Juan Atkins is a man who calls himself some very grandiose names – innovator and originator are currently his favourite two. Others within the Detroit techno scene these days reportedly call him slightly less complementary names – although Ears To The House respects Atkins far too deeply to concur.

He would have you believe that he was responsible for the creation of an entire genre of music. Casting aside this ridiculous piece of hype, however, there is another problem with his claim to be an innovator – and this is the fact that innovators do not stop innovating.

Take Thomas Edison, for example – one of the most prolific inventors in history. Alongside his team, he was responsible for developing the phonograph, automatic telegraphs, and alkaline batteries, to name but three. His legacy lives on in our lives to this day – Edison can, in our opinion, be called one of the greatest innovators in human history.

Can Juan Atkins be held in such regard? His own record is questionable – his work as part of formerly three-man outfit Cybotron in the early 1980s certainly stands out. But the notion that Atkins is an innovator is a stretch – his “new” mix from last year that contained nothing but old music hardly inspires confidence in the idea.

Nonetheless, one thing Atkins certainly isn’t is stupid. As Kevin Saunderson – who recently sold the KMS Records catalogue to Beat Music Fund for a reported six-figure sum – will be able to tell him, there’s money in nostalgia. In a dance music scene far too eager to look back at its past than the future, Atkins’s role in Cybotron could allow him to capitalise on the trend for all things old.

Hence why the first new Cybotron track since 1995 has just appeared – “Maintain The Golden Ratio” is out now on Tresor, with the second track from the EP due out in October. Let’s hear what the future sounds like, shall we?

The sound of the future seems just like the sound of 1983, doesn’t it? We reached out to one of our regular Detroit sources for comment on this story – and he simply said “I knew Juan isn’t exactly swimming in money, but I didn’t realise things were this bad. It sounds like a dollar store copy of what him and Rik Davis were doing in the 80s.”.

Ouch. Let’s hope Tresor don’t ask to borrow his computer when they want to create a poster to promote the release…