Audiopile Review: Saying that Juan Atkins is a techno legend… Well, that’s obviously an understatement. He is one of the Belleville Three, after all. And, as such, he is one of the people who undeniably invented techno. His work with Cybotron and those classic Model 500 12”s helped set the template that thousands of DJs and producers have copied. When your early work is this massively seminal, folks tend to gloss over anything that came later. So, even though Infiniti’s ‘Skynet’ was originally released over 25 years ago, it still feels like a ‘late-period’ Juan Atkins production. And plenty of heads who worship his early work simply do not know it exists. Which is a crying shame, because it’s proof that, a decade after his most influential work, Juan Atkins was still innovating and pushing himself forward. While it has the urban-nocturnal vibe of classic Model 500, ‘Skynet’ is faster, groovier, and significantly more experimental. As such, it hits like a series of absolute dancefloor slayers, but follows through like a road movie for the mind. There’s a house-like swing to the charging tempos, but it’s all overlaid with weird, alien synth textures. So, while it may not have been as influential as his early work, the real heads know ‘Skynet’ is an important entry in the Juan Atkins discography.

Juan Atkins’ Infiniti project combines raw tactility and puristic elegance with Skynet, where slinking grooves mask chaotic frequencies and roughly-hewn structure.

Alongside fellow Detroit legend Terrence Dixon who appears on several tracks, Atkins exposes the life and emotion in machines, outputting a biomorphic atmosphere of industrial soul.

The ongoing importance of this album is indisputable, essential both to techno and to Tresor.