Influences – Kris Wadsworth

I’ve always loved that synth. Heard it in Berlin recently and I thought about something: When I was about 18, I was opening at a club in Pontiac, MI for DJ Keoki and MC Breed. I played straight up techno. The whole club literally stood at the edge of the dance floor until I was done. Then MC Breed got on the mic, Keoki came on and suddenly the invisible barrier to the dance floor vanished. Wrong place at the wrong time, I guess…but that’s stuck in my head along with the track.

This was the first electronic music record I ever had played in front of me. The dude who played it for me and my boy when we were like, 11 or 12 or 13(?), then proceeded to smoke some pretty serious weed with us. My boy went back to his house and ate a shit load of cereal and then puked it up all over the floor. And that’s that, I will never forget this record. Dance Mania seems like it’s pretty popular again right now, so I guess a similar story continues for other young kids? I hope so.

Kinda hard to find this track on the internet. Anyone from Detroit who is my age (29) or older has probably heard this about a million times at some point in their life. It was like, inescapable on the radio on weekends or if you went to parties etc. Most people outside of Detroit have no idea what this is. It’s one of the many “very Detroit” tracks that makes me think of about a billion things, faces, and places. I love it and I have no exact way to explain why; it’s just dope.

I’ve had this track in my head since I was just out of high school. The second time I ever played in Berlin, the driver from Tresor was playing electro like this in the car. I thought in my head…”fuck, what was that god damn album homeboy showed me years ago with that fat-ass synth line?” I recognized the artwork somewhere and then–boom–there was the track. Huge influence on me ‘cause it was always stuck in my head, even if I didn’t know the name of it for way too long. Absolutely beautiful…

I remember when I bought this. It was when I only had enough money to buy like, one or two records at a time if I was lucky. I didn’t know shit and had to choose wisely. I still have this–same copy– to this day. It’s on brown vinyl and I remember mentioning that to people I was with when I bought it. (they didn’t care) Haha! I love dub techno and the DeepChord stuff really influenced me and others a lot. Shout out to Record Time (RIP). Without them, I would have never even known about this.

Anyone who knows my music surely can tell I was influenced by Chicago classics. Growing up when I did, where I did, and around the people I did; it was kind of hard not to be. I think this vocal sample is truer now than it ever has been; it’s one of the many reasons I love this track. All the old Green Velvet records are so crazy in the best possible way. His music is undeniably one of my biggest influences.

Lots of people throw me into the house music category almost as a rule and have for years; but the stuff I have been most influenced by, can recite off the top of my head and the records I own are usually anything but house. Also people these days think that the “industrial techno” sounds of late are something new. No. Adam is one of the pioneers of that sound and this track alone pre-dates anything these days by almost two decades. A little homework never hurt anyone…

I couldn’t make an influence list without listing Wolfgang Voigt, Profan, something from Cologne or Kompakt related. I list something like that in almost anything like this. He is one of this music’s all-time most important producers without any question. Too many people I run into don’t know this stuff and it really alienates me sometimes. I guess the good thing is that when I show them various aliases of his music, they’re always like: “wow!” If not, then I know that person and I will never get along.