That’s a difficult question because technology, unfortunately, plays a greater role in the creation of music these days. I’m not exactly sure how to answer that.
Why are you saying "unfortunately"?
Because it allows less time to problem-solve in electronic music. A lot of the history of electronic music was basically based on problem-solving. How could I use multiple machines, all ensynched to play together to give you the feeling that you’re listening to an orchestra? So they created midi and special kinds of synchs to push it together. And then it reached a point where the discovery became more important than the original idea. So you have a lot of music now that isn’t designed to say anything. It’s just what the machines produced, with a little help of the producer. Which then kind of makes all, a lot of music sound the same, because they’re all using the same programme, which has certain rhythms. So I think it’s the proportion. It’s great to have so many options, but it’s not a good thing to depend so much on those options. You know there are artists who have literally based their whole career on certain software programmes. That’s what they’ve become famous for. That’s a very generic way of approaching music, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.
You worked with the Montpellier National Orchestra last year, didn’t you?
Yes.
I was really curious, when you could technically and in theory have a whole orchestra in your computer, how was it to work with a real orchestra? What’s the challenge?
Anzeige
Technically it was basically the same way. Instead of programming a machine, it’s sheet music. So you alter the sheet music as you would alter the pattern, and that’s what the musicians would play. It was basically the same. The only difference is that in the protocol of an orchestra you have very little contact with the individual musician, because you have to speak to the composer or to the conductor to be able to communicate. I can’t walk up to the violinist and say: "Look, can you play this part a little bit funkier?"
(laughs)
Whereas with a machine you just shuffle and it’s there! But you programme the musicians the same way you would programme the machine.
So would you want to return to using more instrumental music, like an orchestra?
Yeah, I would love to experiment more, to modify the situation. Now that we’ve done it, enhancing the situation, making the musicians do things that perhaps they don’t want to do, the same way a machine was designed to do …
What’s next?
We work on many different … well, there’s another film project with the Tate Modern in London, for an event in June next year, and I’ve been asked to recompose the soundtrack for the movie "Things to Come". There’s another conceptual residency that we’re doing in Japan in the month of October, called "One Man Spaceship". It’s based on one person with no compromise exploring new ideas, the new thing. So the whole residency is based on a single person. That’s the theme but the people that we’re inviting to perform are … not … which is single people (29.35). We’re asking people like Richard James, Aphex Twin, a guy from Berlin whose name is
(???), Tenechi
…
(His manager looks at him intently.)
Yes, but it’s not confirmed yet, so …
(embarrassed silence)
. But it’s people that have approached … It’s more of a soul-searching kind of thing. And there’s Sónar Japan, that will happen the first week of October, … another performance with an orchestra, and …
What’s your favourite song in the mornings? What does Jeff Mills listen to when he gets up in the mornings and brushes his teeth.
Anzeige
There isn’t one. No, I don’t think I have one. No.
What sort of things do you listen to when it’s not techno?
Ah, everything. I listen to the radio a lot. It depends where I am. If I’m in the office, I’m listening to demos, if I’m at home, the radio is on, in the car it’s the radio, disco, funk, soul, jazz, it depends, it varies.
What’s your earliest musical memory?
Chubby Checker. My mother used to listen to Chubby Checker when she’d vacuum and clean the house. Yeah, Chubby Checker. The guy who used to do the twist. Yeah, yeah.
