Jeff Mills

Leo

Well-known member
He was right worshipped at every NYC techno store in the 90s, with a finger on the pulse and an intriguing attitude/mystique. Respect forever to the Detroit sound, and I certainly went thru a phase of Mills buying myself but haven't paid attention in many (many) years. Saw he has the new "Bladerunner" 12" out, made me wonder if he's up to anything interesting. Electronic dance music has evolved so much in the past decade (for better/worse), wonder if he has...
 

Moodles

Active member
I was listening to his Metropolis disc yesterday - I like it a lot! Haven't heard anything newer than that, but I'm planning to check out the mix he has on the Axis website.
 

jack

Well-known member
The exhibitionist mix he released last year was pretty good, but I can never get enough of his all-over-the-place-hopping-bird-like mixing style. Haven't heard Live at the Liquid Rooms but I hear it's awesome...

As for his recordings, i don't know anything apart from Purpose Maker, and yeah, it's propulsive and banging fodder for his sets, but i wouldn't buy it myself.
 

kingofcars

Well-known member
bladerunner is on axis classics...tho i'm not sure if it's a rerelease of earlier stuff, old unreleased material, or new stuff in that vein. definitely sounds like stuff from the early-mid 90's. it's pretty good, though. very gritty.
the three ages records that he's been putting out for a while aren't bad, either, but they sound more or less like most of what he's done for the past 7-8 years.
 

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
Can't really handle his abrasive stuff or the wonky space washing-machine tunes on a regular basis, but I do put on tunes like "if" every so often and vibes out - sublime!

Anyone fancy going through his catalog and distilling it down to the highlights? Last things I heard were the 'see the light' series and 'the tomorrow time forgot' 12 - which were nice enough but nothing really jumped out at me.
 

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Jeff Mills is definitely seminal, and incredibly visonary stylist, and simply one of the flat-out most original techno acts, let alone ANY musical acts of the 90s.

But that doesn't mean all his stuff is great. I rearely listen to the 2 or 3 albums of his I have, they're just too fucken intense, I need the right mood.

He completely understood the simple 'functionality' of music in a post-modern age, and emerged as a total modernist.

All yr minimal, glitch, intelligent DM etc took cues from him, just that ability to find something funky and new in a loop.
 
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tox

Factory Girl
He`s recently had a residency at Womb in Tokyo and done some shows around Japan. Its a project called Contact with short films and music about alien abduction... sounds a bit wank on paper, but it actually made for a good night out. Havent heard the accompanying CD yet, but hopefully be picking that one up soon.

His blog about it is here.
 

mms

sometimes
that bladerunner 12 is ace - two new tracks and one old one

- about half his stuff is amazing the other half is a little pretentious, he never really develops just makes new tracks but the high quality of some of them make them irresistable.

he also sells axis beach towels and flip flops at his shop which is the most techno thing ever!
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
this from his blog sounds pretty incredible:

"there was no way I'd let the intensity go away so, I had planned to escalate the atmosphere even more all they way up unitl 03:00am (The Abduction). In my record box, I had set aside a number of records just for this transition period. We arrived just 5 minutes short of 03:00am, I brought down the music to classical string arrangements and sound effects that climaxed at exactly 03:00am. In this time, the lighting person filled the room with fog so that the first flash would be extreme. On the exact second of 03:00am, I let the first track loose -- a enormous flash of white light hit like a bomb. All I could from my DJ position and in front of me were massive circles of rainbow colored rings and huge flashes of blue, green light form above. I heard from people that were on the dancefloor that they could see the force of sound coming from the speakers pushing and retracking the fog to and away from the speakers "
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
Like robert hood he has released an absolutely immense amount of stuff so not all of it is going to be great. I kind of wish those guys had exercised a bit more QC. For me Hood was always more on point than mills anyway - I hardly ever listen to mills stuff these days but Hood is still a firm favorite.

I lost interest around 2001 when the conceptual element started getting out of hand, also the records were too bloody dear. The Every Dog Has It's Day DP was £25 over here, thats outrageous.
 

labrat

hot on the heels of love
Waveform Transmission Volumes 1&2 are fantastic!
Live at the Liquid Room is excellent!
Cycle 30 is brilliant (and useful)!
Growth is wonderful!

However

I went to see/hear him at Lost a fair few years ago-Great!

then this year I heard a mix by him...
tracks from Waveform Transmission albums, tracks & loops from Cycle 30, Growth, LOTS of tracks from Live at the Liquid Rooms...
in fact virtualy the same set as he played at Lost all those years ago.
For some one whose conceptual schtick is "phuturism" he hasn't bought/listened a lot of new records in the last 5-10 years.
(mind you whack Drama on and all this is forgiven/forgoten
 

mms

sometimes
labrat said:
Waveform Transmission Volumes 1&2 are fantastic!
Live at the Liquid Room is excellent!
Cycle 30 is brilliant (and useful)!
Growth is wonderful!

However

I went to see/hear him at Lost a fair few years ago-Great!

then this year I heard a mix by him...
tracks from Waveform Transmission albums, tracks & loops from Cycle 30, Growth, LOTS of tracks from Live at the Liquid Rooms...
in fact virtualy the same set as he played at Lost all those years ago.
For some one whose conceptual schtick is "phuturism" he hasn't bought/listened a lot of new records in the last 5-10 years.
(mind you whack Drama on and all this is forgiven/forgoten

anyone heard the axis 100 claude young mix of his tracks - just perfect -
 

Moodles

Active member
Liquid Room is awesome - one of my favorite mixes. The actual mixing is kind of sloppy and slap-dash, and the recording quality isn't too great, but the overall energy easily makes up for that.

I saw him about 7 years ago at Twilo in New York. His set didn't have the same intensity as Liquid Room, though he played many of the same tracks. It was much smoother and he rocked the decks for at least 4 hours straight. It was pretty sweet.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
He has released lots of stuff in the last several years but it's not as consistent as his peak years ('92-'98). He is doing a lot more soundtracky, abstract, bleepy techno these days. He is more active than ever, just take a look at the discogs page, It's hard to keep up really. I have no doubt that he plays a lot of old stuff in his sets. He keeps the tradition alive. I got the Exhibitionist DVD and it's kind of a "best of" retrospective. Unless you are a massive fan I would avoid it.

The Exhibitionist mix itself is surprisingly sloppy. A lot of energy but clashes and fuck-ups all over the place.
 
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Moodles

Active member
DigitalDjigit said:
The Exhibitionist mix itself is surprisingly sloppy. A lot of energy but clashes and fuck-ups all over the place.

I still haven't checked it out, but it sounds like it might be pretty similar to Liquid Room.
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
Moodles said:
I still haven't checked it out, but it sounds like it might be pretty similar to Liquid Room.

It's very different. Liquid Room was very aggressive. Exhibitionist is very latin/housey except when he fucks up the flow by playing some of his bleepy/experimental stuff.
 

adverb

Well-known member
i'd recommend checking out his 'at first sight' lp - it's pretty good but there's a track on there called 'fantasia' which is just incredible. when i heard it first i would never have guessed it was mills, it's sounds kinda like mr. fingers meets lfo, quite slow for him and very trippy.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
who was it was saying they never heard any mills that wasn't boring? i haven't heard everything but i agree with that person.
Maybe some recommendations in this thread?

I like The Bells.

And I see there's some 80s The Wizard shows up on that london-techno site.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
things is... there is repetition and there is repetition. there is monotony and there is monotony.

when i was a techno head i loved guys like Brinkmann (still appreciate his work). and even, on rare occasions, Surgeon at top volume, cuz he would just push it over the edge where the off kilter polyriddims become totally hallucinatory. but mills? i never found anything interesting in what i heard.
 

Logos

Ghosts of my life
I saw him at Lost a year or so ago and he was really good...I remember it being very latin percussively but with lots of tones and bleeps flying around too. Wasn't really in to him when I saw him at Sonar though, to jacky and full on for me...

Still one of the guys I would travel to see though.
 
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