God Said Give 'Em Drum Machines

The astonishing story behind one of Detroit’s great contributions to world culture: Techno, the electronic-music phenomenon created by black artists in the 1980s that transformed dance music internationally and blossomed into the multibillion-dollar industry of EDM today. Featuring interviews with Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins, Derrick May, among many more, this is a vast, compelling and highly educative cultural history of techno and musical innovation, of heritage and the people responsible for that heritage, with the city of Detroit at its very core.

The guiding mission was to tell a story about Detroit, about this music, in a way that people who had no idea about it could come away with [an understanding of it] and want to know more about it. There are so many people that know facets of the history, [but] we couldn’t make a film for them. We had to make a film for people who have no idea about Detroit and its techno origins. And that’s generally the case: people here in the States have little to no idea about Detroit’s role in electronic music.

Director Kristian Hill, from an interview with The Face