7. DrexciyaThe Quest
NK: Of course these guys come from Detroit – local heroes.
AM: They kept their identity secret but it’s now known and unfortunately James from the band has passed away. For me, coming to Detroit and trying to get signed to a record label, I was such an obnoxious youth. I would just go to raves and be like the girls in clubs with cigarettes and candy for sale on a tray but with my demos. I would give them to anyone. I gave one to a person and they were like, ‘you know this isn’t industrial music, this is techno’, and I was like, ‘what’s techno?’ This must have been 1991. Then they turned me onto this radio show called Fast Forward with Alan Oldham. The radio show was on at midnight on Sundays, like one of the worst slots possible, and I just remember that from the first song I ran to get a cassette to record it. I still have the cassette. It was all this raw Detroit stuff and through that show, and record stores, I got into Carl Craig, Robert Hood, Daniel Bell, Richie Hawtin but Drexciya was the one that really identified with me and that was because they could go from something so incredibly cool like ‘Sea Snake’ and then into something so camp-y like ‘Aquabon’.
NK: It was like they were looking at Kraftwerk through Detroit lenses. Their perspective was so unique and interesting.
AM: I love how bands create a new sound but when you talk to them they always say, ‘well, I was just trying to do this but I didn’t know how’. I love this freedom that they had. Like they would do a dorky song if they wanted to or a more disco song or an electro song.
NK: One thing that we identify with them musically is that they have this severity in some of the songs but then also some of them are nonsensical and absurd. It’s consistently them but they are always just like, ‘we’re going to do what we want to do’.
