Drexciya

Drexciya is the recording pseudonym of two electronic dance music artists from Detroit, Michigan.

Related Topics:
Detroit - Michigan

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Drexciya helped define both Detroit Electro music in the mid- to late 1990s and the tradition of artists within and close to Underground Resistance to complement their faceless, anti-corporate media stance with mythological, sci-fi narratives, which help heighten the dramatic effect of their music.

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"Drexciya" was itself a name given to a myth comparable to Plato's myth of Atlantis. It was, the group revealed in the sleeve notes to their 1998 album "The Quest", an underwater country populated by the unborn children of pregnant African women thrown off of slave ships who had adapted to breathe underwater in their mother's wombs.

Related Topics:
Plato - Atlantis

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All of Drexciya's releases were in the style of harsh, dancefloor oriented Electro, punctuated with elements of retro, 1980s Techno. They achieved a cult status with fans of these respective genres worldwide. In the words of one critic:

Related Topics:
Electro - Techno

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"Drexciya fictionalize frequencies into sound pictures of unreal environments -- what Kraftwerk termed tone films -- not filled with cars, bikes or trains but rather UAOs, soundcrafts."

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"Drexciya drains the claps, cowbells and tomtoms, siphons off the salsa from Electro.

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Acrid frequencies clench the nerves like tazers, oscillations wince across the body in wave motion, abrasive tones remove cotton wool from your ears and vigorously scour inside the brainpan. Jagged snare velocities pinch the nerves until you're locked uptight."

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Although both members of Drexciya remained completely anonymous throughout their active recording career, one of the duo, James Stinson, was identified posthumously after his tragic death in 2002. The other member of the duo is widely believed to also be one of the members of the group Dopplereffekt.

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Drexciya officially disbanded in 1998, although two more full length albums were released in their name. It appears that these were the solo work of Stinson, who also recorded under many other pseudonyms. To this day, the members of Drexciya have never been photographed, although they have given interviews, in one of which they wore Star Trek masks to conceal their identity!

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