Juan Atkins Mourned By Fellow Artists: He ‘Sparked the Electronic Music Revolution We’re Living in Today’

On Intagram, Tiga shared an image of him and Atkins with a five-minute voice note recounting the night Tiga saw Atkins play a set that he says did nothing less than alter his approach to electronic music.

“On December 31st, 1994 — New Year’s Eve — I was booked to play a party called Heaven in New York. I think it was actually in Queens. It was a big rave, 7,000 people. It was a huge deal at the time, and definitely a huge deal for me, because that was one of the first times I’d left Montreal to DJ at a big party.

“I played early — around 11 to midnight — and through some coincidence, Juan Atkins played after me. The party ended up getting shut down about an hour and a half after that, but it doesn’t matter. I got up there and I did my thing. I was a raver. I was into hardcore techno, hardcore breaks, UK stuff. It was crazy, and it went well.

“Then Juan came on, and he kind of blew my mind. To the point that I’m still here talking about it. The music blew my mind — he played incredible techno I had never really heard done like that before. But what really changed my whole outlook was that he had a little crew with him, maybe six friends from Detroit. And they didn’t look like us. They were kind of adults. They were really cool, and they were dancing — no socks on their heads, no lights, no weird gloves. Just cool-ass adults getting down.

“The combination of the music and watching his little posse groove — it was so cool and sexy and weird and legit that I was kind of transformed. After I handed over the decks, I just stood there and watched. I remember very clearly thinking: ‘I want some of that. Whatever they have going on, that little six-person nucleus — that’s what I want. Not the 3,000 ravers out there.’

“It was the first time Juan showed me something I didn’t even know was possible. A totally different energy profile. A totally different goal. The music was still techno — fast, powerful — but it was from the waist down. There was no kandi. It wasn’t built on rises and falls, on breakdowns. Nothing forced, nothing contrived. It was sexy and kind of deep, but still energetic.

“I didn’t really have the words for it then. I still don’t. I just know I’m still looking for that feeling. Every night I’m out there, I’m basically chasing what I felt watching Juan Atkins and his friends dance and play those records. It informed everything I did. It became the objective — what I strive for in the music I make, even though it obviously doesn’t sound like Detroit techno. The whole package: not giving a shit, thinking about the future, the optimism, the courage, being weird, reinventing sounds. It was just so cool.

“So I wanted to say thank you. It made a huge impression on me. We met a few times through the years, played together not that long ago in Mexico. Told jokes, talked s–t. He was an incredibly cool guy. That moment — it wasn’t so much his production. It was him as a DJ, what he represented. It gave me a target and changed how I looked at dance music. Changed how I look at techno. Period.

“One other thing I want to say: if you love someone’s music, if it touches you — just tell them. If you’re inspired by someone, tell them. Send a DM. Don’t be shy, don’t play it cool. Just tell each other when something really moves you.

“It’s important to recognize when something touches you. And being a musician is a pretty tough life. Making tracks is tough. A lot of the time, you don’t know the real reaction — you don’t always see it in front of you. Musicians’ lives have some crazy ups and downs, and you can find yourself years later wondering what the value was, or where you are. A lot of the time, the value is in how your music moves through the world. How it touches people. And if you have a chance to tell someone how it touched you — the journey it took, how it affected your life — just go for it.