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“X ²”  was released in ’96 by Electric Soul, which is one of many aliases used by techno/house  producer Mike Banks. The electro-funk track became a staple during late-night mixes on Detroit radio and was released as a single on Direct Beat and the label’s Techno Bass: The Mission compilation. Banks is a key figure in Detroit’s techno and house music scene of the ’80’s through the ’90’s because of his contribution on several seminal records and the co-founding of  the group Underground Resistance and Submerge distribution. The Submerge building in Detroit is to techno what Hitsville U.S.A. is to Motown because of all the music history it holds as well as having the city’s only techno museum. Both organizations were inspired by the auto industry and are housed on the same street. “X ²” is one of Submerge’s many releases to epitomize the city’s electric ghetto funk. Mike Banks is currently touring Europe with Underground Resistance.

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Underground Resistance was started by Jeff Mills and “Mad” Mike Banks in Detroit during the late ’80’s. Their machine driven opuses were sonic missives filled with funk, jazz and techno. Claude Young, Robert Hood, DJ Rolando and Buzz Goree among many others would round out the collective that included associates like Galaxy 2 Galaxy and Drexciya. “Your Time Is Up” was their first release in 1990 and it melded the tenets of soul with empyrean beat patterns that drew energy from the streets, Blackness and science fiction. Jeff Mills and Robert Hood left the group in 1992 and went on to become major forces in dance music. To date they have 80 releases as a group and released their first full-length album, Interstellar Fugitives in 1998. “Living For The Night,” “The Final Frontier,” “Jupiter Jazz,” “Knights Of The Jaguar” and “The Art Of Stalking” from Suburban Knight are a few of their releases that defined and defended Detroit Techno and pure dance music of the world during the ’90’s. In 2000 Underground Resistance remixed Kraftwerk’s “Expo 2000” and the German band made the song a permanent part of their live set. UR’s relevance has continued into the 2000’s with tracks like “Hardlife” and “Timeline” and their second full-length project Interstellar Fugitives 2 Destruction Of Order came out in 2005. As the focal member of the self-contained group and owner of the Submerge label and its various sublabels, Banks has established himself as the Berry Gordy of dance music.