The Roland TR909’s contribution to Techno music can’t be understated, it is undoubtably one of the most influential pieces of hardware in the history of electronic music. If you want to see that machine pushed to its absolute limit, watch a Jeff Mills 909 solo at one of his shows, he is to the 909 what Jimmy Hendrix was to the electric guitar. As an instrument, he takes it to a whole new level. 

My first encounter with the machine was when I booked Jeff for the first time in January 2012. I toyed with buying the machine that time and regretted not doing that for years after. That show was the launch of a club concept I developed called ‘Apocalypse Now’. It was essentially a monthly countdown to the end of the world, as some people genuinely thought the world would end that year, via a cataclysmic collision…