Deeply inhabited by science-fiction, DJ, producer and artist Jeff Mills adopts its ideas, concepts, stories and esthetics from the outset. For him, Space is an obsession and his music almost becomes a musical science-fiction. Conquering space, his music embodies the future while both respecting the past and remaining well into the present. When he founded his own record label Axis in 1992 -a logo consisting of four triangles pointing to an invisible center-, Mills takes the rotating principle of the solar system as aesthetics, concept and model for creativity.
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Jeff Mills has never wallowed in his DJ status and kept on multiplying outstanding performances. When creating Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” soundtrack in 2000 for the first time, Jeff Mills takes up with his prime inspiration made of utopia, futuristic thought and a real passion for the extraordinary worlds and scenarios offered by science-fiction. He is the master of extraordinary scenarios and borrows from science fiction the common man’s notion of Tomorrow.
Mills keeps on fusing his love for music and image. Reframing his extraordinary DJing skills in 2004 when he released “The Exhibitionist”, a real-time, unedited films capturing Mills in creative DJ motions. A multi-angle filmed collection of DJ sets, allowing him to both approach video production, while beautifully complimenting his art form on the turntables. The second series “The Exhibitionist 2” was released in 2015.In 2014, Jeff Mills has partnered with the French filmmaker Jacqueline Caux to create “Man From Tomorrow“. This film is more a portrait of Jeff Mill’s music than the man himself. A wandering, poetic and sensitive portrait, graphic and musical, full of film-maker Jacqueline Caux’s intimate perception of the futuristic sounds of the DJ/producer. Le Louvre Museum invites the Premiere showing of “Man from Tomorrow”.
“Sleeper Wakes“ – a science fiction series.
The Wizard likes to take his inspiration from the little music of the cosmos and keeps his head well ahead, in the stars. Since 2006 Jeff Mills created and wrote a story of life and obscure times of a fictional character that would eventually be called The Sleeper. With each chapter of the evolving story, the character gets increasingly deeper into plots that have so far, traveled the universe in search of new Worlds (“Sleeper Wakes“), contracted an unknown virus resulting into controlling electricity (“The Power“), to the end of Humans (“The Messenger“) and the eternal search of purpose and meaning (“The Jungle Planet“). In 2013 Jeff Mills has collaborated with Japanese astronaut Dr. Mamoru Mohri and released the album “Where Light Ends“, inspired by Mohri’s first trip into space, aboard the Endeavour Space Shuttle in 1992. The “Emerging Crystal Universe“, released in September 2014 as a limited object of art is the 8th chapter of this series and the 9th chapter “Free Fall“, announcing a cosmic menace, is out in June 2016.
Cinemix
After “Metropolis“ soundtrack as mentioned above, Jeff Mills was involved in numerous projects of film soundtracks collaborating with Cinémathèque Française in Paris and UFA Film Nights in Berlin which included his unique cine-mixes performances of “Cheat” (Cecil B. DeMille), “Oktober” (Sergei Eisenstein), “Fantastic Voyage” (Richard Fleischer), “Etudes sur Paris” (André Sauvage), “Paris QUI Dort” (Rene Clair) and “Woman In The Moon”, “Dr. Mabuse” (Fritz Lang) among others.
Residencies
The Louvre Museum (Paris): In 2015, he is commissioned by the Auditorium of Le Louvre to be the 9th resident artist of “Duos Ephémères”, a program of 4 different shows mixing music, film and dance. There Mills created a film “Life To Death And Back” at the Egyptian sector of the museum. At the same time, Mills works closely with the choreographer Michel Abdoul on an original performance entitled “2001: The Midnight Zone” paying again tribute to Kubrick’s masterpiece “2001: A Space Odyssey”, shown at la Cité de la Musique in May 2015.
Barbican Centre (London): Jeff Mills took residence at the Barbican Centre in June 2017. He presented a series of four innovative conceptualised events entitled From Here to There which married electronic music with symphonic sounds and other art forms. From Here to There included three UK premieres alongside a return of Light From The Outside World, which sold out at the Barbican in October 2015.
The Outer Limits on NTS Radio: During the entire year of 2018, Jeff Mills presents ‘The Outer Limits’ on NTS Radio, a conceptual listening experience created in collaboration with NASA and Axis Records setting out to redefine radio. ‘The Outer Limits’ is comprised of six hour-long episodes exploring astrophysics and science fiction through abstract soundscapes and spoken word, with completely original new and unreleased music by Jeff Mills and guest musicians. Produced around the world with artists from the fields of classical, jazz and electronic music with scientific direction and imagery from NASA, The Outer Limits is a truly multi-disciplinary radio series, existing at the intersection between science and contemporary experimental music.
Classical performances
Jeff Mills has collaborated with symphonic orchestras since many years and was the first DJ to perform and capture it on DVD for a wider audience. It all began with the Montpellier National Orchestra in 2005 at Le Pont du Gard, France. The piece was called “Blue Potential” and had been arranged for orchestra by the young French composer Thomas Roussel. In 2012, Jeff Mills played a new version of this orchestral project, now called “Light from the Outside World”. Several concerts are scheduled over the world in the following years. In 2013, Jeff Mills presented a new piece called “Where Light Ends”. A third project, inspired by Holst’ “The Planets” premiered in 2015. All these performances have always been sold-out shows. This shows the techno fans have been waiting for such opportunities, besides that fact classical audience can find new music. All these performances have always been sold-out shows. This shows the techno fans have been waiting for such opportunities, besides that fact classical audience can find new music.
Art Installations
Mills’ scope of interest and activities are not limited to music but he has been working on various types of art installations. Contributing the audio visual works for “Futurism a Paris” (2008) and “Denser Sa Vie” (2011) (Centre du Pompidou, Paris) as well as “Electronic” (2019-20) (Philhamonie, Paris/ Design Museum, London), his solo exhibitions “Weapons” took place in Tokyo in 2018 and Monaco in 2019.
Collaborations
Mills has been active in collaborations with other musicians, other genres, starting from Spiral Deluxe, an Electronic Jazz Fusion one alongside established musicians with extensive background, which started in 2015 with Gerald Mitchell (Key), Yumiko Ohno (Key) and Jino (Bass). Some collaobrations are with the artists from Detroit where Mills is from, including The Beneficiaries with Jessica Care Moore (Poet) and Eddie Fowlkes (Electronic), also with Rafael Leafar (Sax). A collaboration with a late Afro-beat master Tony Allen (Dr) was released as “Tomorrow Comes The Harvest” in 2019 from Blue Note. After Tony’s passing, the purpose and objective of the project has been taken over with various artists including Prabhu Edouard (Tabla), Divinity Rocks (Bass) and Rasheeda Ali (Flute), keeping the spirit of Tony Allen alive. Also from this collaboration Mills started a new duo project The Paradox with a French jazz keyboardist Jean-Phi Dary, whose album “Live at Montreux Jazz Festival” was released in 2022.
Escape Velocity
In 2020 during the pandemic, Mills starts to curate the project titled “The Escape Velocity” under which talents from all over the world release Sci-Fi/ Space Science themed music. In two years, 60 albums have been released digitally.
Decoration
On April 28th 2017 Jeff Mills has been decorated as Officer of France’s Order of Arts and Letters, award in recognition for his contribution to the Arts. This is a major cultural distinction awarded by French
