It's been said that the musical style now referred to as "electro" wriggled to life in the early '80s, when the heavy thump of funk collided with burgeoning synthesizer technology. Jittery, bass-heavy and bombastic, electro lurked on the half-courts and back-alley clubs of New York City, embraced mostly by the city's first break-dancers.
Tweaked by bellicose boasts and calls to the dance floor, electro became the template for both hip-hop and techno, a fact lost on most top-40 listeners who have already forgotten Herbie Hancock's "Rockit." As the tools used to create it -- like the 808 drum machine and the Oberheim DMX Synth -- showed up in the studios of more mainstream artists like Madonna, Prince, New Order and Run DMC, electro and its mutations faded from radio play and took root in the fertile club scenes of Miami, Detroit and the U.K.
Londoner Ed Upton was a teenager when the music migrated across the Atlantic. Now known as DMX Krew, he has spent the last 10 years expanding the medium's vocabulary while maintaining its DIY vintage-equipment ethos. However, in an e-mail interview, Upton says that he now distances himself from the label.