Atlon Inc.

by Jason Birchmeier
After a formative period where he dabbled with acid techno and churned out a series of 12"s on his personally run Junkfood label, producer Robert Babicz attained substantial recognition as Rob Acid before then adopting yet another alias, Atlon, Inc. It was as Atlon, Inc. that Babicz began dabbling with lighter, more accessible forms of techno, less focused on the dancefloor yet still dancefloor-worthy. In fact, his work as Atlon, Inc. actually retains a substantial amount of the trademark Cologne, Germany, techno sound -- his native city and the home of such prolific producers as J. Burger (Modernist) and Wolfgang Voigt (Mike Ink, Gas) as well as the esteemed Kompakt label. Characterized by a creative employment of rather standard analog techno sounds (synths, drum machines) and a touch of laptop polish -- along with an emphasis on relaxed rhythms, saccharine melodies, and simple yet inventive song structures -- Babicz's Colognesque work as Atlon, Inc. garnered him yet more praise and proved to be yet another illustration of new territory for techno to explore. Beginning with a pair of EPs (Portman, Alina) for Force Inc, Babicz released his debut Atlon, Inc. full-length, Main Things, in early 2001.