Mixmaster Morris

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Mixmaster Morris (born in Brighton, England in 1965) is an ambient DJ and underground musician.

[edit] History

He was educated at Millfield School, and King's College London. While still at school, he founded a punk rock band, The Ripchords, with himself on guitar, Sean Dromgoole as lead singer, Mike Trei on drums and Jonathan Collins (aka Jonathan Jetlag) on bass guitar. The Ripchords' sole release, an eponymous EP with four tracks, was hardcore punk but with lyrics penned by Gould it displayed all the erudition and wit for which his later career would become a benchmark.

After leaving university, he began working as a DJ in 1985 with his "Mongolian Hip Hop Show" on pirate radio in London, and eventually set aside an intended career as a computer programmer in favour of full-time life as a DJ and musician. 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, playing at underground parties across the UK. A show with the band Psychic TV led to him becoming fulltime DJ with The Shamen, and touring with them Shamen (on their celebrated 'Synergy' Tours) for nearly two years.

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 a holographic 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 arguably 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 Records. A mix tape for Mixmag shared with Alex Patterson was also released as a CD. The Morning After became his first major-label mix album, followed by Abstract Funk Theory for Obsessive. In 2003 he released another mix CD God Bless the Chilled for the Return to the Source label.

He has produced many remixes since 1985, the most celebrated being Coldcut's "Autumn Leaves" which regularly tops polls of chillout classics. This remix was nominated by Norman Cook as his favorite chillout track of all time on BBC TV. Link at Epitonic for a free download of that song. His mix for INXS was a Top 20 hit in the UK as well. Other early remixes were of Lloyd Cole, Dave Howard Singers, Bang Bang Machine, Irish band Stump, Higher Intelligence Agency, Sven Vath, Rising High Collective etc.

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 at London's Heaven, also the large Tribal Gathering parties. He became known for wearing holographic suits, produced by the company Spacetime, which he even modelled for Vogue magazine

Throughout the 1990s he wrote extensively about electronic music for New Musical Express, Mixmag, and i-D. 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), and his music can be heard in a number of other films including 'Groove' and 'Hey Happy'.

Morris 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 and Mother SOS in Japan, Chillits in Northern California, and Berlin's Love Parade. He also ran the successful downtempo night Nubient in Brixton, which continues 10 years later at the Big Chill Bar. In 1995 he played at the first The Big Chill which has grown into the UK's largest chill-out event, and has appeared at every one since except 2001.

He collaborated with the German musician Pete Namlook under the name Dreamfish, recording two albums which sold surprisingly well. Also with SF-based musician Jonah Sharp and Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra he made the album Quiet Logic for the Japanese label Daisyworld.

In 1998 he joined the UK's Ninja Tune record label and multimedia collective, with whom he tours as a DJ and sometimes releases 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. More recently he became a presenter at the awards, and the new EVA video awards too. Two singles for Ninja Tune won him more friends and admirers.

Morris 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, and URB Magazine's Top 100 DJ list. His most recent remixes have been the band 6th Sense and singer Anne Garner, and he also did some music for a new series of the BBC's Doctor Who. His club Nubient is still running at the Big Chill Bar in Brick Lane, and he records regular radio shows for Japanese internet radio station Samurai FM. In 2006 he started a new club Loft In Space at the Big Chill House in King's Cross, London, and did a guest mix for BBC Radio 1's The Blue Room show.

In March 2007 together with Coldcut he organised a tribute show to writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson which they performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall to a full house. He also played in Goa for the first time with The Big Chill. His new residency is every Sunday in Brixton and is called Calm Down My Selector. The compilation 'Nubient Nuggets vol 1' will be released in 2008 by TheAgriculture.

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