Jeff Mills was born in Detroit in 1963, and along with fellow Detroit-raised musicians Derrick May, Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, and Carl Craig is one of the biggest American names in techno. Revered for his music’s relentless pursuit of hard and stripped-down, almost industrial DJ sets, Mills is the one of the most successful in a long line of Detroit-bred talent to take on an international reputation. A founding member of a noted Motor City music collective known as the Underground Resistance, Mills helped build the artist roster and label ideology (as well as much of its back catalog) with his partners “Mad” Mike Banks and Robert “Noise” Hood before moving to New York in 1992 to pursue his solo and DJ career (with a resident spot at the legendary nightclub Limelight and a recording contract with the noted German techno label Tresor). He has since gained notoriety as one of electronic music’s most high-profile innovators, experimenting with both atmospheric and hard-beat electronic composition.

In the course of the eighties he was an influential radio DJ on WJLB under the pseudonym The Wizard. Mills’ sets were a hightlight of the nightly show from “The Electrifying Mojo,” Charles Johnson. Complimenting Mojo’s eclectic playlists, Mills would spin obscure Detroit Techno, Miami Bass, Chicago House and classic New Wave tracks. These sets were set apart by Mills’ use of reel-to-reel tapes, allowing him to cut back and forth between recordings and live cuts and scratching, blurring the lines between techno, hip hop, and overtly experimental live composition. By the late ‘80s Mills was a DJ at Detroit public radio station WDET (he was also studying architecture at the time), spinning everything from Meat Beat Manifesto and Nine Inch Nails to Chicago house and underground Detroit techno.

Jeff Mills began producing in the mid-’80s, working with Tony Srock on the project the Final Cut. Mills met Banks through a local garage group Members of the House, whom Banks was working with in the late ’80s. Mills remixed a track on a Members 12″, and his and Banks’ shared love for Chicago soul and the harder edge of Detroit techno blossomed into Underground Resistance as a combined business and creative enterprise. The pair, along with Robert Hood, recorded several EPs and singles together, including tracks such as “Waveform” and “Sonic,” before Mills defected to New York in 1992 to pursue a residency at the Limelight club and a solo career recording for Tresor and his own label, Axis.

Mills’ discography includes two full-length volumes of Waveform Transmissions for German techno label Tresor, a live album and rarities collection for the British label React, and the first album in a new contract with Sony Japan. 1997’s The Bells is Mills’ most successful individual track to date – since its creation, Mill has played it as a part of every live DJ set he performs, and fans reportedly are able to recognize the synth pattern in less than a second.

In 2000, Mills created a memorable and controversial work by scoring a new soundtrack for Fritz Lang’s 1926 film Metropolis, screened around the world at venues including the Museum of Music in Paris, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and the Vienna International Film Festival. The film is famous for its surreal subject matter as much as for its silence, and many media voices were harshly critical of Mills’ attempt to put music to the movie. Mills also composed a score to a Buster Keaton film.

A 2005 live recording was made of Jeff Mills in tandem with the Montpellier Philharmonic Orchestra in France at Pont du Gard. Released only recently on CD and DVD, the album travels the length of Mills’ catalog, as played by a full orchestra accompanied by Mills on various drum machines, samplers and synthesizers.