Detroit has provided an incredible wealth of black dance music to the world. We've posted a number of tracks from Motor City here on Beat Electric, here is yet another to attempt to chip away at the endless musical output of this city. Cookie Do is a one-off artist as far as I know with production from Danny Omar, who also worked with Detroit super group The Spinners and has guitar, songwriting, and special thank you credit on some of their late '70s to '80s LPs. Dream Girl features somewhat cheesy rap style vocals on the A-side, the instrumental is my favorite mix and really delivers the goods with a loose minimal funk groove over a basic shuffling drum machine pattern.

  Cookie Do - Dream Girl (inst)

It is Mid-July and the dog days of summer are upon us. Beat Electricians have been dropping off like flies and it seems the remaining core members are spread a bit thin. But no more excuses, it's time to get back on the horse and post some fresh cuts from One Way's Kevin McCord the Mastermind behind Detroit private label Presents Records. Obviously y'all know the Carmen tracks on Presents, additionally McCord and his wife Candye Edwards wrote and produced a handful of recordings on the label circa '84-'87. Stylistically McCord seemed to be bouncing all over the mid 80's soul spectrum, throwing whatever shit he could against the wall to see what stuck. Ultimately from a business standpoint nothing really did. That said, McCord produced some seriously brilliant stuff on Presents and the secret weapon here is Candye's Loverboy which steers closely to the proto-freestyle Carmen vibe.

Candye - Loverboy (12" Mix)
Candye - Loverboy (7" Mix)
Snooky - Ease The Pain
Reel Touch - I Want You

Being the founder of a genre has to be an incredible feeling. Instead of copying Chicago House, or New York Garage jams, Derrick May, along with Kevin Saunderson, and Juan Atkins created a fresh electronic music sound in Detroit. The sounds of early techno are incredibly interesting even to this day. Techno is an exploration of sound and form. It meanders around and displays different patterns and variations of timbre instead of opting for the standard song structure found in house music. As we all know, the British (thanks Black Shag) turned techno into a 160bpm shit sandwich in the 90's. The Germans and a few Americans have rescued and modernized it in the recent decade.

This cut came out on Derrick May's Transmat Records in 1987. It was his first production and my favorite. It was edited by Juan Atkins.

Rythim Is Rythim - Nude Photo "Rythim Mix"