Mick Harris

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Michael John Harris (commonly known and credited as Mick Harris) is a prolific British musician.

He first came to attention in the 1980s as a drummer working with various punk rock and grindcore bands (most notably pioneering grindcore band Napalm Death); as a drummer he is generally credited with the invention of the blast beat, which has since become a key component of much of extreme metal and grindcore. Since the mid-1990s, Harris has worked primarily in electronic and ambient music, his main projects being Scorn and Lull. According to the All Music Guide, Harris's "genre-spanning activities have done much to jar the minds, expectations, and record collections of audiences previously kept aggressively opposed."

[edit] Biography

Harris' recording debut was as Napalm Death's second drummer, joining after founding member Miles "The Rat" Ratledge left the band in November 1985. His first live appearance with the band was on January 18, 1986, opening for Amebix. Harris was the driving force behind the band's seminal Scum album and the second release From Enslavement to Obliteration. After the release of the EP Mentally Murdered (which many say is the band's best work), Napalm Death began to become more interested in the death metal scene and their sound started to move away from the British grindcore sound an take on more of a death metal edge. At this point Bill Steer and Lee Dorrian departed the band, as a musical direction could not be agreed upon. Later, Harris was the sole band member who remained in the tumultuous group through many line-up changes, eventually leaving in 1991, just after the tour for Harmony Corruption. While in Napalm Death, Harris also played drums for Doom and Extreme Noise Terror, and participated in a side project with Mitch Harris called Defecation, which produced two records, Purity Dilution and Intention Surpassed, through Nuclear Blast, but this last one just with Mitch Harris.

After leaving Napalm Death, Harris founded Scorn with Napalm Death's original bassist/lead singer Nic Bullen. Scorn released several well-received albums and EPs in the early 1990s, creating a unique fusion of experimental heavy metal, electronic music, and dark dub music. Bullen left Scorn in 1995, but Harris continued to release albums under the Scorn moniker, exploring dark and minimalist dub/trip hop territory, with a focus on extremely low and loud bass frequencies. Harris' work presaged the grittier aspects of the dubstep craze of the mid-2000s.

Harris was involved in many other projects in addition to Scorn, including Lull (his beatless dark ambient project) and free jazz-cum-extreme metal trio Painkiller. Additionally, Harris has collaborated with John Zorn, James Plotkin, Justin Broadrick, Bill Laswell, Mark Spybey, and many others. Harris also produced a string of drum and bass releases under the name Quoit, and ran his own experimental drum and bass label, Possible, from 1996-1998. Hed Nod, a sub-label of Disques Hushush, was devoted exclusively to a series of Harris' solo sessions from 1999-2001.