Jeff Mills – The Occurrence

Tracks Spacewalk (The Storm), Eve, Satellite Retrieval, The Occurrence, Peaceful Encounter and From Beyond The Star are taken from the Jeff Mills album "Sleeper Wakes", out in 2009 on Third Ear (XECD-1122). The only difference is that the track Metaphysical Reaction on the "Sleeper Wakes" album coincides with the From Beyond The Star tune on "The Occurrence", as there is no actual difference between the two, so the only confusion may arrive from the fact it's the same track which appears on two alums under two different names.
Tracks #4 Inception, #6 Protons and #14 Damaged Tether, correspond to the tracks It Went Westward, What Was It and Silent Descent, respectively, which can all be found on the Jeff Mills 12" release "Something In The Sky" out in 2009 on Something In The Sky (SITS 001).

This is a more than solid continuation and yet another exciting step Jeff Mills takes in exploring science fiction and techno music. As far as the remaining tunes go, if you've liked his previous long player and if you've dug any one of three vinyls on Something In The Sky released up to now, then pick this one up as well. In my opinion, what makes "The Occurrence" worth getting as soon as possible is the gorgeous look plus the vinyldisc format; it consists of a 5" bonus track called Markings on the flip side of the compact disc surface, which is a nice little surprise after a full length of Mills' sci-fi techno wizardry. This picky, meticulous and utterly mental and visually stunning format, is loaded with spaced out, analog sweeps, Jeff's bleepy minimal techno workouts, orchestral interludes and three dimensional sequences coming from an adjacent galaxy to infect any dance floor with congelatio. The effort put in this release is indisputable, and the fact it can appeal to both vinyl collectors (such as myself), CD freaks and an entire legion of loyal Jeff Mills fans makes this all the more worth getting now! The fact it's a Japanese limited edition only means that once it gets out of stock, and my guess is that will be sooner than we may anticipate, the prices it will fetch on Internet auctions will make you bang your head against your computer monitor and be sorry for not getting your fingers around this one while you still could. Collector issues aside, if you have liked any Axis orientated works by Jeff Mills in the past five years, such as namely Contact Special, One Man Spaceship and any of the efforts already listed above, I strongly suggest you get this, since I find it better than the two I just mentioned. One other thing: "The Occurrence" flows very much like a well structured and focused album. Some of his recent CD releases were previously available tracks tied together by interludes and drone passages, and while it was all unquestionably good music, if you were eager for a unique body of work and are in the mood for a good old mixed Mills session which will enable you to cruise through the cosmos right there in your bedroom, then look no further. Not only does it sound amazing, but just by making your friends look at it, you will be getting envious glances from their side. Top notch stuff, and kudos for Mills and the staff at Third Ear for pushing things futher than anyone else around, yet again.

As "The Occurrence" was also released in normal CD format, I'm going to start this review by addressing what makes this limited edition special.

The hybrid VinylDisc format itself looks very nice (apart from the manufacturer apparently making it mandatory to have his credits printed around the spiral label print in not-so decent - or should i say butt-ugly? - ways). Plus, the ring included to fit the CD onto the hub of the turntable should have been made of another flexible quality material instead of using cheap, unstable and sticky foam.

Playing the CD in a DJ CD-player apparently doesn't leave any traces on the vinyl side, but I suggest to be careful when playing the vinyl side on a turntable - a fresh print on a new slipmatt for example might easily leave circle marks on the CD side, so make sure you place some soft tissue between the turntable and the CD side.

The vinyl side contains a short track titled "Markings", which is one of those typical straight-beat-weird-bleeps-dramatic-strings tune Mills is known for well since the time he released the "Contact Special" series. Not bad, but combinded with the fact that the VinylDisc format doesn't seem to allow too much dynamics and makes the track sound pretty flat, musically spoken it's not much more than just a nice gag. However, I really like the conceptual idea of having digital and analog format combined on one sole data carrier, as they both have their relevance regarding Techno today.

On to the music on the CD side: Besides the standout tracks already to be found on Mills latest album - "Sleeper Wakes" -, "The Occurrence" consists of numerous musical miniatures showing off the obvious eerie and spherical "boom-tsk-boom-tsk" minimalism Mills seems to be focussing on lately. They work very well as parts of the whole mix, but don't expect them to be more than mere aspects or slight variations of what you already heard on "Contact Special" or "One Man Spaceship".

The start of the mix (which has nothing in common with the feverish 3-discs-per-minute-mixing style Mills is famous for, by the way) is a bit disappointing, I'm afraid. "Spacewalk" makes for a great ouverture, but it is followed by a quite undecided selection of tracks which not only fails to take the mix into a clear direction, but sadly also isn't beatmatched tight enough - during the transitions, the mid punch of the two kick drums is left to clumsily flam along for half a minute repeatedly - until the old track finally fades out and the bass frequencies of the new kick are added.

"Eve" ends this first part of the mix - and from here, the mix rapidly gains momentum, becomes smoother and seemingly more thoughtful and finally manages to take the us where only Jeff Mills can take us. From this point on, most new tracks manage to sustain the high quality of the rich textures the tunes from the earlier "Sleeper Wakes" album bring along.

"A New Found Sense Of Being" displays beautifully futuristic strings and pads reminiscent of Mills classic "Gamma Player", while in "Damaged Tether", one can hear Mills Industrial roots shimmer through. "Reviewing The Incident" is dominated by weird synth noises and zaps. "Spiral Galaxy" rotates around itself on an axis of broken 909 electro beats and an engaging bassline.

All in all, "The Occurence" definitely is a nice journey into Jeff Mills musical cosmos. It sums up a lot of what the more conceptual side of his music was about during the last few years. A nice transmission from along the way. Not a milestone like "Sleeper Wakes", though.