Jeff Mills

Jeff Mills has never wallowed in his DJ status and kept on multiplying outstanding performances, at the intersection between music, contemporary art, pop culture, design, and science fiction, while running his own record label, Axis Records, since 1992 onwards. After conquering Detroit's early techno scene as The Wizard in the 80s, as a part of the Underground Resistance, he took up with his prime inspiration, space and science fiction. The 2000's marked a turning point, when he started to merge his music with other artforms. He decided to create a new soundtrack for Fritz Lang's “Metropolis,” which brought him to many other cine-mix performances and movies soundtracks. As a visual artist, Jeff Mills has shown numerous of his performances and exhibitions in artistic institutions such as the CCCB of Barcelona, the Southbank Centre, the Barbican Centre, the Cinémathèque Française, Pompidou Center, the Art Fair Monte Carlo…

In 2014 he partnered with the French filmmaker Jacqueline Caux for “Man From Tomorrow,” a film which is more a wandering, poetic, and sensitive portrait of his music than of himself. Shortly after, he was commissioned to be the resident artist of “Duos Ephémères” for the year 2015, a program of 4 different shows mixing music, film, and dance, at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

In 2015, almost ten years after “The Exhibitionist,” a real-time film, multi-angled collection of his DJ sets, capturing the motions of his art with turntables, Jeff Mills launched “Exhibitionist 2,” in which he goes even deeper into real-time mix. Started in Tokyo, 2015, Jeff Mills created Spiral Deluxe, his first band since Underground Resistance, displaying an electronic jazz fusion, bringing out three EPs. In 2017, he took residence at the Barbican Center in London, where he presented “From Here to There,” a series of innovative conceptual events marrying electronic music with symphonic sounds and other artforms. Jeff Mills was the first DJ to collaborate, perform, and capture on DVD, concerts with classical orchestras. It all began in 2005 with “Blue Potential,” a piece arranged for orchestra, followed in 2012 by a new version called “Light from the Outside World,” still scheduled all over the world. A second piece of the kind was presented in 2013 (“Where Light Ends”), and a third, inspired by Holst’s “The Planets,” premiered in 2015. In April 2017, Jeff Mills created “Planets,” an album for the 9 planets of our Solar System, with both an electronic and philharmonic translation, using factual scientific data to create each composition. Decorated in 2007 with the French Government award of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters, he was upgraded in 2017 to be Officer, in recognition for his contribution to the Arts. In 2019 Jeff Mills launched The Director’s Cut project: a massive re-issue series through six EPs and one 3-CD box set.

In 2020, Jeff Mills revives his Millsart alias for the first time since 2003 with a new release each month for the ‘Every Dog Has Its Day’ series. Axis Records also announced it will expand its musical scope by including more works that encompass live musicians/soloists and players from other genres, starting with the album “Ambrosia” by Byron The Aquarius, followed by “Counter Active” by The Paradox and “The Override Switch” by Rafael Leafar and Jeff Mills.

Simultaneously, the Axis online shop (called ‘The Escape Velocity’) offers music in a curated form to feature exclusive works of various artists that are considered masters of their craft and style of techno music.

In 2022 Axis Records will celebrate its 30th anniversary!