Blake Mills, a singer-songwriter and guitarist from Malibu making waves since a young age, has released his fourth solo album “Mutable Set.”
Blake Mills is no stranger to high profile artists. Between collaborating and producing with the likes of John Legend and Randy Newman, his resume speaks for itself. The 33-year-old has recently landed a huge gig with Amazon working on a fictional miniseries about a rising rock group in the ’70s. Mills’ job is to create the band at the center of the show: their sound, their lyrics, and how they perform.
Mills has dedicated the past decade to going beyond mainstream music. With influences of rock, pop, and indie sounds, he pushes musical boundaries and is carving his own path in the rock music scene. This is reflected in his most recent project, says Blake Mills in Rolling Stone, “There’s an opportunity to subvert and create a guitar personality that could have been present in the Seventies, and wasn’t. People just loved guitar at that point. So I’m trying to find an appreciation for the instrument and try to bend it to my will a little bit. Revisionist history.”
In his early career, Mills played guitar with Lucinda Williams and Kid Rock, earning praise from superstar Eric Clapton, calling him: “the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal.” Mills has also appeared on Ed Sheeran’s records, played as a session musician for Sarah Bareilles, collaborated with Jay Z, and even produced the soundtrack for Pixar movie Cars 3.
His innovative career has earned him Producer of the Year nominations in 2016 and then again in 2018. Meanwhile, “Mutable Set” is Mills’ fourth album. It consists of 11 songs that, like his previous work, take traditional aesthetics of the genre and put Mills’ own personal spin on it. It’s foundation is built on folk, rock and pop genres, but breaks ground and makes it fresh and sophisticated.
Don’t just take my word for it, give the album a listen and tell us in the comments what you think!
