Morgan Geist

• Genre: Detroit/U.S. Techno

About

Morgan Geist's Metro Area -- a duo with fellow DJ and producer Darshan Jesrani -- is rightly regarded as instrumental in disco's '00s revival, but Geist's solo career goes even deeper back. An early fan of synthesizer music, whether New Wave, industrial or disco, he was captivated early on by the sound of Detroit techno and its offshoots, and he wasted no time getting into the game himself: he released his first single in 1994, while he was still in college. He developed his sound -- a supple mix of electro-boogie, Italo, analog R'n'B and soulful techno -- across a string of records for labels like Dan Curtin's Metamorphic, Clear and his own Environ imprint, and his 1998 LP Clear remains a classic of jazz-inflected, Detroit-inspired techno. During the '00s, Geist largely focused his efforts on Metro Area, but he returned in 2008 with two excellent singles, "Most of All" and "Detroit," in advance of a new album for fall.

- Philip Sherburne