As a kid, I don’t remember being obsessively attracted to the subject, but maybe I assumed it was “normal,” especially when that interest was supported by collecting and reading comics and watching science fiction films. Where did that interest emerge from? Does it actively fuel your work now? If so, what does that process look like? Jeff Mills: I assumed the interest came from growing up in a NASA/Apollo environment, watching all the activity around the tasks of sending people and other things into outer space. Throughout your career, you have shown an interest in possible futures-often, but not always, through science fiction. Time, and the lack thereof, is what fuels the passion. Outside of musical ideas, what forms the core of your current practice? Are there any key philosophical or extramusical ideas that you aspire toward? Jeff Mills: What motivates me most is the observation that a human life (even in good health) is short and that when it comes to creating, there should be a certain level of urgency to extract and transcribe the vision or idea to pass it along to others. Prior to his performance at Primavera Sound LA, we got a chance to chat with Detroit dance-music legend via email, touching upon science fiction, the importance of collecting, and the urgency of creation. The records sound almost nothing alike, but they are unified by their precision and clarity of vision, each a product of Mills’s decades-long devotion to his craft. Mind Power Mind Control is downright minimal by comparison: here, Mills focuses on elliptical rhythms, every drum laid just so, each synthesizer stretching towards infinity. Throughout, Mills and Leafar find the intersection between Coltrane and Kraftwerk, stitching together slow-and-low grooves and astral-plane acrobatics. The Override Switch, a collaboration with Rafael Leafar, a multi-instrumentalist steeped in jazz history, is a rich collection of simmering nu-jazz. Mills’s latest two records showcase the breadth of his styles. No matter the venue, though, Mills sounds as though he is broadcasting from a distant future it’s no coincidence that he was tapped to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Since his debut on Detroit’s airwaves in the 1980s, he has played a pivotal role in bringing the sounds of techno to a worldwide audience, whether that’s in his early work alongside “Mad” Mike Banks and Robert Hood, his piles of solo LPs and Detroit-techno classics, or his more contemporary collaborations with Tony Allen and Jean-Phi Dary. Jeff Mills has built a career upon futurism. Michael McKinney is the resident expert on the greatest modern-day DJ sets. Support real, independent music journalism by subscribing to Passion of the Weiss on Patreon.
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