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Tracklist
A rather beautiful out-of-print compilation of tracks from various EPs on Mills' own Axis and Purposemaker labels, the Waveform Transmissions Vol. 3 EP and the Japan-only release From The 21st Century plus a handful of exclusives. While there are some quite energetic tracks, things never get as relentlessly pounding as on the Purpose Maker compilation. Leaning more towards the subdued and contemplative, this is classicist emotive Detroit techno with shimmering, multilayered synth textures, glistening keyboard and string riffs and some downright beautiful melodies.
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Tracklist
More Jeff Mills niceness: this compilation from 1997 documents Mills' mid-nineties output on his own Purpose Maker label. Expect a collection of pumping, loopy, 909-driven dancefloor wreckers with lots of rattling, banging and clanging snare and conga sounds and catchy, minimalist high-end hook-lines on top. Including his signature tunes Alarms and The Bells, this is Mills at his most rave-anthemic. Great, great stuff.
(Re-upped by request. Click on the picture to dowload.)
One of the things I find so intruiging about Detroit techno is the thougt of young black, (for the most part) middle class and quite well educated men listening not only to the New Pop/Synth Wave of Human League, Visage, Gary Numan or Depeche Mode, but also to the whiter-than-white sounds of post-industrial dance music. Especially with the 2nd and 3rd generation, there's a whole bunch of tracks on which the influence of Cabaret Voltaire, Belgian New Beat and Electronic Body Music by the likes of Front 242 and Nitzer Ebb shines through. It always makes me wonder, how much this infatuation of young Black Americans with harsh European militancy mirrors the fascination ultra-aggressive hiphop and dancehall has for a lot of young, white, middle-class and often quite well educated Europeans.
Of the Detroit producers, Jeff Mills is probably the one most influenced by post-Industrial. He even started making music as a founding member of EBM-styled Band The Final Cut (though he left the group after the first lp) and especially his dancefloor-oriented tracks and his dj-sets lean towards a stark, noisy and relentlessly pounding sound. But it is counter-balanced by dense, heavily layered percussion providing a driving groove and thus resulting in a kind of bleak, futuristic and immensely funky mongrel-music, somehow sounding neither "black" nor "white" (speaking in cultural terms, of course). When the post-industrial aspects of the music takes over, Mills' dj-sets can be a bit dull and samey, but when he gets the balance right he's simply impeccable. Although Mills has done a fair share of more subdued, moody music full of wide-screen ambience I think that it's his dance tracks and djing where he shines the most.
LiveMix At Liquid Room is the second volume of the five-part Mix Up-series, released by Sony Japan to showcase the spectrum of techno music. Recorded entirely live at Tokyo club The Liquid Room on Oct 28 1995, this is a rough and rugged recording without any additional studio polish - there's even some noises and cheering from the crowd to be heard. It's a high energy affair, with Mills providing his trademark rapidfire mixing (38 tracks in just about an hour) and lots of banging, clanging voodoo percussion, often achieved through mixing two copies of the same record into each other. The general opinion on LiveMix is that it's on of the best dj mix-cds ever and after listening to it you can't really argue with that.
(Additional information: The booklet lists the recording date as Oct. 28 1995 from 3:00 am. Can't remember where it was, but a while ago I read on the net that Mills actually had another gig on Oct. 29 and that part 2 of the cd was recorded on that second night. Not that it matters much...)
NB: If anybody should have one of the other Mix Up volumes, I'd be quite interested in hearing them, especially Vol. 3 by Ken Ishii and Vol. 5 by Derrick May. The various volumes are constantly shifting in and out of print. At the moment, they are only available as quite pricey Japan-imports. So uploads would be greatly appreciated. ;-)
Discogs has a full tracklist and a little more info right here.
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The last part in my series of Detroit techno posts for the time being: Galaxy 2 Galaxy is the alias "Mad Mike" Banks uses when he finds himself in the mood for some lush cosmic grooves. This eponymous ep is an early Underground Resistance-release from 1993. Arguably more house than techno, these eight tracks represent the more ethereal side of Underground Resistance, completely forsaking the in your face-aggressivness the group and label are often associated with. Titles like Hi-Tech Jazz, Journey Of The Dragons, Star Sailing or Deep Space 9 (A Brother Runs This Ship) already give it away: this is a sublime piece of black sf, heavily inspired by the spaced out, trippy side of seventies electric jazz , fusion and jazz funk. Think Alice Coltrane's most medidative albums, some of Herbie Hancock's early seventies output, electric Miles at his most relaxed, very early Weather Report, Roy Ayers or Donald Byrd.
To my knowledge, this classic is currently not available. It was ripped from vinyl (thanks a lot to the original uploader, by the way!) and there's a bit of static to be heard at the beginning of each track, but to my ears the sound quality is very good. There's a full tracklist and some additional info right here on Discogs.
This three cd-box was released to celebrate the tenth anniverary of the legendary Berlin based label and (now defunct) club Tresor in 2002. Classics and exclusive tracks by the likes of Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Maurizio, Drexciya, Blake Baxter, 3MB (aka Maurizio/Moritz von Owald and Thomas Fehlmann), Eddie Flashin' Fowlkes and Juan Atkins showcasing the label's trademark sound of slightly sinister machine funk noir. Go here for more information and a full tracklist.
Download CD 1
Download CD 2
Download CD 3
