Mixmaster Morris
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Ambient DJ and underground musician Mixmaster Morris was born in Brighton, England in 1965. He started his DJ career in 1985 with his "Mongolian Hip Hop Show" on pirate radio in London. After a year running the club The Gift in New Cross, Morris began releasing material as Irresistible Force in 1987, initially in collaboration with singer-songwriter Des de Moor. He became involved with the emerging UK acid house scene, working with acts such as The Shamen, The Orb, Spiritualized, Coldcut and System 7. Morris toured with The Shamen (on their legendary 'Synergy' Tour) for nearly two years until the tragic death of bass player Will Sinott.
The first release as Irresistible Force was the single I Want To in 1988, but success came with the first album, Flying High, released in 1992 on Rising High Records. 1994 saw the second album Global Chillage with its distinctive hologram sleeve, which got a US release on Astralwerks. There followed a period of legal limbo before the third album It's Tomorrow Already.
In 1990 he made what is widely regarded as the first chillout compilation, Give Peace a Dance 3 for the group Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), followed by the series Chillout or Die for Rising High. The Morning After became his first major-label mix album, followed by Abstract Funk Theory for Obsessive. As of 2003, his most recent mix is God Bless the Chilled for Return to the Source. He has produced many remixes since 1985, the most celebrated being Coldcut's "Autumn Leaves" which regularly tops polls of chillout classics. Link at Epitonic for a free download of that song
In the early 1990s he played a lot of pure ambient music as well as emerging styles of ambient electronica (see the ambient music article). His key residencies at this time were alongside the Detroit masters at Lost, Megatripolis the original festival-in-a-club, crusty capital Megadog and Tribal Gathering where he played alongside Aphex Twin.
Throughout the 1990s he wrote extensively about electronic music for New Musical Express, Mixmag, and i-D Magazine. He was resident on Kiss FM for several years, and then a regular on Solid Steel, the Ninja Tune syndicated radio show. He made his movie debut in the cult film Modulations (Caipirinha Films), but his music can be heard in a number of other films including 'Groove' and 'Hey Happy', as well as many TV shows.
He has played in over 50 countries at myriad clubs and parties, particularly outdoor festivals like the Full Moon parties in the Mojave Desert, Glastonbury Festival, Rainbow 2000 in Japan, Chillits in Northern California, and Berlin's Love Parade. He also ran the very successful downtempo night Nubient for 3 years in Brixton. In 1994 he co-founded The Big Chill which has grown into the UK's largest chill-out event, and recently celebrated its 10th birthday.
In 1998 he joined the UK's Ninja Tune record label and multimedia collective, with whom he tours as a DJ and continues to release new material. 1999 saw him win 'Best Chillout DJ' at the Ibiza DJ Awards at Pacha, and play at Ibiza's famous chillout bars like Cafe del Mar,Cafe Mambo. Kumharas, Las Dalias. Morris also became friends with Ibiza chillout stalwarts like Rob da Bank, Chris Coco, Pathaan, Lenny Ibizarre, Jose Padilla. In 2001 he won the title for a second time, becoming the first DJ to achieve this.
He has appeared in many lists of the worlds top DJ's including the Ministry of Sound book The Annual and 2003's DJs by Lopez. Most recently he scored with his remix of 6th Sense, and did some music for a new series of the BBC's Doctor Who. His club Nubient continues to thrive at its new venue in trendy Brick Lane, and he records regular radio shows for Japanese station Samurai FM. In 2006 he started the ambient club Loft In Space.
