After his 2006 'Blue Potential' album collaboration with the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra, Detroit's Jeff Mills, one of the few true electronic music innovators, released the 'One Man Spaceship' project this year. Pushing techno into increasingly abstract directions, according to Mills, the album was conceived to "pay tribute to people who exceed beyond what is expected of them or of the normal or predictable way". 'One Man Spaceship' was promoted with an extensive European tour, including performances at The End in London, Holland's Awakenings festival, the recently re-opened Tresor club in Germany, as well as Mills' peak-time slot at Sonar, a fixture that has become as ubiquitous as the festival itself. Mills' other big project this year was a non-musical venture. He opened Gamma Player, a clothing shop in Chicago, together with his wife, Yoko Uozumi. The shop's name is a reference to one of Mills' mid-'90s tracks and he doesn't think that there is a huge difference between playing techno and selling clothes. "Making music, you're putting together a prescription with certain instruments for someone to digest," he says. "With the shop, we're putting together collections for people to wear. It's pretty much the same thing. You have to know where people are going and provide things for them to use on their journey."
After his 2006 'Blue Potential' album collaboration with the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra, Detroit's Jeff Mills, one of the few true electronic music innovators, released the 'One Man Spaceship' project this year.
Pushing techno into increasingly abstract directions, according to Mills, the album was conceived to "pay tribute to people who exceed beyond what is expected of them or of the normal or predictable way".
'One Man Spaceship' was promoted with an extensive European tour, including performances at The End in London, Holland's Awakenings festival, the recently re-opened Tresor club in Germany, as well as Mills' peak-time slot at Sonar, a fixture that has become as ubiquitous as the festival itself.
Mills' other big project this year was a non-musical venture. He opened Gamma Player, a clothing shop in Chicago, together with his wife, Yoko Uozumi. The shop's name is a reference to one of Mills' mid-'90s tracks and he doesn't think that there is a huge difference between playing techno and selling clothes.
"Making music, you're putting together a prescription with certain instruments for someone to digest," he says. "With the shop, we're putting together collections for people to wear. It's pretty much the same thing. You have to know where people are going and provide things for them to use on their journey."
