Detroit Underground (est. 1997) balances on a point somewhere right at the center of design and music, the crossroads where it all comes together. Perhaps it’s somewhere out there in an enormous field, static radiating from the earth in fragmented shocks of white light. Wheat sparks up in flames, warming her and him and their hands cracked and gnarled from a million years of nothingness, warmth th
at permeates muscles and tissue and tendons. Is it somewhere in the tissue wedged between her teeth from those tentacles she puked up at the side of the road, squirming from her gums, her bone, her gut? Maybe it’s deep, deep below the earth, hidden away, a heavy pulse running through twisted, steaming tunnels filled with faceless and eager individuals. They dance, labyrinths of darkness engulfing hollow bodies, light glimmering from empty eye sockets, looking out as if to say, ‘Where are we going? What are we now?’ No one quite knows the answer to that now, do they? Follow the tracks, slight glints of light reflecting on broken, rusted metal, the cracks between the rust slowly illuminating from eyeball headlamps, swiveling and pivoting in the heat. Find the sunlight sneaking in, but it’s far too far to ever get there. Result to some equations, sequenced numbers, points here and there. Try to make sense of the pixels and figures floating between their mind and their mind and their mind. Digits transforming into thoughts that connect one synapses to the next, firing off into air white with winter. Regardless, Detroit Underground bridges gaps between this world and theirs, art and sound, aesthetic and noise. The aesthetic is immediately recognizable, pieces of color that seem sharp enough to cut oneself on, icicles smashed and shattered into great big broken glass. The music veers this and way that, slightly straying from the dance floor basics and classic Detroit techno sound, shifting into the experimental: IDM, techno, electro, glitch, etcetera and etcetera. The list goes on, but don’t fret - Detroit Underground won’t force you into that dark abyss of incomprehensible and unlistenable noise. The music is music, extraordinarily stretching the limitations of electronics, exploring the unknown, bringing those who deserve recognition into the spotlight. Detroit Underground is a multidisciplinary arts collective. Functioning primarily as a record label. But that’s not all. Forever expanding, discovering, and exploring, Detroit Underground continues to change, morph, and excite its audience, members, and colleagues.
