April 28, 2026

Cellotape Talks with Alex Mills

If one looks at music as a series of neat, separate, genres, you’re going to be extremely disappointed. Both performers and composers have for years switched between symphonies and soundtracks, or nightclubs and stadiums. Lady Gaga can slip with ease into jazz, Rosalie sings in fourteen operatic languages, Aretha Franklin sang the tenor aria “Nessun Dorma!” from the opera Turandot, and Richard Rodney Bennett’s operas are less well known than his soundtrack for the original “Murder on the Orient Express” movie.

Alex Mills writes music that embraces his love of Wales as one aspect of his work, whilst on his new album Look How Brightly he is inspired by the voice of contralto Jess Dandy. His work fails to fit into a genre since he also looks beyond music to offer creative imaginings. The past offers examples of seventeenth and eighteenth century composers working for a variety of reasons from church to aristocracy, from occasion commissions to music composed simply for love. Today to write music is to create and where that may lead across the years is flung wide open rather than sitting repressed under a single title.

Alex Mills and the team composed a fashion shoot, where the clothes, the performance of the artist, the use of monochrome and the creative teamwork blurs the lines. There is art, performance and even sound in the reverberations and echoes conjured up in the images. It is visually created to tell us who the artist is, what he does and his style. Fashion is often accused of commercial frivolity, or at the other extreme there are those who argue at its pinnacle it’s art. At its heart, this Cellotape creative team demonstrates it is a merging of both. Here they have composed something that straddles the reality of the clothes, and the creation of memorable imagery, and that makes us think. As with music it is the result of five creative performers working together in harmony to offer the audience a single piece.

So, here we see how the skills, visions, threads and forms intertwine, timeless yet modern, this story stirs classic and avante garde, motion and stillness, silence and sound to make us look. It is a story that could be a song cycle, or nouvelle vague film. It is like the work of Alex Mills, it spans genres.

Words by Tony Glenville

Above; Jacket & Trousers: YOHJI YAMAMOTO, Shirt: ZEGNA, and Shoes: OFFICINE CREATIVE

Cellotape: Wales has a profound musical heritage, were you surrounded by music as a child?

Alex: Yeah, very much so. Wales has such a deep-rooted musical heritage, so I feel very lucky to have grown up in that environment. Music is genuinely valued there, not just as something you do, but as something quite fundamental. I learned violin and piano, sang in choirs, and was part of regional ensembles throughout school, so it was always around me. That kind of support really nurtured my curiosity early on. Music feels deeply embedded in the DNA of Welsh people, and that sense of it being instinctive has stayed with me and shaped a lot of the music on my debut album Look How Brightly.

Cellotape: Do you come from a musical family?

Alex: Not directly, no. No one in my immediate family is a musician, although apparently I had a very musically gifted great-great-uncle, so maybe it’s in there somewhere. But what my family gave me feels even more important. My dad has a deep love of history and storytelling, which really shaped how I think about narrative and made me curious about the world. My mum is creative across the arts and has always supported that side of me, and my grandparents were the same. They created an environment where creativity just felt normal. And there was always music playing, at home or in the car, so it was part of everyday life.

Cellotape: Why the diversion into journalism at LCF?

Alex: I think because, growing up, music was how I expressed things I didn’t yet have language for. It felt very personal, almost too precious to study formally at that point. But I’ve always loved writing and storytelling, so journalism felt like a natural parallel. It gave me a way to explore ideas, communicate, and stay curious about the world. The course at London College of Fashion was quite unique at the time, it brought together journalism, broadcasting, photography, PR and styling, so I was trained to think across disciplines from the start.

Cellotape: Was fashion important at this point in your development?

Alex: Yes, but fashion in its broadest possible sense. I’ve never really seen it as just clothing, more as a reflection of what’s happening socially and culturally. It’s a way of understanding people, identity, and how we move through the world. It connects directly to music, art and everything we consume. Studying at LCF gave me space to explore those intersections and deepened my interest in visual culture more generally.

Cellotape: Was there a tipping point when you realised it was music?

Alex: Yeah, there was a moment. I was working at Monocle magazine in my mid-twenties, which was an amazing and very formative experience. Then an opportunity came up that would have meant committing more deeply to that path, and it made me pause. I realised I had to decide whether I wanted to keep writing about what was happening in the world, or actually be part of creating it. That was the turning point. After that, it felt quite clear.

Left; Jacket: BY WALID. Flannel Trousers: ANDERSON & SHEPPARD, Chelsea Suede Boots: JEFFERY-WEST Right; Top, Falke, Jacket:BY WALID.

Cellotape: What was your very first composition?

Alex: I was always making little pieces as a child, but the first one I’d call a serious composition was for harp and cello, which was very much rooted in Wales. I entered it into the Edinburgh International Harp Festival’s Young Composer Award without really expecting anything, so it was a huge honour to win and have it performed. I was also, I think, the first non-harpist to receive the award, which made it feel even more unexpected. The piece was inspired by Welsh mythology, The Dream of Rhonabwy, and brought together my interests in history, storytelling and emotional expression. That way of working has stayed with me and definitely carries through into my new album.

Cellotape: Was vocal music always a lure?

Alex: I’m drawn to both, for slightly diﬀerent reasons. Instrumental music can communicate something incredibly deep, something that goes beyond language. It gives people space to find their own meaning in it. But then the human voice brings a diﬀerent kind of immediacy. There’s a rawness to it that feels very direct. I’m really interested in that spectrum, from something quite abstract to something very clear and exposed, and how emotion moves across that.

Cellotape: Words and music have a strong thread for you?

Alex: Definitely. Writing and composing feel like they come from the same place for me, they’re both about shaping emotion into form. On the album, there are two songs, Release Me and I Love You, My Darkness, where the words and music came together as I was writing. I was improvising at the piano and the text just sort of arrived. At the same time, I’m quite sensitive to language. Some words don’t need music at all. It’s about knowing when music adds something, and when it’s better to leave space.

Cellotape: You work internationally, any observations on building a career this way?

Alex: I think one of the most powerful things about music is that it can move across borders quite naturally. At its best, it connects on a human level before anything else. I feel very lucky that my work has travelled and resonated in diﬀerent places. For me, it’s about creating something emotionally honest enough that it can be understood anywhere. That’s what allows it to exist beyond geography.

Cellotape: Do you link music with visuals, performance and art?

Alex: Yeah, very much so. When I was deciding what to study, I actually had an oﬀer to study art at Central Saint Martins alongside journalism at LCF , so visual thinking has always been part of how I work. I collaborate a lot with visual artists, filmmakers and choreographers, and I definitely see my practice as interdisciplinary. For the launch of my album Look How Brightly, I’ve chosen to co-curate a large-scale contemporary art exhibition rather than do a one-oﬀ concert. That felt really important. It opens on May 15th, the same day as the release. The idea is to place the music in dialogue with visual culture and other ways of seeing the world. It allows the work to open up a bit more, so people can engage with it from diﬀerent angles and draw their own interpretations.

Left; Jacket & Trousers: YOHJI YAMAMOTO, Shirt: ZEGNA, and Trainers: ADIDAS, Right; Jacket: ISSEY MIYAKE HOMME PLISSÉ, Shirt: ZEGNA, Metallic Chainmail Scarf: Stylist’s Own

Cellotape: Do Wales’ nature, traditions and history form part of your DNA?

Alex: Yes, definitely, but I see it more as a starting point than something that defines the limits of the work. The landscape, mythology and history of Wales are very much part of me, but I’ve always been curious about the wider world as well. I’m really interested in what connects us across cultures, across time, across borders. Diﬀerent societies have found diﬀerent ways to understand existence and meaning, but there are threads that run through all of them. That tension between the local and the universal is something I keep coming back to, and it runs through the album too.

Cellotape: What would you love to be commissioned to write?

Alex: I think we need new, more interdisciplinary ways of experiencing music, especially in dialogue with art and visual culture. Moving beyond the traditional concert format feels important if we want to reach new audiences. With this album, I’ve started to explore that by expanding the work beyond sound into exhibition and collaboration. I’m really interested in projects that sit somewhere between film, installation and performance. I’ve been developing pieces built around breath, where performers move through the music in sync with their own breathing, which creates a shared, almost meditative experience for both performers and audiences. It’s a very diﬀerent way of experiencing music. Taking that further through collaboration, and presenting it in public spaces like galleries where people can actively participate, would be incredibly exciting.

Cellotape: Anyone you’d love to write a special piece for?

Alex: I’m less interested in writing for one specific person, and more interested in working with people who think across disciplines. Choreographers, filmmakers, visual artists, performers who are open to building something collaboratively. The most exciting work for me happens in that kind of exchange, where sound, movement and image evolve together and push each other somewhere new.

Cellotape: Is there a fashion designer you would write a show score for?

Alex: Designers like Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto or Ann Demeulemeester really resonate with me. There’s a conceptual clarity to their work, but also a kind of rawness and emotional directness that feels very close to how I think about music. Their work creates atmosphere as much as image, and that kind of space naturally invites sound in.

Cellotape: Anything you’d like to add?

Alex: I was once on a panel of composers and we were asked why we write music. I said, quite simply, to connect emotionally with people. Some of the other composers felt that was overly simple, even reductive. Surely all music does that? I don’t think it does. Most music never goes there. It’s actually quite rare for a piece to reach something truly raw, truly human, to communicate the beautiful messiness of being alive. That’s the territory I’m interested in exploring in my work, and what I think we need more of.

Left, Jacket: ISSEY MIYAKE HOMME PLISSÉ, Shirt: ZEGNA, Metallic Chainmail Scarf: Stylist’s Own, Right, Cashmere Sweater & Houndstooth Flannel Trousers: ANDERSON & SHEPPARD, Merino Wool Socks: CORGI, Shoes, CROKETT & JONES