If Jay Denham has always occupied something of an outsider status within the Detroit techno scene, then it’s because he is based in the small town of Kalamazoo, which in electronic music mythology is famously “halfway between Detroit and Chicago”. Indeed, this geographical location accounts for Denham’s unique synthesis of sound. It’s a little house, a little techno – signature Jay Denham.

“It’s just a small town – kinda the rest stop between travelling from Chicago to Detroit, or Detroit to Chicago, the point where you stop halfway in your journey for a coffee or something,” Jay laughs. “It’s a very small town.”

This summer Denham is finally heading to Australia – and not before time. The man who once described himself as “a jack bangin’ DJ” promises “some good music, good DJing and hopefully a great time.”

Denham made his first musical forays into rock – playing bass in a band as a teen. “My first instrument was the bass guitar in high school. A few friends who I knew introduced me to some Black Sabbath and Clash and some Aerosmith (laughs). They were really into the early rock stuff and it was kinda like my first exploration with music, so it was a really cool time and a really good learning experience for me.”

In 1982 Jay, now more of a hip-hop DJ, chanced on a Chicago Hot Mix tape which opened his ears to the new post-disco sounds of house emanating from the Windy City. Jay was hooked. In Chi-town he met producer Chip E (‘Time To Jack’) who inspired him to cut some music himself. Along the way he also obtained a copy of Derrick May’s ‘Nude Photo’ – one of the first examples of the new Detroit techno.

“The first electronic music I was introduced to was like Gary Numan, ‘Cars’, or Cybotron, ‘Cosmic Cars’. It was kind of new and futuristic thinking and, being that I was a big science fiction fan, it was just a perfect fit for me – it was kinda the music of the future. I was tired of the same old everyday thing. My first techno record actually was a Derrick May/Rythim Is Rythim ‘Nude Photo’ record that I had bought buying disco records in Chicago and it was funny, ‘cause when I brought the record back, it was like I played this record and I played it 20 times over – techno music really just caught me then. I caught the bug, as they say, and I’ve kinda never looked back since then.”

Jay found kindred spirits while attending university – he hung out with fellow future techno legends Anthony “Shake” Shakir and Claude Young. They gathered together their equipment and started working on demos. Shakir forwarded Jay’s efforts to Derrick May who invited him to work at his label, Transmat. And so when Jay completed college he relocated to Detroit and started composing seminal tracks like Vice’s ‘Ritual’ (which appeared on Virgin’s Techno 2 compilation) and Fade II Black’s ‘In Sync’. Jay likewise recorded for KMS and 430 West, because he was frustrated at Transmat’s slow turnover of releases.

In 1992 Jay was pulled back to Kalamazoo. Although Denham pondered withdrawing from the music business, within two years he had decided to launch his own concern – Black Nation – as an outlet for his music, with the ‘Birth Of A Nation’ EP. In the tradition of Underground Resistance, Denham has made a point of giving projects socio-political titles – not to alienate listeners, but to bring to the surface important issues. “Black Nation is definitely involved in something that from the beginning I would never have thought or imagined it would come to – it was more or less a project for me to release my own records,” he says. “I kind of took up starting the whole Black Nation label with a bunch of friends back in Kalamazoo. I really worked hard to push good music, to be consistent with the releases, and not to follow musical trends – and it seems to have really, really worked for the label and it helped build the profile that it has today.”

Since then, Denham has issued two techno albums on the German imprint Disko B – Escape To The Black Planet (1998) and Synthesized Society(1999). Denham has taken 2001 quietly. However, he is plotting a third LP. “Right now I’m working on my new album for Disko B – that should be out sometime late spring,” he says. “It’s still progressive dance music, but more of an album that you can hear on the dancefloor and also you can sit down on your sofa and put the CD in and listen to it at home.”

Earlier this year Denham played at the DEMF (Detroit Electronic Music Festival) with everyone from Juan Atkins and Inner City to Norma Jean Bell and Slam on the bill – it was an experience. “It was my first time in Detroit for a long time and it was more than I expected,” he says with a laugh. “It was a really cool festival. I had a good time; to see everybody I hadn’t seen in years.”

Jay Denham plays Science Fiction (Perth) on New Year’s Eve and Summadayze (Melbourne) on New Year’s Day.