ‘Who’s Afraid of Detroit’. On top of that, the newly resuscitated KMS Records (that played host to the vast majority of Saunderson’s various releases over the years) has been putting out his recent series of History Elevate 12″ records, featuring remixes of classic KS tracks by the likes of Loco Dice, Jesse Rose and Luciano.
With the 20 year mark having been and gone, one can only assume the world tours, reissues, remix packages and general dead-horse-floggery is all dead and buried and we can finally look forward to some original material. Here’s hoping.
