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      The Techno Pioneer Jeff Mills Blazes a Trail to Space, and Beyond

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      At 60, the D.J. and producer is inspiring fresh generations with new work, including an LP that approximates the experience of traveling through a black hole.During a recent performance by Tomorrow Comes the Harvest that had some attendees dancing in the aisles at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, a thrilling rhythmic conversation began between the percussionist Sundiata O.M., who was playing African talking drums, and the Detroit techno pioneer Jeff Mills, who tapped out beats on a Roland TR-909 drum machine. Over a 90-minute set, the musicians boldly blended techno, jazz and modern classical, embodying the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s famous credo “Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future.”Tomorrow Comes the Harvest began in 2018 as a collaboration between Mills and the Afrobeat originator Tony Allen, Fela’s longtime drummer. Despite their stylistic differences, they created a sonic language — based around total improvisation, not typically a techno hallmark — that Mills found so fruitful, he wanted to continue it even after Allen’s 2020 death. “My hope,” Mills said, during an interview backstage, “is that Tomorrow Comes the Harvest becomes an approach to play music — not always the same sound, but the idea of figuring it out while playing.”Mills has blazed a singular trail over the past four decades: from his 1980s roots as the Detroit nightclub and FM radio D.J. the Wizard to his early 1990s period with the politically conscious Motor City techno collective Underground Resistance to his solo work helping define the sleek, stripped-down minimal techno genre. While always known as a dazzling D.J., Mills has continually expanded his horizons beyond the booth, including on high-concept album projects that began with “Discovers the Rings of Saturn” from the group X-102 in 1992, up through his new LP, “The Trip — Enter the Black Hole,” released last week on vinyl via his own Axis label.Mills lifted Tomorrow Comes the Harvest’s name from a phrase coined by the science fiction author Octavia Butler, who was describing the potential power of seeds, properly sown, to influence the future. The metaphor seems apt for Mills’s entire career, which has inspired generations of electronic musicians, like Mali Mase, a 25-year-old D.J. and producer who releases music as Sweater on Polo.“To me, Jeff Mills is someone who exhibits mastery, not only in techno, but all forms of expressions he explores,” said Mase, who spun a set dedicated to Mills during the 2023 edition of Dweller, a Black-centered annual techno festival in New York. “It would be so simple for him to sit back and bask in the spectacle of his own greatness. Instead, he challenges the forms established, reinvents, and still beats it sicker than anyone on a drum machine.”Mills said he hopes that Tomorrow Comes the Harvest “becomes an approach to play music — not always the same sound, but the idea of figuring it out while playing.”Edwina HayWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With Church Bells and Hashtags, the Netherlands Backs Its Eurovision Act

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      The details of an incident that led to the singer’s disqualification remain elusive. But many Dutch fans have already made up their minds.At noon on Tuesday, some church bells and carillons in the Netherlands didn’t sound like they usually do. Rather than solemnly tolling, they played the melody of “Europapa,” the song that was supposed to be the Dutch entry in the Eurovision Song Contest final this past Saturday.Dutch radio stations are also regularly playing the three-minute pop song, and some fans have added the hashtag “JusticeforJoost” to their social media accounts.Support is strong in the Netherlands for Joost Klein, the singer behind “Europapa,” who was a preshow favorite among Eurovision fans and bookmakers until he was disqualified just hours before the final in Malmo, Sweden.Eurovision’s organizer, the European Broadcasting Union, barred Klein from taking part after an “incident” during which he showed “threatening behavior directed at a female member of the production crew,” it said in a statement.The E.B.U. called in the Swedish police to investigate, although details of the incident remain elusive. But support for Klein seemed to get only stronger in the Netherlands since Saturday’s bombshell announcement, thanks to a general belief, promoted by the Dutch public broadcaster, that Klein did not commit an offense large enough to justify the disqualification.AVROTROS, the broadcaster that had picked Klein to represent the Netherlands, responded to the E.B.U.’s decision on Saturday with a statement calling it “very heavy and disproportionate.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Barbara Hannigan, Daring Singer and Maestro, to Lead Iceland Symphony

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      Hannigan, the rare artist to have a career as a soprano and a conductor, will assume a full-time conducting post for the first time.Barbara Hannigan, a daring singer and maestro who has built a reputation for innovative programming, will become the chief conductor and artistic director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra in 2026, the ensemble announced on Wednesday.It will be the first full-time conducting post for Hannigan, 53, a rare artist who began her career as a soprano but in recent years has made a name as a conductor.Hannigan said in an interview that she was drawn to the inventiveness of the Iceland Symphony, which she first conducted in 2022 in a program of Ives, Schoenberg, Berg and Gershwin.“These people are working in a kind of shimmering creative realm that resonates very much with my own,” she said. “I realized I could do things with them and ask things of them that they took so naturally.”Lara Soley Johannsdottir, the Iceland Symphony’s managing director, called Hannigan a “one-of-a-kind” artist. In a statement, Johannsdottir said, “Experiencing the trust between her and the musicians and how they create and go on an adventure together is extremely inspiring.”Hannigan will lead the ensemble for an initial three-year term, succeeding Eva Ollikainen, a Finnish conductor whose tenure began in 2020. The Iceland Symphony announced last month that Ollikainen had decided to leave her post when her contract expires at the end of the 2025-26 season.Hannigan, who was born in Canada, emerged on the cultural scene as a soprano. But in 2011, when she was 40, she began a career as a conductor, appearing with top ensembles like the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and the Cleveland Orchestra. Since 2019, she has served as principal guest conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in Sweden.She has become known for virtuosic performances in which she both sings and conducts from the podium. In April, for example, she led the Iceland Symphony in a performance of Poulenc’s one-act opera for soprano and orchestra “La Voix Humaine,” singing the soprano part.Hannigan said she was eager to record and tour with the Iceland Symphony and that she would work to champion Icelandic composers. She said the orchestra would also commission works that would allow her to sing and conduct on occasion.“The orchestra is very adventurous,” she said, “and so is the audience.”Hannigan, who is currently at work on a recital program featuring Scriabin, Messiaen and Zorn, said that she would continue to perform widely as a soprano. She said that she never envisioned taking a full-time conducting post but felt a special connection to the Iceland Symphony, calling it “one of the most creative orchestras out there.”“I know they are going to enrich my life a lot,” she said, “and I hope that I am enriching the artistic life in Iceland.” More

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      John Barbata, Turtles and C.S.N.Y. Drummer, Dies at 79

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      Barbata belonged to marquee bands of the late ’60s and ’70s, drumming on smash hits such as “Happy Together,” the first song he recorded with the Turtles.John Barbata, the drummer for the Turtles, Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, who walked away from rock music at the height of his career, has died. He was 79.His death was announced in a social media post by Jefferson Airplane on Monday. A cause of death was not given and a list of survivors was not immediately available.Mr. Barbata joined the Turtles after leaving his high school band and enjoyed success almost immediately, drumming on the band’s best-known track, “Happy Together,” released in 1967.“I heard that the Turtles were looking for a drummer, they called me down to the studio to try me out on some session work, the first song we recorded was ‘Happy Together,’” Mr. Barbata wrote on his now defunct website, archived by web.archive.org.“We got it in one take,” he said.The song spent three weeks at No. 1 and became a pop classic. It’s been performed by acts as varied as Mel Tormé, Weezer, Miley Cyrus and the punk band Simple Plan.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Best of Cass Elliot

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      Hear her extraordinary range in 10 tracks.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesDear listeners,First of all, I’d like to thank the guest playlisters who filled in for me last week, Caryn Ganz and Ben Sisario. Caryn paid tribute to Madonna’s Celebration Tour (she’s seen it live seven times, which officially makes her an expert) and Ben supplemented his great profile of Mdou Moctar with a thorough primer on African guitar greats. That’s what I call something for everyone.I’m especially grateful to Caryn and Ben for taking over last week because it allowed me to finish a longer piece I’ve been wanting to write for some time: an essay about the life, legacy and music of Cass Elliot. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Elliot’s untimely death, which thwarted a brilliant career that could have branched out in so many directions. But it also spawned a frustratingly persistent and cruel myth about a certain ham sandwich, which Elliot’s daughter hopes to squash once and for all in her lovely new memoir, “My Mama, Cass.” I wanted to contribute to dispelling it, too, and bring the focus back to her charismatic artistry.Though Elliot died at 32, she left behind a robust and eclectic body of work that is ripe for rediscovery. And since I did not have time to delve too deeply into her discography in my article, I figured an Amplifier playlist was in order.Elliot has one of those voices that just puts a smile on my face, plain and simple. But there’s also nothing plain or simple about the particular type of joy her voice conveys. Hers is a hard-won happiness, as heard on perhaps her most beloved solo single, “Make Your Own Kind of Music,” a song of self that stays true in the face of opposition.An endlessly adaptable vocalist, Elliot could sing in a staggering number of styles, and I tried to highlight her range on this playlist. It pulls from pop (her indelible work with the Mamas & the Papas, the group that made her famous), rock (her collaboration with Traffic’s Dave Mason) and even some cabaret. Like watching old interview clips of her on YouTube (an activity I highly recommend; she was an uncommonly sharp talk-show guest), listening to Elliot’s music is a bittersweet experience, because it gets you imagining all the possible futures that could have been.Might she have become a star on Broadway or fronted a hard rock band? Anything seems possible. But there’s also plenty of enjoyment to be found in the bounty of music she left us. So clear your throat, throw on your most colorful caftan and get ready to sing along.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Daniel Kramer, Who Photographed Bob Dylan’s Rise, Dies at 91

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      For 366 days, he captured intimate images of the singer-songwriter as he changed the look and sound of the 1960s.Daniel Kramer, a photojournalist who captured Bob Dylan’s era-tilting transformation from acoustic guitar-strumming folky to electric prince of rock in the mid-1960s, and who shot the covers for his landmark albums “Bringing It All Back Home” and “Highway 61 Revisited,” died on April 29 in Melville, N.Y., on Long Island. He was 91.His death, in a nursing home, was confirmed by his nephew Brian Bereck.Rolling Stone magazine once described Mr. Kramer as “the photographer most closely associated with Bob Dylan.” But that designation seemed highly improbable at the outset.Although Mr. Dylan had already begun his rise to global fame — he released his third album, “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” in early 1964 — Mr. Kramer knew little about him.That changed in February 1964, when he watched the 22-year-old Mr. Dylan perform his rueful ballad “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” on “The Steve Allen Show.” The song details a real event in which a Black woman died after being struck with a cane by a wealthy white man at a white-tie Baltimore party.“I hadn’t heard or seen him,” Mr. Kramer said in a 2012 interview with Time magazine. “I didn’t know his name, but I was riveted by the power of the song’s message of social outrage and to see Dylan reporting like a journalist through his music and lyrics.”As a young Brooklynite trying to carve out a career as a freelance photographer, Mr. Kramer decided he had to arrange a photo shoot with the budding legend. He spent six months dialing the office of Mr. Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman. “The office always said no,” Mr. Kramer said in a 2016 interview with the British newspaper The Guardian. Finally, six months later, Mr. Grossman himself took his call. “He just said, ‘O.K., come up to Woodstock next Thursday.’”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Daniel Kramer’s Year With Bob Dylan

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      For six months in 1964, the photojournalist Daniel Kramer, who died at 91 on April 29, dialed the office of Bob Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman, to ask if he could photograph Mr. Dylan, a rising star at the time. Finally, Mr. Grossman said yes.What was meant to be a one-hour shoot turned into a five-hour shoot, which turned into a 366-day photographic odyssey in which Mr. Kramer was granted unrivaled access to Mr. Dylan. He captured rare behind-the-scenes images of the artist at home, on tour and at recording sessions.Mr. Kramer’s images were soon popping up in publications around the world. He also shot cover photos for two of Mr. Dylan’s best-known albums.Here is a look at some of those images.Mr. Kramer’s original photograph for the cover of Mr. Dylan’s 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home.” (The woman in the photo is Sally Grossman, the wife of Mr. Dylan’s manager at the time. She died in 2021.)Daniel Kramer, via Staley-Wise Gallery, New YorkMr. Dylan was surrounded by fans after a concert in Philadelphia in October 1964.Daniel Kramer, via Kramer familyMr. Dylan at the time of the Philadelphia concert.Daniel Kramer, via Kramer familyMr. Dylan with the singer Joan Baez in Woodstock in 1964.Daniel Kramer, via Kramer familyAway from the stage, Mr. Kramer managed to capture Mr. Dylan in rare moments of downtime. Rolling Stone magazine once described him as “the photographer most closely associated with Bob Dylan.”Mr. Dylan in 1964. Although he had already begun his rise to global fame, Mr. Kramer knew little about him until he saw him perform on television that February.Daniel Kramer, via Staley-Wise Gallery, New YorkMr. Dylan during the recording of his album “Bringing It All Back Home.”Daniel Kramer, via Kramer familyMr. Dylan in performance at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens.Daniel Kramer, via Staley-Wise Gallery, New YorkAt a Greenwich Village cafe in 1965.Daniel Kramer, via Staley-Wise Gallery, New YorkBefore his photo shoot with Mr. Dylan, Mr. Kramer was a young Brooklynite trying to carve out a career as a freelance photographer. He went on to shoot portraits of luminaries, always maintaining his ability to connect with them on an intimate level.Mr. Kramer said that the historic significance of what was unfolding before his lens was not always apparent to him at the time. Daniel Kramer, via Kramer family“Bob didn’t really want to be Woody Guthrie,” Mr. Kramer said. “He wanted to be Elvis Presley.”Daniel Kramer, via Staley-Wise Gallery, New YorkOut for a stroll in Philadelphia.Daniel Kramer, via Staley-Wise Gallery, New YorkMr. Kramer took the cover image for “Highway 61 Revisited” in 1965, in front of the Manhattan building where Mr. Dylan’s manager lived.Daniel Kramer, via Staley-Wise Gallery, New York More

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      The Legacy of Steve Albini, Rock’s Uncompromising Force

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      Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicSteve Albini, who died last week at 61, was one of the most admired, and most divisive, figures in rock. He was an expert audio engineer who recorded ultra-classics by Nirvana, PJ Harvey and Pixies, along with key underground releases by the Jesus Lizard, Slint, Low, Neurosis and many, many others. For decades, he also relished his role as a brutally insulting critic — sometimes of the bands he worked with — and a gadfly who pushed uncomfortable buttons about race, politics and sex. He came to regret that, owning up to his history of provocation for its own sake.On this week’s Popcast, guest hosted by the music reporter Ben Sisario, we delve into Albini’s musical legacy and his singular role as a moral scourge in rock and of the music business overall.Guests:Jeremy Gordon, a senior editor at The Atlantic, who interviewed Albini last year in The GuardianJoe Gross, freelance writer and former critic at The Austin American-StatesmanConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More