DJ Mag, May 1998
Craven House, Kingsway,
London WC2B 6PA
DJ Magazine is a British monthly founded in 1991. The magazine was important in the dance music world, operating as an outlet for record reviews, longform interviews, scene reports and editorial cheekiness (all printed in an unreasonably tiny font). In recent years, however, it has been criticized for focusing their coverage of highly marketed DJs, as opposed to their early coverage of the underground and forefront of dance music. This issue from 1998 features a cover story on the legendary Jeff Mills, who discusses his thoughts of techno’s present and a vision of techno’s future. Also included is the first installment of Cox On The Run, a series in which Carl Cox send travelogues from around the world, and reports from various parties around Europe.
DJ: Techno is always being accused of ending up in creative cul-de-sacs. Are you confident in techno’s future as a progressive rather than formula-driven kind of music?
Mills: I’m hopeful. The only thing that I’m confident in is that whenever it’s injected into a city or a country or a territory, it’s very difficult to get out. In fact I’ve never seen a case where techno just totally faded away. That’s the only thing I’m confident in - that once it’s in there. it stays.
DJ: You've also said that your music is more about the process of moving towards the future rather than any actual, imagined future.
Mills: It's anticipating the future. What we're hearing - techno - is the process of trying to create something of the future. It's not future music, because future music is impossible to make unless you have some kind of time machine. And we can't do that yet. If you can make it tonight, it’s not futuristic. Techno music is based on the future but my idea is something that is not, you know, always coming from space and from another planet, in a world where everything is controlled by robots and androids. Because the future won't be too much different from the way we see the world now. It’ll be very very similar. It’ll be very normal. On the surface. We will always have English-style interiors [casting his hand around Kensington's Royal Garden Hotel's coffee bar], but what makes these lights turn on and off, or what we use to record this interview with will be highly complex internally and different. Maybe, the bartender girl will be a robot in extreme cases but on the surface you probably won’t notice too much difference. And I think that has to do with engineers and designers trying to make things easier for all of us without interrupting our lives. I might look out of my window and see any type of scenery I programme my computer to show me at eight o'clock in the morning. A car will still be a car, but it may drive you, you won’t drive it.