Jeff Mills

Born in Detroit in 1963, he began DJing as The Wizard on radio stations WDRQ and WJLB, championing local techno artists including Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and Juan Atkins. In the late 1980s he co-founded Underground Resistance with Mike Banks and Robert Hood before departing to launch the Chicago-based Axis Records in 1992. His subsequent solo work defined a hyper-minimal, functional strain of techno that became globally influential. He later created a new soundtrack for Fritz Lang's Metropolis and, in 2005, premiered Blue Potential, a piece arranged for classical orchestra. In 2017 he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.