“People were always so scared of the idea of a concept,” sighs Jeff Mills. “In the 90s music journalists would be horrified if you said you were writing techno music about something.” For Mills, a DJ and producer whose life’s work has been dedicated to infusing electronic music with ideas, this has always seemed the strangest of hang ups. How - or why – would you write music and it not be about something?
Mills has spent the last 30 years packing his work with unapologetically cerebral concepts, themes and narratives, using the futurism of Detroit techno to interpret his endless fascination with the infinite mysteries of space. In the early days, as he now recalls, this caused nothing but bafflement. When Underground Resistance started releasing the X series 12”s in the early 90s, records overtly based around space science, they faced accusations of pretentiousness from a press that insisted techno should thump the body without engaging the mind. It didn’t matter that calling Mills pretentious seemed ludicrously at odds with his searing, technical skill as a DJ, or his effortless way at turning out a looping techno monster (The Bells has a strong claim to being the greatest hard techno tune ever written) – concept records, went the received wisdom, were for Prog Rock dinosaurs, not the outliers of the new techno frontier.
Mills thought different. Now, in his mid-50s, and still touring the globe, he’s as likely to play a set of bare bones 138bpm bangers as he is to compose a delicate suite of electronic/classical fusion based around the science of black holes- and the battle to have techno recognised as an artform as capable as commenting on existence as any watercolour in the Louvre has long since been won. It would seem Mills was right all along.
He’s enthusing over the phone from a hotel room in Lisbon, enjoying a few moments of calm before playing in Lux that evening.
In Mills’ case, the more conceptual techniques have been seen in his recent forays into quite serious classical explorations. A few years ago he set himself a tall order – inspired by Gustav Holst’s iconic Planet Suite, he would compose a planet suite of his own, a musical rumination on the planets of our solar system created in collaboration with the classical arranger Sylvain Griotto and the 94 member strong Orquestra Sinfonica do Porto Casa da Musica. Finally released this year, Planets is as ambitious a work as techno will see. Working with a scientific rigour, Mills differed his work from Holst – who’s music was steeped in the mythology of the heavens- by basing it on hard solar science, drawing on measurements of planetary weight and density to influence his decisions in how to apply tempo and melody. Lest this should sound excessively dry, he’s adamant that this work was aimed quite specifically at his core audience.
In practice this has led to five tracks of classic mysterious Mills-ian electronica – unfurling loops of burbling synthetic sound layered with echo and robotic glitch. Lost in Space feels like a stepping stone between dance floor techno and the orchestral aspirations of Planets, and is proof (if anywhere were needed) that Mills hasn’t turned his back on records running on kick drums just yet.
The sci-fi theme also links to another project the prolific artist is working on. He’s currently two thirds of the way through a three part series where he goes to record music in the studios of iconic artists. So far Mills has spent time recording in Rembrandt’s house in Amsterdam and legendary manga artist Osama Tezuka’s Tokyo studio- next up he is set to record music in the home of the grandfather of science fiction, author Jules Verne, writer of works such as Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Around the World in 80 Days. He explains the plan.
As to whether he thinks he can successfully plug in to the creative power of the artists who’s spaces he is working in, Mills is fairly adamant that the atmosphere cannot but help to shape the sounds he will make, speaking about the studio space in reverential tones.
So you heard it here first – Mills is in the process of recording house music again. We can’t conceal our excitement, and he chuckles again.