Suburban Knight mints gleaming electro gold on “Listening Systems”

If you managed to track down every record from the discography of Suburban Knight, you might be able to grip them all by the spine with one hand and without too much strain. There aren’t a lot of them. But he belongs to an era — no, an ethic — when quantity and quality were harder to reconcile. A huge percentage of those records were groundbreaking, milestones including The Art of Stalking, The Groove, Nocturbulous Behavior and his co-authorship of Inner City’s “Big Fun.” In terms of Detroit Techno OGs, by any serious reckoning the Suburban Knight discography gets a shelf all to itself.

So two records in a year is kind of a big deal. Back in September Detroit Techno Records announced the first Suburban Knight (aka James Pennington) EP on vinyl in more than a decade — the Suburban Knight EP, “recorded somewhere in Detroit” and available exclusively from DTR’s bandcamp page. And out of nowhere comes this one: Listening Systems, a single side of 7″ record also from Detroit Techno Records. Start with a broken beat playing in a vacuum-tight space, add whispered vocals from the Suburban Knight, a bass that sounds like it was grown in a lab by Dow Chemical and moody, unnerving, almost sub-audible synths like an unknown machine grumbling in the center of the earth. This is 5:19 of stripped down, gleaming electro gold.

Suburban Knight: Listening Systems (Detroit Techno Records / April 30 2021 / 7″ Vinyl)
1. Listening Systems (05:19)
2. Derotic City – Suburban Knight Mix (04:53)

⚪️ Disclosure Statement: This record was not submitted as a promo.

This was originally published in 5 Mag issue 190: #Rejuvenate with Franck Roger, Ed Nine, Berlin under lockdown & more. Support 5 Mag by becoming a member for just $1 per issue.