"The Music Folder" - Archivio Storico Ricordi's Podcast featuring Jeff Mills

“The Music Folder” is the title of a series of lectures in podcast form by Archivio Storico Ricordi, in which contemporary composers discuss music and art in general, and their work in particular.

Past episodes featured avant-garde composer William Basinski and sound artist Alvin Curran, among others. The latest episode of the podcast series by the Bertelsmann-owned music archive in Milan spotlights DJ Jeff Mills, who accompanied the screening of Fritz Lang’s 1922 silent film masterpiece “Dr. Mabuse – The Gambler I” with his music at the “UFA Film Nights” in Berlin last August.

‘Blade Runner’ as a source of inspiration

Electronic music as background music for films produced a century ago: As Jeff Mill’s involvement with the “UFA Film Nights” shows, the musician is very interested in combining the new with the old in his work – which is one of the reasons he visited the Ricordi music archive in person in October 2022 to record the podcast. In “The Music Folder #6” he talks about how he generally works on compositions for silent films. Among other things, he discusses the new composition of the musical accompaniment to “Metropolis” – another Fritz Lang silent film – which he first performed at the “UFA Film Nights” in 2017. The new composition has just been released as an album. The DJ also talks to his interview partner Claudia Attimonelli, lecturer in media studies and visual culture at Aldo Modo University in Bari, about the legendary film “Blade Runner,” which serves as his source of inspiration, as well as his views on techno music exhibitions and the ongoing “historicization” of this music genre.