Jeff Mills on Tomorrow Comes the Harvest

It’s fair to say that Jeff Mills is a pioneer.

From his fledgling radio show as The Wizard in the early 1980s, to forming the Underground Resistance collective with fellow Detroit DJs, before breaking off to live/produce/perform in New York and Berlin, before settling in Chicago and setting up Axis Records.

With legendary status already confirmed, he could have quite easily settled into the well-worn groove of touring techno jocks and content label bosses.

But no, Mills kept on innovating, turning DJing into an artform and manipulating a 909 drum machine to achieve things way beyond its original design.

But branching out from the club, he collaborated with the Montpelier Philharmonic Orchestra in 2005 - a set which became the Blue Potential album a year later - continuing his French love affair with Critical Arrangements, a multi-media installation at the Pompidou Centre in Paris during 2008.

A love of space became reflected in works like 2013’s Where Light Ends, an album inspired by the Japanese astronaut Mamoru Mohri’s first trip to space, or a four-turntable soundtracking of Fritz Lang’s 1929 silent film Woman in the Moon.

Attempting to break boundaries further in electronic music live performance, in 2016 Mills began collaborating with acclaimed afro-jazz drummer Tony Allen, with the performance captured for the live EP Tomorrow Comes The Harvest.

Sadly Allen died in 2020, but Mills was so inspired by the shows that he invited Tabla drum virtuoso Prabhu Edouard to join himself and veteran keyboardist Jean-Philippe Dary on stage.

Tomorrow Comes The Harvest is coming to the Leith Theatre in August as part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s programme, and The Skinny got to pick his brain on the culmination of 40 years pushing dance music forward.

“It’s not new but it’s very unique - the concept behind it is that musicians show up and play together - no rehearsal, just a very spontaneous performance together,” Mills explains, describing it as a conversation in music.

“Bands usually practise and know which direction they’re going in, but this is just a jam session, it’s really flexible - we’ve got Jean-Philippe on keys, I man the electronic percussion and some synths, while Prabhu uses his drums.”

As anyone who’s seen Mills at work in front of multiple turntables and a mixer, or just in a white room armed only with a Roland 909, it’s fair to say the audience gets a shift superior to some of the ‘press play’ performers out there on the DJ circuit. But he says that it wasn’t until he started working with Allen that he was inspired to push further into ‘live’ shows, breaking free from the booth and out from behind the decks.

“Watching how he was able to manipulate the drums - just incredible - some of the rhythms were so complex, that really gave me pause and made me think about how much in electronic music we’re lacking in terms of the musician’s expression.”

While the Tomorrow Comes The Harvest stage set up is quite basic when compared to the massive screens and pyrotechnics of some EDM groups, Mills says the layout is designed so the trio can keep eye contact and create a connection.

“In this way the audience gets to know the musician better, there isn’t software or hardware getting in the way,” he argues. “DJs are letting us know that they want to be the soloist, they want the attention, but we don’t have the tools to make that happen, the equipment is still designed to be sat on a table top, it’s a shame there are very few things that enable movement around the stage - it’s still a production mindset that hasn’t convincingly moved into more of a live type of presentation.”

Mills hopes that this will change in time, but until someone reinvents the keytar, he’s “focused on the idea of using these instruments differently, being more hands on and manipulating machines live like a piano or guitar would be used”.

Tracing this insistence on innovation back to its roots, Mills says it really started when - fresh out of high school - he was given a slot on local station WDRQ.

“I was taken off the street and given a show, there was very little instruction, so I made up this character, The Wizard, and in a way that’s how I learned to be in music, coming up with new ideas to use what I had.”

He became a sensation in and around Detroit for beat juggling and scratching records, while highlighting local producers like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins.

“Growing up in Detroit and being around Motown, Berry Gordy took things seriously and his artists really respected the craft - it was all about making very complex compositions sound simple.

“It’s not something you learn overnight by buying software - anyone can put together tracks - but knowing how to strip it down is really an art form,” Mills says, adding that in terms of then performing live: “It takes years of getting to know people to figure out what will work - it’s physiology, what they’ll tolerate, the things that really flow and how to ignite an audience.”

The other big theme running through his career is looking to the future and up to the stars. Born in 1963 he grew up in the Apollo years, where even for a Black kid in the Motor City, being an astronaut seemed like an option.

“Kraftwerk and Juan Atkins can be thanked for pushing forward this kind of concept music, instilling a certain type of mindset, creating such detailed compositions of the future,” Mills says, adding that he was inspired by how Atkins - and his Cybotron guise - was able to turn the space race into such compelling electronic music.

As for the future? You’ll not be surprised to find that he’s got no plans to retire.

“This is the one that will last until the end,” Mills says of Tomorrow Comes The Harvest. “I plan to keep up things like classical and film work, but the way this is structured, how we can be so flexible, this idea can change as the music industry does.

“When you see 85 year-old Jeff Mills, I’ll be on stage with this project for sure.”

Also, find it online here, hopefully.