Model 500 are soon to release a three-track EP on R&S Records, their first original material in eleven years.

The brainchild of Detroit techno founding father Juan Atkins, Model 500 has largely been a solo project since first blowing minds with the 1985 singles ‘No UFOs’ and ‘Night Drive’. Recently, however, the name has come to describe more of a group entity, with Atkins enlisting the services of Underground Resistance’s ‘Mad’ Mike Banks, DJ Skurge and Mark Taylor for a number of live performances. Banks contributes a remix of lead track ‘OFI’ to the new record.

‘OFI’ is exquisitely funky electro-techno the likes of which Atkins pretty much invented, with lyrics asserting that “the mothership is in the air / the mothership is everywhere”, and a breakdown to die for. You can listen to a long clip of it, together with one of B-side ‘Huesca’, over at R&S’s myspace.

Model 500 has been inactive as a recording project since the release of the 1999 album Mind And Body, also on R&S. ‘OFI’/’Huesca’, expected to see release in September, marks the 25th anniversary of its inception.