Listen to a lot of older techno today and it sounds rather restrained. Brilliant, yes, and futuristic too, yet largely soft and melodic compared to the techno of the 2020s. Not so Jeff Mills’ ‘Waveform Transmission Vol. 1’, a record that, along with Robert Hood’s ‘Minimal Nation’, birthed the modern techno sound of shifting loops and diamond-pointed beats.
‘Waveform Transmission Vol. 1’ is a record that stands for repetition and filth, and a record that cemented the Berlin-Detroit axis and birthed endless imitators, few of which had the sheer scuffed-up-and-nasty funk of the original. We may not condone his decision to play the recent Saudi-sponsored MDL Beast Soundstorm festival — but Mills is without a doubt one of the most important people in techno music, and ‘Waveform Transmission Vol. 1’ is him at his most Millsian.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about ‘Waveform Transmission Vol. 1’ is that it arrived fully formed, the record’s new vision for techno music forged out of wrought steel and invisible ink. And yet there was really nothing in Mills’ musical past that suggested he had this kind of muscular vision inside him.