Tokyo Weekender - March 2016

People are giving up
on this idea that music
should be a particular
way, and they have
patience to hear
something new
would come from speakers that are near me,
but not near the harp or the piano or things
like that. We still have some work to do to
make this process easier.
IS THAT THE BIGGEST ADJUSTMENT
TO MAKE?
Well, another things stems from the fact
that I wrote the music. So when you hear
the cello play a line, it’s what I wrote. And
that’s so different from playing as a DJ for
an audience. When I’m up there with the
orchestra, I’m really inside the music, surrounded
by musicians, and I can hear the
double bass play his part right next to me;
the cello too.
And being up on the stage is very
different from being in the audience. The
audience hears the orchestra as a whole.
But I can’t hear the violins on the other side
as well as you can. There are other instruments
that I don’t hear at all, and every
orchestral player is in the same situation.
We’re really like a machine working together,
so that the audience gets what it should.
STILL, IT WOULDN’T OCCUR TO MOST
ARTISTS TO MIX CLASSICAL AND TECH-
NO. WHAT GAVE YOU THE IDEA?
It was an idea a lot of us had, that went back
to the mid-80s. I remember talking with lots
of other DJs about how some electronic compositions
would be perfect for an orchestra.
And I remember [Derrick May’s] “Strings
of Life” was always one that people would
refer to as an obvious good fit. I didn’t see
João Messias©
any real possibility to do
it until much later.
In my circle, we were
always on the lookout
for signs of where this
genre could be going.
In the earlier days of
techno and rave, the
late 80s to mid 90s,
anything beyond large
gatherings and music
was rarely discussed.
But I know Mike Banks
[a fellow techno producer
with whom Mills founded the
Underground Resistance music
label] and we always discussed
new sounds and new directions. We’d
always experiment.
ONE OF YOUR MOST INTERESTING EX-
PERIMENTS OCCURRED DURING YOUR
FAMOUS RESIDENCY AT THE NECTO,
WHEN YOU PERFORMED IN THE CROWD
INSTEAD OF UP ON A STAGE.
That’s a bit of a misconception. It was
actually more for practical reasons. The
venue felt like it was three stories high,
and they had put the DJ booth almost two
stories above the audience. So I suggested
that we try to make something to help me
be downstairs, with the people. After that
I could reinforce the music, depending on
what I wore or what setup I had.
It was a quite an interesting time. I
was very young, and I played 3-4 days a
week, and had to think of new things to do
all the time. The labels didn’t have a sense
of what DJs would need, because they
were still making music for radio, so it was
really rare to find extended mixes, and
even rarer to find straight beats and percussion.
You had to make it up yourself,
and that made each DJ very different from
one another.
ARE YOU NOSTALGIC FOR
THOSE DAYS?
No, but I can sense there are a lot of
similarities between now and then. Like
then, there is a certain amount of the
public that is quite willing to accept new
things. I and many other DJs can feel that
too. It could be that after so many years
of hearing so much music, people are
giving up on this idea that music
should be a particular way,
and they have patience to
hear something new.
ARE THERE OTHER
ADVANTAGES TO
THIS ERA? HAVE
EQUIPMENT
AND GEAR
EVOLVED
ENOUGH TO
MAKE IT
EASIER FOR
YOU TO EX-
PERIMENT?
Not really.
JEFF MILLS | FEATURE | 25
I use two Roland TR-909s during these
orchestral performances, and that’s basically
it. One is for playing manually, and the other
has patterns that need to be tied to the tempo
and the BPM. So I have two separate ways
to play two different sounds from the same
machines. That lets me give the impression
that the drum pattern fractured and came
apart, then I can play it manually and have it
come back together again. You can’t program
that on a single machine.
But I have yet to find a machine that
would allow me to play, other than a 909.
So about two years ago, I decided to make a
machine especially to play and not program,
not with buttons and knobs but something
that I could hit or play. I worked with an
industrialist named Yuri Suzuki. He’s a very
well known Japanese instrument maker who
lives in London. He and I have only tested
the machine once, but we’re hoping to use it
for some projects this year.
ASIDE FROM SUZUKI, WHO DO YOU
ADMIRE IN JAPAN’S MUSIC COMMU-
NITY? DO YOU HAVE ANY FAVORITE
TOKYO DJS?
I won’t name any names. But the Japanese
scene, in general, is actually one that many
Western DJs have always watched. It was
always one that we understood as being
uncompromising, and closer to the truth
than anywhere else. If a Japanese audience
asked you to come, it’s probably because
they have studied and listened closely to
what you do, and they think you can
do something special. A lot of us
still see that as a very special
measurement.
Jeff Mills X Tokyo Philharmonic
Orchestra will be
performing at Bunkamura
Orchard Hall on
Monday, March 21, at
4:30 pm.
João Messias©
www.tokyoweekender.com MARCH 2016