We were privileged enough to speak to techno icon Jeff Mills last year, shortly before the release of his jazz inspired collaboration with Rafael Leafar, The Override Switch. The album marked a continued interest for Mills in finding the intersections between electronic music and analog instrumentation, an interest that has only grown in recent years. Under the newly formed Jeff Mills and The Zanza 22 alias, he’s given himself a platform to make music that experiments with and explores the possibilities of blending electronic music with acoustics.
When The Time Is Right is the first single from Jeff Mills and The Zanza 22, taken from the upcoming LP Wonderland. Here, Mills’s investigation produces what is for all accounts a piano house banger. Against a thumping four on the floor, a piano riff repeats itself as organ synth keys harmonise in the background. Mills’s beat is pulled from techno, with its steady pulse and hi-hat flourishes, but its application against these instruments turns When The Time Is Right into something that sounds straight out of Chicago. The dichotomy between the electronic and the acoustic comes by way of the piano’s conversation with the keyboard, the two instruments locked in a discourse that never ceases.
There’s something worn in about When The Time Is Right, a retro familiarity that makes the track feel timeless. If Jeff Mills and The Zanza 22 turns out to be a piano house / electro-funk project from the godfather of techno, we’re not sure if we’re ready for what may ensue.
Listen to When The Time Is Right below. Pre-order Wonderland here.
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