Jeff Mills: The Trip

Royal Festival Hall, London | 22 June

“We’ve done things here that were never deemed possible,” James Lavelle gushes beneath an ashen projection reading ‘Meltdown’. The prime mover of Mo’ Wax speaks with lethargy pulling at his vocal chords. Ten days since the annual inauguration of the Meltdown series at Southbank Centre and, as Lavelle hastily notes, it’s been as divisive as any year. Like the cultural custodians that have previously taken counsel – from Scott Walker to Yoko Ono to Patti Smith – the festival has remained a cultivator of the contemporary and companion to the highbrow. This year has bared witness to Lavelle’s perception of artistic radicalism. Makeshift clubs and crowd-alienating performances from the likes of Neneh Cherry to Mica Levi have been unremitting. Lavelle has intentionally balanced the gaudy post-label nostalgia with the au courant. And it all ends with Jeff Mills; possibly the most esoteric, most contentious, most rebellious act of this season.

The Trip, as Mills indicates, is an audio-visual show in which he converges improvised electronic sketches with more than 60 clips from sci-fi movies from the 1930s to the 1970s live on stage. It’s the type of grandiose visionary experience the Detroit techno luminary has been perfecting for over a decade. Never shy of expressing his desire to merge his fascination with ‘soundtracking science fiction’, The Trip was always foreseen to be Mills’s moment to bloom. Yet, what was intended to derange the senses equated to visceral vignettes, Philip Glass-esque interludes and fragmented 909 hi-hat snips.

Preceding Mills was A Guy Called Gerald. The collected yet apathetic disposition of the Voodoo Ray producer left a seated crowd confounded as if attempting to relieve their arms from a strait jacket. Hands were occasionally raised to the air. The far-flung sound of whooping raised and then disappeared back down into the theatre floor. A wry smile grew onstage as if to say ‘stand up’. Acid house was never meant to be enjoyed in the comforts of chairs. On-hand security made a pithy attempt to send agitated dancers back to their allotted areas before the entire room gradually raised to their feet. The motions were limited, but A Guy Called Gerald sustained the suggestion of a clubbing atmosphere throughout his short set.

Then Mills begins. Double-exposed images of distressed faces are synched with stuttered synth-sweeps and off-kilter clicks. The mood seems outwardly apprehensive. The crowd are firmly rooted in their seats. Intermittent nods to Mills’ visual guide followed by short glances at deformed onscreen projections are the only solid movements made. Inferences of Detroit-founded industrial rhythms are developed only to be removed entirely. Disorientated castings of the future from Cold War era cinema cycle over and over and over. Everything is like an endless escalation. At times, it’s euphoric. At other times, it’s harsh and dispiriting.

Mills plays for over an hour before his trip loses momentum. A short interruption of hard-hitting thrashes from a Roland-909 alleviate the hall’s perennial rigidity. And it draws to a close. No congratulatory footnote to Lavelle is made. Downstairs, Fabric mainstay, Craig Richards, starts playing four to the floor and the Mills audience are relieved of their constrictions to move freely. Yet the shrill impression Mills left scored deep. He had no intention to appeal to academic techno gurners, but to probe the artistic capacity of modern electronic music, which is everything Lavelle’s Meltdown could have asked for.

– – – – – – – – – –

meltdown.southbankcentre.co.uk

Words: Tom Watson