Think Again

Jeff Mills needs no introduction as a founding father of Detroit techno, but for the better part of thirty years his Millsart alias has been quietly doing the heavy lifting on the house side of his musical identity. Think Again, released this week on Axis Records — Mills’ own imprint, and the first Axis release of 2021 — finds that alias in its most relaxed and soulful mood yet: twelve tracks of deep, jazzy house described by the man himself as “deepest Detroit hi-tech jazz”, with a vinyl edition set to follow in the spring.

The record’s character is defined by its instrumentation. Where Mills’ techno output is all razor-edge precision and cosmic pressure, Think Again leans on warm, hammond-style organs and elegant piano lines, cushioned in rich, roomy reverb. The grooves are unhurried and four-to-the-floor, but there’s a live, improvised feel to the keys throughout — this is music made by someone who grew up worshipping at the altar of jazz and Detroit radio, and it wears that lineage proudly on its sleeve.

Opening track Flaming Arrow sets the tone perfectly: a patient, swinging house groove with organ stabs that shimmer and breathe, the arrangement ebbing and flowing like a band locked in a midnight session. The Infinite Voyage is pure cosmic deep house, its keys suspended over a rolling bassline that keeps the feet moving whilst the head drifts upwards. Breaker Breaker One Nine is the funk outlier — shorter, sharper, with a percussive strut that wouldn’t sound out of place on a disco floor.

The organ is the star of the middle stretch: Let’s Organize does exactly what its title promises, building a gospel-tinged, call-and-response rhythm around those keys, whilst Utopian Cafe and Future Noir both find gorgeous, jazzy chord changes worth revisiting. Eyes In The Sky and Life On The Flip Side round the record out with lusher, more polished arrangements, and closing vignette With — all 34 seconds of it — is a delicate piano epilogue that leaves the room smelling of smoke and Sunday morning.

Think Again is not an album of peak-time bangers, and it’s all the better for it. It’s the sound of a legend exhaling — a warm, sophisticated record that reminds us just how broad Detroit’s musical lineage really is, and how deep Mills’ own roots in it run.