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Blake Mills

Blake Mills was born in Santa Monica, California, United States,[1] and grew up in Malibu, where he attended Malibu High School with Taylor Goldsmith. Mills and Goldsmith began their musical careers in a band they co-founded called Simon Dawes. Simon Dawes released its debut EP What No One Hears in 2005, and its first LP Carnivore in September 2006 via Record Collection.[3][4] After the band broke up in 2007, Goldsmith and his younger brother, Griffin, formed the band Dawes with Simon Dawes bassist, Wylie Gelber, and Mills went on to serve as a touring guitarist for Jenny Lewis.[5] He went on to tour with Band of Horses,[6] Cass McCombs,[7] Julian Casablancas[8][9] and Lucinda Williams.[10][11] As a session musician, Mills has collaborated with Conor Oberst, Kid Rock,[12] Weezer, The Avett Brothers, Paulo Nutini,[13] Norah Jones, Carlene Carter, Jesca Hoop, Dixie Chicks, Zucchero, Pink, Lana Del Rey, Dangermouse, Vulfpeck and more.

In 2010, Mills released his first solo LP, Break Mirrors, via Record Collection. The original intent for the album was to serve as a calling card for Mills to get session work.[14] Break Mirrors was touted as the album of the year by many websites and fellow musicians, despite its limited release.[15][16] In late 2011, after spending back-to-back years on tour and in the studio playing on other people’s records, Mills made the decision to begin producing in order to explore musical concepts beyond guitar.[17] Analog Edition Records released a Blake Mills double A side 7" in 2011, featuring the songs "Hey Lover" and "Wintersong" in 2011.[18]

In January 2012, Mills appeared on Conan O’Brien for his first national televised performance as a solo artist. He covered Bob Dylan’s “Heart Of Mine,” which he had recently played at an Amnesty International benefit.[19] Later that year, he went on to co-produce Jesca Hoop's album The House that Jack Built,[20][21] produced Sara Watkins' album Sun Midnight Sun,[22] wrote and produced "Sad Dream" on Sky Ferreira's latest EP Ghost and an additional two tracks on her upcoming LP I'm Not Alright. Mills was featured on electric slide guitar on the track '"Go Home" from the 2013 debut album from the group Lucius.[23] For the compilation album Just Tell Me That You Want Me: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac, he co-produced and played with Billy Gibbons and Matt Sweeney on the track "Oh Well".[24] Mills also served as the opening act and guitarist for Fiona Apple during her 2012 tour through North America.[25][26] Mills co-produced the track "Artifact 1" on Conor Oberst's album, Upside Down Mountain, which was released in May 2014. He also produced the forthcoming untitled release from Jesca Hoop and Mt. Egypt's III.[27]

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Album Review

Pino Palladino and Blake Mills: Notes with Attachments

Read "Notes with Attachments" reviewed by Chris May


Do not be put off by the cover. It might suggest inaccessible, up itself, bone-dry cerebralism, but the reality is contrariwise. Around a third of the music is vaguely reminiscent, in spirit if not in execution, of the 1949-1950 Birth Of The Cool sessions conducted by Miles Davis with arrangers Gil Evans, John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan and John Carisi. Much of the rest sounds like a sci-fi twist on traditional Senegambian music. The protagonists here—bassist Pino Palladino ...

3
Album Review

Pino Palladino, Blake Mills: Notes with Attachments

Read "Notes with Attachments" reviewed by Emmanuel Di Tommaso


Pino Palladino e Blake Mills firmano uno dei dischi più attesi dell'anno. Il polistrumentista e produttore californiano viene da un 2020 molto intenso, caratterizzato dall'uscita del suo album solista Mutable Set e da una serie di preziose collaborazioni con artisti del calibro di Bob Dylan e di Perfume Genius, che hanno realizzato due dei migliori dischi dello scorso anno. Palladino è uno di quei musicisti che non hanno bisogno di presentazioni e per i quali la lista delle collaborazioni parla ...

8
Album Review

Bob Dylan: Rough And Rowdy Ways

Read "Rough And Rowdy Ways" reviewed by Doug Collette


Bob Dylan's Rough And Rowdy Ways is a uniformly excellent piece of work. On these ten new original songs, the Nobel Laureate blends folk, blues and country music with just the slightest dash of gospel and, accompanied with sensitivity by his touring band (plus a few additional musicians including Blake Mills and Fiona Apple), the seamless sound makes this thirty-ninth Dylan studio album superior to both of the other standouts of recent years, Time Out Of Mind (Columbia, 1997) and ...

9
Album Review

Ted Poor: You Already Know

Read "You Already Know" reviewed by Chris May


Breaking news 3/23/20: Impulse! is getting its mojo back. Showing definite signs of, anyway... Since its glory days in the 1960s and 1970s, Impulse! has been little more than a logo wheeled out by its parent company, Universal Music, to lend credibility to unrelated one-off projects. Until very recently, the only newly recorded release worthy of Impulse!'s imprimatur was Alice Coltrane's swansong, Translinear Light, in 2004. Fast forward to 2018: A new dawn for ...

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Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Notes with Attachments

Impulse! Records
2021

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You Already Know

Impulse! Records
2020

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Rough And Rowdy Ways

Columbia Records
2020

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