Kevin Saunderson

Among Detroit techno's founding figures, Kevin Saunderson displayed the greatest range, delivering some of the most forceful and rigidly mechanical tracks to emerge from the Motor City while still reaching mainstream dance charts through his techno-pop outfit Inner City. Beginning with his earliest studio work, he shaped a propulsive and trailblazing techno aesthetic built on dense percussive barrages of sampled elements and driving rhythms, frequently anchored by nothing more than a looping chanted vocal refrain. His Inner City material, however, relied on smoother, house-rooted grooves that framed vocal contributions from Paris Grey and, later, his wife Ann. The act placed eight singles inside Great Britain's Top 40 and claimed four number-one positions on the American dance chart. After Inner City's breakthrough in 1988, the project commanded most of his focus through the mid-1990s, yet he maintained his uncompromising production approach by releasing material throughout the 1980s and 1990s under the names Tronik House, the Reese Project, E-Dancer, Inter-City, Essaray, and Reese & Santonio (the last as a duo) while also assembling a roster that included Blake Baxter and Chez Damier for his KMS Records label. Once a Saunderson retrospective surfaced in 1997, his profile rose in the album market; the year after, he issued both a mix album for Studio !K7 and a debut solo LP under the E-Dancer moniker.

Saunderson remains the sole member of the celebrated Belleville Three (alongside Juan Atkins and Derrick May) born outside Detroit. Arriving in Brooklyn in 1964 as the youngest of nine children, he relocated with his family to Detroit at age twelve and encountered May and Atkins at Belleville Junior High. All three shared an affinity for the local Parliament/Funkadelic sound, though Atkins also exposed Saunderson and May to synth-pop innovators such as Kraftwerk and Gary Numan. While Atkins worked with Cybotron and May launched his DJ career, Saunderson pursued telecommunications studies at nearby Eastern Michigan University and aspired to professional football. By 1984 he had shifted direction toward DJing, having already traveled with May to pivotal Chicago house clubs and spent time in New York hearing Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage.

Saunderson joined May and Atkins at Detroit's storied Music Institute and launched KMS Records in 1986. Early releases such as "Triangle of Love" by Kreem and "The Sound" plus "Bounce Your Body to the Box" by Reese & Santonio moved swiftly from local club rotation to radio airplay and then to Britain, where they joined Derrick May's "Nude Photo" and "Strings of Life" as underground favorites. In 1988, while developing a track, Saunderson sought a vocalist and was introduced to Paris Grey; together they recorded "Big Fun," which appeared later that year on the British compilation Techno: The New Dance Sound of Detroit and reached the U.K. Top Ten. Its successor, "Good Life," also entered the Top Ten, and although Inner City's momentum did not fully register stateside, Saunderson devoted much of 1988–1989 to production, remixing, and recording work in Great Britain.

Subsequent KMS singles such as Reese's "Rock to the Beat" and E-Dancer's "Pump the Move" upheld his dedication to robust Detroit techno, yet he secured a major-label deal for Inner City with Virgin Records and delivered the act's debut album, Big Fun, in 1989—the first full-length from any emerging Detroit producer. Pressed by Virgin to adopt a more commercial R&B direction, Inner City countered in 1990 with Fire, an album that made minimal concessions to pop listeners. Like its predecessor, Fire performed strongly in Britain and American clubs without crossing over to broad domestic sales.

In 1991 Saunderson introduced the Reese Project alias, a gospel-inflected take on the Inner City techno-pop formula. The Reese Project supported Inner City on U.K. dates and issued the 1992 album Faith, Hope & Clarity. Inner City released its third album, Praise, the same year; although it drew less acclaim than the prior two, the single "Ahnongay" revealed a more experimental facet of Saunderson's most commercial project. Inner City returned to the charts with mainstream dance tracks such as 1994's "Do Ya" and "Share My Life" before issuing a fourth album in 1996. Saunderson kept recording for KMS and maintained a worldwide DJ schedule. The Faces & Phases compilation appeared in 1997, surveying his harder techno output as Reese, Tronik House, E-Dancer, Kreem, and Reese & Santonio while including only one Inner City track. One year later he released two albums: a volume in Studio !K7's X-Mix series and a new E-Dancer LP, Heavenly.