Jeff Mills Albums (8)
'Blue Potential'
Release Date 6/6/2006
Tracks 31
Label Uncivilized World
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
A man of many ideas, Jeff Mills has always been an experimental and prolific artist, releasing a steady stream of records exploring various forms of techno. Blue Potential therefore isn't all that exceptional for someone like Mills. A 2005 live recording of the mad scientist himself performing in tandem with the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra in France at Pont du Gard (a UNESCO world heritage site), Blue Potential would be considered a vanity project for most artists. Such live-with-orchestra albums are a rock cliché, after all, with everyone from Metallica to Kiss performing, recording, and releasing these sort of albums at some point, generally when it's time to get some easy product out on the market. Jeff Mills is not Metallica, suffice it to say, nor is he Kiss, so one can give him the benefit of the doubt that Blue Potential was conceived in earnest. And judging by the recording and its accompanying documentary (28 minutes), interview (28 minutes), and "studio tutorial" (19 minutes) on the DVD half of the album, Mills indeed put a lot of heart and soul into Blue Potential. In a way, this is a dream project for Mills. In recent years, for instance, he'd constructed his own soundtracks to old black-and-white silent films by Fritz Lang (Metropolis) and Buster Keaton (Three Ages). These soundtracks were appropriately atmospheric and even orchestral (in a techno sense, of course), so Blue Potential isn't too much of a departure for him. Here he revisits some of his best-known compositions, like "The Bells," and even reaches back to his Detroit days as part of Underground Resistance for a pair of fan favorites: "Amazon" and "Sonic Destroyer." The Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra does most of the work for him, as Mills mainly supplies the percussion and serves as the frontman, occasionally introducing the songs with personal notes that will intrigue cultists. Those among his cult following will be most interested in Blue Potential. While perfectly listenable and all around well accomplished, this album isn't all that interesting independent of context. If you aren't a Mills cultist -- that is, someone who has a sense of his recent artistic trajectory and a knowledge of his back catalog -- chances are it will bore you quickly. On the other hand, if you're fascinated by Mills' continuing path of experimentation, as he drifts further away from the dancefloor toward new media, be it cinema or orchestra, Blue Potential offers plenty to ponder. Moreover, it's another notch on the belt of this techno maverick. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Given his renown, you'd think Jeff Mills would have quite a few commercially released mix CDs out there to choose from. Not so. In fact, until the release of The Exhibitionist on his own Axis label in 2004, Mills had only one mix on the market, his Live at the Liquid Room disc from 1996. And to make matters more frustrating for fans, that mix was a tough one to track down stateside, as it was released by Sony Japan and React overseas and was generally out of print. A shame that was, because Live at the Liquid Room is one of the most astonishing techno mixes you're ever liable to hear in your lifetime. It's trademark Mills -- he blazes through innumerable tracks, many of them his own productions, often overlapping them and rarely letting any given track play out for more than a minute or (maybe) two, all the while throwing in some Detroit techno classics simply for the sake of doing so. The Exhibitionist is similar. Here Mills again showcases his trademark mixing style, dropping an astounding 45 tracks over the course of a single disc, about half of them his own productions and a couple of them bearing the Made in Detroit stamp (i.e., Octave One's "Blackwater" and the Aztec Mystic's "Aguila," both of which are standouts). The chief difference between the two, then, is track selection. Liquid Room was recorded back in 1996, while Exhibitionist dates from 2004, and though the sound of techno didn't change too much over that span, Mills did broaden his selection for the more recent mix, incorporating a number of outside productions. These outside producers (e.g., Ben Sims, Oliver Ho, Samuel L. Sessions) share Mills' aesthetic -- hard-driving minimal techno with ample rhythmic density -- and fit in well, often as mixing tools that Mills uses to segue between two of his own tracks. Of note is the run from tracks six through ten, which includes the lushness of the aforementioned "Blackwater" and a festive foray into Latin with UK Gold's remix of "Bateria-Latin Impressions." Of further note are the older Purpose Maker productions of Mills that have become staples of his mixes over the years: "The Bells," "Tango," and "Alarms," the latter appearing in the form of its Ben Sims remix. But for the most part, Mills sticks with his more recent productions rather than older, well-known ones from the '90s. That, above all, distinguishes The Exhibitionist from Live at the Liquid Room: both are similar in style, one that is characteristically Mills and only Mills, and both are representative of their points in time, which are nearly a decade apart. You can't go wrong with either mix; they're both great. If anything, it'll probably come down to whichever you can find, and if you're serious about either Mills or techno DJing, you are recommended to pick up both, for this is the apex of techno as it pertains to DJing. Few can hold a candle to Mills on the turntables. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Scoring a soundtrack to German director Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis seems like a suitable task for Jeff Mills. The film itself is a landmark, not just of the silent era but of all time, surely one of the most visionary films ever, and Mills is known for his similarly visionary work as one of the world's most conceptual techno artists. The resulting soundtrack is a monumental undertaking, further accentuated by Mills' roots in Detroit, a modern industrial wasteland not much unlike the fictional dystopia of Lang's film. The album goes scene by scene through the film, some tracks, like "Entrance to Metropolis," quietly foreboding while others, like "Flood," dizzily chaotic. As you may expect, Metropolis resembles Mills' conceptual work more than it does his dancefloor work. More than anything, his X-103 project, Atlantis, and his Axis recordings, particularly the From the 21st album, are good touchstones. And when held up against these, Metropolis shines. You can sense the shifting sequences of the film, and it's quite thrilling toward the conclusion when the music intensifies. Mills relies primarily on synthesizers, forgoing the hard, banging percussion you sometimes correlate with him. In fact, only about half the tracks employ a percussive foundation while every one is awash in cold, eerie, inhuman synthesizer ambience. Furthermore, no single track stands out. All are parts of the whole and quite similar to one another in tone, differing mostly in terms of mood. Ideally, Metropolis should accompany the film's images, but if you've seen the film, you can envision the corresponding scenes as you listen. And if you haven't seen the film, you should; it's magnificent. You don't necessarily need to, though, since Mills' work here is amazing on its own, but you'd be missing half the beauty of this soundtrack, which is as much adaptation and interpretation as it is invention. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Packaged in a solid gold sleeve with no ornamentation, Jeff Mills' double 12" LP Every Dog Has Its Day is far from modest, despite its humble façade. Released around the same time as his Lifelike and Art of Connecting albums and his announcement about releasing a soundtrack for the classic sci-fi film Metropolis, one cannot help but sense that Mills had high hopes for the 20th release in his Axis series. The eight songs on this record improve upon the precedent set with his From the 21st album, focusing on relaxed, mid-tempo rhythms and a heavy atmosphere of synths. The aggressive tendencies of his earlier Axis records are notably absent, as is the blatant experimentation that often creeps into his non-Purpose Maker releases. So, in a way, this is Mills at his most accessible, not too hard and not too complex, but rather calm and pretty. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Much like Jeff Mills' several other CD releases in 2000 -- Every Dog Has Its Day, Metropolis, The Art of Connecting, and Lifelike -- From the 21st highlights the lighter side of his output. Rather than offer Purpose Maker-style dancefloor tracks of tribal percussion and pounding rhythms, the nearly dozen tracks here are more in line with Mills' Axis output: ambient Detroit techno that often seems quite experimental and often challenging -- moody thinking-man's techno surely intended for home listening rather than dancing. The album's visually stunning packaging and multiple-page Japanese liner notes reinforce this notion, providing this futuristic album with a suitably conceptual context. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
'Live at the Liquid Room, Tokyo'
Release Date 1/1/1996
Tracks 38
Label React
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
More than any other release, Live at the Liquid Room illustrates perfectly why Jeff Mills deserves his godlike reputation. Ostensibly a DJ mix but also a showcase for Mills' production work, the album provides ample evidence of his brilliance over the course of three distinct segments, each comprised of numerous tracks, roughly half of which are Mills' own productions. These segments come from a three-hour performance recorded on October 28, 1995, at The Liquid Room in Tokyo. Unlike most DJ mix albums, which are most often recorded in the studio, often with computer-aided mixing devices, Live at the Liquid Room fulfills its billing -- it's indeed a live recording. As such, it's less than pristine -- for instance, you can hear the needle drop, the crowd noise, occasional train wrecks, and other audience-recording phenomena -- yet, flaws and all, this is precisely Live at the Liquid Room's beauty. You see, Mills mixes at a jaw-dropping tempo, rarely allowing a given track more than two minutes or so; furthermore, since the mixing is so frantic, the mixes themselves are seemingly instinctual, often overlapping and sometimes abrupt yet mostly perfect. Thus you're taken back considerably by Mills' masterful technique as he goes through 38 tracks over the course of the three segments. Moreover, as mentioned, Mills throws down many of his own productions, 17 to be exact, and the others come from such luminaries as Surgeon, Joey Beltram, and Advent. Mills even offers a few drawn-out highlights like the booty-funk of "Work That Body" and the Detroit homage of "Strings of Life" to offset the otherwise dizzying blur of his mix. There really isn't a better testament of Mills' talent than Live at the Liquid Room, unless of course you were actually there in Tokyo that night. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
'Waveform Transmission, Vol. 3'
Release Date 1/1/1995
Tracks 8
Label Tresor
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What The Critics Say
Though released only two years apart, in 1992 and 1994, Jeff Mills' two Waveform Transmission albums for Tresor differ slightly from one another. The first volume had been relentlessly hard, powered by punishing beats and breakneck tempos. In many ways it resembled the type of hard techno Mills had produced as part of Underground Resistance in the early '90s. This second volume features eight tracks that are similarly powered by punishing beats and breakneck tempos, but these tracks aren't quite as relenting. The beats tend to be polarized, offsetting a pounding 909 kick foundation with rattling snares and looping bleeps, and the tempos tend to fluctuate, dropping out every now and then for quick buildups and releases. The album opens with "The Extremist," which indeed lives up to its billing, but from there Mills offers a diverse array of tracks. Next up is "Solid Sleep," a stomping, mid-tempo -- relatively mid-tempo, that is -- track that feels like a release after "The Extremist." "Life Cycle" and "Workers" alternate between calm sections and explosive ones, and the same goes for "Wrath of the Punisher," which is built around a charging, multi-layered rhythm and a foreboding riff of incredibly unsettling synth stabs. By the time you reach the penultimate track, the serene "Condor to Mallorca," its tranquil opening two minutes feel incredibly relieving, as does the remainder of the track as it develops into an old-school-sounding acid track. "Basic Human Design" then caps off the album, suitably perhaps, with dizzying, whirlwind ferocity. These eight tracks signaled Mills' transition from the straightforward hard techno he had produced in the early '90s to the more diversified style he would pursue throughout the remainder of the decade. In many ways these tracks prefigure Mills' Axis releases, which employed the same sound palette. As such, Waveform Transmission, Vol. 3 stands out in Mills' canon. It's not necessarily a masterpiece, but it was his most accomplished release to date, even if his later accomplishments perhaps make it seem a bit one-dimensional. ~ Jason Birchmeier, All Music Guide
