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Jeff Mills

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Jeff Mills is an American DJ, producer and composer, born in 1963 in Detroit. He began in the early 1980s as a radio DJ under the name The Wizard. He used tricks such as beat juggling and scratching and in his late-night radio shows played local techno, by among others Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins.

Music and breakthrough

In the 1980s he co-founded the techno collective Underground Resistance with Mad Mike Banks and Robert Hood. The group performed only in ski masks and black combat clothing and linked the sound of early Detroit techno to the social and political conditions of the city after the economic decline of the 1980s. In 1991 Mills went his own way. He lived successively in New York, Berlin, where he DJed at the club Tresor, and Chicago. There in 1992 he started the label Axis with Robert Hood, with sublabels such as Purpose Maker and Tomorrow. His techno sounded more minimal than much of what was being made at the time.

Influence

After that he kept searching for new forms. The album Blue Potential from 2006 captures a live concert with the seventy-piece Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2013 he made Where Light Ends, inspired by the journey into space of the Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mohri. He made films and in 2018 recorded an EP with the drummer Tony Allen. Mills is regarded as one of the most important names of Detroit techno.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a track from Waveform Transmission, Volume 1 and notice how few elements there are: a hard, repeating drum machine and small changes that build the tension.

Discography

Studio albums

Categories: Artists