MixTate Jeff Mills on Chris Ofili

Enrico Tassi How did you approach making the mix for Tate Etc.?

Jeff Mills I made new versions of quite a few tracks for this mix. I thought it would be more special if the mix included things you couldn’t just go out and buy.

Some compositions are more on the electronic side, while others are more acoustic, incorporating flute, spoken word and singing in unique ways. I wanted to do something that felt similar to what you might hear when I perform with Tomorrow Comes the Harvest alongside keyboardist Jean-Phi Dary and percussionist Prabhu Edouard. I tried to take those ingredients and put them in a different dish – to make another recipe.

I also wanted to show the connections between the afrobeat genre and electronic music. A lot of producers, especially of Detroit techno in the 1980s and 1990s, were huge fans of afrobeat. We all used to listen to Tony Allen and Fela Kuti and search for compositions that we could play alongside electronic music.

ET You started your Tomorrow Comes the Harvest project with the late drummer Tony Allen, one of the founders of afrobeat. What did you want to express together?

JM As Tony Allen and I got to know each other, we realised that we both wanted to present what we’ve learned musically over the years as an example of what others could do. So the project, which has continued with Jean-Phi and Prabhu, is a proposal for what might be possible. We approach live performances without rehearsing, without knowing what is going to happen next. It’s how reality works: you never know what tomorrow holds until you get there.

ET What inspired you about Chris Ofili’s watercolour painting, Harvester?

JM I think anyone who sees this painting can relate to it. To me, it represents everything Tony and I were thinking about when we started Tomorrow Comes the Harvest – the idea of sowing something for a future harvest, for younger people, through the music we were creating. The seeds that the Harvester in the painting has sown could be the seeds of anything: the seeds of an idea, the seeds of a community. It’s quite beautiful. We are going to perform under a reproduction of it at our upcoming show at the Barbican.

ET What is a Tomorrow Comes the Harvest performance like?

JM We don’t know where we’ll start a composition or end it – we just play what we feel. We communicate with eye contact, and by listening out for what each other is alluding to. One of us will give an indication of what we’d like to do, and the other two will fall back to allow that to happen. It’s like our conversations as friends are continuing through the music.

My main instrument is a drum machine, which allows me to be a musician but also a conductor. I’m in control of the structure of the tracks we are playing – the breakdowns and the build-ups – which also comes from being a DJ and thinking about what the audience could, or would like to, hear next. I’m usually exhausted after a performance. That’s because I’m not just playing, I’m also thinking about a lot while it’s happening.

ET You give the drum machine a human sound. I’m reminded of something that Chris Ofili has said of his recent series of paintings, The Seven Deadly Sins: ‘I’m trying to find a sweep of time, rather than the mechanical units of time.’ How do you do this?

JM The human aspect does exist in electronic music – there is someone pushing the buttons, organising the sounds – but I think it takes time and experience to figure out ways to put yourself, your human stamp, into the music.

I’ve used the Roland TR-909 drum machine for 30 years now, so I’m really familiar with how this instrument has been used, especially in dance music: what it is capable of, the type of textures and sounds and frequencies that the machine creates. But I’m still learning a lot of things about it.

Watching Tony Allen play helped me to learn a lot about rhythm. I took it upon myself to try to apply some of his approach and really play the machine. I want to solo – I want to show what I can do on this machine, like a bass player would do in a rock band. I’ve found a way to do this by literally playing the machine, as if I’m striking the keys of Jean-Phi’s piano or Prabhu’s tablas. I’m playing the sounds with my hands, so the rhythms aren’t always perfect.

ET When you’re improvising on stage, how do you know when a composition is over?

JM It’s generally when the three of us have this strange little smile on our faces that suggests we don’t have much else left to say. Then one of us begins to wind down the volume, or it becomes softer or more broken down. It’s like being with some friends and you’re talking about something – and everybody just goes quiet and takes a drink of their beer. And that’s it. You’ve said everything that you’re going to say.

Tomorrow Comes the Harvest (Jeff Mills, Jean-Phi Dary and Prabhu Edouard) are performing at the Barbican Hall, London on Friday 8 September. The new album Evolution is released on the same day by Axis Records.

Chris Ofili’s Harvester is included in a display of the artist’s watercolours, presented in dialogue with the art of William Blake, at Tate Britain.

Jeff Mills is a DJ, record producer, composer and visual artist based in Miami, United States and Paris, France. He talked to Enrico Tassi, Deputy Editor of Tate Etc.

This mixtape is no.15 in the MixTate series.