Jeff Mills - Moon - The Area of Influence (2019)

Tilting his gaze toward the heavens once again, the Detroit electronic icon delivers an ambient-techno concept album exploring the moon’s pull on the human imagination.

Jeff Mills likes outer space. Over the past three decades, the Detroit native and techno legend has amassed an expansive catalog, with many of his releases taking direct inspiration from the cosmos, including records devoted to Alpha Centauri, Proxima Centauri, Orion, and a myriad of (often fantastical) intergalactic journeys. He has even collaborated with NASA.

On his latest LP, Mills is once again looking beyond our atmosphere, albeit toward an object that’s a little closer to home: the moon. It’s not his first time tackling that particular celestial body; back in 2015, he put together a soundtrack for Fritz Lang’s pioneering 1929 silent film Woman in the Moon, and followed that up with a soundtrack for another silent sci-fi classic, George Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon, from 1902.

While those efforts drew from others’ work (not to mention a completely different era when space travel was pure science fiction), Moon: The Area of Influence is purely the product of his own, modern-day imagination. Its arrival coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, an event that captured his imagination (along with the rest of the world’s) when he was just a young boy.

Moon doesn’t really conjure images of rocket ships and astronauts. Although LP opener “Control, Sattva and Rama” does begin with a recording from the NASA control room, the album’s main focus is how the moon affects things right here on Earth. (It’s telling that the moon doesn’t actually appear on the record’s cover, which instead depicts moonlight reflecting off a large body of water.) Mills’ interest in the moon’s influence on terrestrial matters extends from the tides to circadian rhythms (“Sleep-Wake Cycles”) and even people’s moods (“Erratic Human Behavior”).

This being an instrumental electronic album, it’s hard to glean any of these things from the music itself. In fact, Moon doesn’t sound all that different from a bevvy of Mills’ other releases. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; the production is precise and minimal, its grooves subtly undulating beneath crystalline melodies. Fans of the insistent techno that usually populates Mills’ DJ sets will likely gravitate toward the hypnotic pulse of “Theia,” the static-laced rhythms of “Erratic Human Behavior,” and the sharp gallop of “180-Degree Repositioning Phase.” “Lunar Power” also sports a steady kick drum, but it’s the track’s analog chirps and swelling strings that stand out.

But Moon offers more meditative moments than club bangers. “Sleep-Wake Cycles” is an eight-minute trek through billowing, almost glassy melodies, while the vivid “Decoding the Lunar Sunrise” wondrously combines trundling basslines, dancing synths, and soaring strings. “The Tides” inspires a similar sense of awe, its gorgeous marriage of plaintive piano and shuffling percussion conjuring a bit of Larry Heard’s gentle magic.

Moon probably isn’t a particularly essential addition to Mills’ discography. While the production is impeccable and the music is undeniably tasteful, it also sounds like, well, just another Jeff Mills record. As such, the ideas behind the record are more intriguing than the music itself, and with this kind of instrumental techno and ambient, there’s only so much conceptual digging to be done.

Mills’ place in the larger electronic sphere is a little like the moon and its relationship to Earth. Much like the heavenly body, he’s a constant presence whose influence is practically immeasurable; it’s no wonder that his work and legacy has given rise to the same sort of wide-eyed devotion that humans throughout history have often felt when they’ve cast their gaze toward the night sky. At the same time, Mills quietly just keeps doing his thing, which makes his outsized influence easy to take for granted. After all, it’s easy to forget just how incredible the moon is if you don’t bother to look up.