![]() | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(August 2011) |
Mixmaster Morris | |
---|---|
Birth name | Morris Gould |
Born | Brighton, England | 30 December 1960
Genres | Electronica, ambient, downtempo, trip hop |
Occupation(s) | Producer, DJ |
Years active | 1987–present |
Labels | Rising High, Instinct, FAX +49-69/450464, Ninja Tune |
Mixmaster Morris (born Morris Gould; 30 December 1965) is an English electronica DJ and underground musician who has also recorded as The Irresistible Force. [1] [2] His work in the 1990s blended ambient music and chill-out influences with UK dance styles. [3]
Morris Gould was born in Brighton, Sussex, England, but grew up in Lincolnshire and was educated at Millfield in Somerset, and King's College London. At 15 he founded a punk rock band, The Ripchords, whose sole release, an eponymous EP with four tracks, was championed by the BBC Radio One DJ John Peel. After leaving university, he began working as a DJ in 1985 with his "Mongolian Hip Hop Show" on pirate radio station Network 21 in London – the handle Mixmaster Morris was suggested by the station director. After a year of managing a club called "The Gift" in New Cross, which had been founded by Keith Gallagher and named after a Velvet Underground song, Morris began releasing material as The Irresistible Force in 1987 in collaboration with singer-songwriter Des de Moor. [3] He became involved with the emerging UK acid house scene, after organising Madhouse at The Fridge, Brixton in 1988 [4] – which was the subject of a piece by Peel in The Observer .
A show with the band Psychic TV led to him becoming full-time DJ with The Shamen, and touring with them on their 'Synergy' tours for nearly two years. [4]
The first release as The Irresistible Force was the single, "I Want To" (1988), but success came with the first album, Flying High, released in 1992 on Rising High Records. [4] In 1994, Morris released the second album Global Chillage which featured a holographic sleeve, and was released in the US on Astralwerks. After a period of legal problems, the third album It's Tomorrow Already came out on Ninja Tune.
In 1990, he made one of the first chillout compilations, Give Peace a Dance 2: The Ambient Collection for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 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.
Through the 1990s he was a regular DJ in the chill out room at Return to the Source parties in London, around the UK and abroad. In 2003 he released the mix CD God Bless the Chilled for the Return to the Source Ambient Meditations series.
He has produced many remixes since 1985, including Coldcut's "Autumn Leaves". This remix was nominated by Norman Cook as his favourite chillout track on BBC Television. His mix for INXS was a Top 20 hit in the UK. Other early remixes were of Lloyd Cole, Dave Howard Singers, Bang Bang Machine, Stump, Higher Intelligence Agency, Sven Väth and Rising High Collective.
In the early 1990s his key residencies were alongside the Detroit masters at Lost, Megatripolis at London's Heaven, and also the Tribal Gathering parties. He became known for wearing holographic suits, produced by the company Spacetime, which he modelled for Vogue magazine. Throughout the decade, Morris wrote about electronic music for the NME , 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 film debut in Modulations (Caipirinha Films), and his music was used in a number of other films including Groove and Hey Happy.
Morris has played in over fifty countries at nightclubs and parties, and particularly music festivals such as 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 downtempo night Nubient in Brixton. In 1995, he played at the first The Big Chill festival, and then became a resident for the next 16 years.
He also collaborated with the German musician Pete Namlook under the name Dreamfish, [4] recording two albums. 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, with whom he toured as a DJ and made three releases. 1999 saw him win 'Best Chillout DJ' at the Ibiza DJ Awards at Pacha, Ibiza, and 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 world's 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. Morris records regular radio shows for the Japanese internet radio station Samurai FM. In 2006 he started a new club at the Big Chill House in Kings Cross, London, and did a guest mix for BBC Radio 1's The Blue Room show. His essay about jazz was published in the book, Crossfade, and he made a one-off appearance reading it aloud.
In March 2007, together with Coldcut, he organised a tribute show to the writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson, which they performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. He also played in Goa for the first time with The Big Chill, and started a new residency at The Prince in Brixton. In May 2008 Morris undertook an ambient mix on BBC Radio 1, and put a The Irresistible Force band together to play at The Big Chill festival. In 2009, he compiled a podcast for Tate Britain to accompany their Altermodern exhibition, and opened a new AV night called MMMTV in Camden. The mix CD, Calm Down My Selector was released in January by Wakyo Records, and he made a tour of Japan to promote it.
In 2010, he won another Ibiza DJ Award, for the third time. In October that year, he was announced as Head of A+R for Apollo Records. 2011 saw him rejoin Bestival as part of their "Ambient Forest" team.
2017 saw Morris continue to stay at the top of the psybient/downtempo movement and charts, especially mixcloud where he held top positions in most categories relating to ambient music for the full year. 2017 also saw the triumphant return of Mixmaster Morris with his acclaimed release "Kira Kira", a lush soundscape that was received well by many publications and listeners and earned a spot in "Extreme Chill's" top twenty of 2017 along with releases by Brian Eno and Steve Roach.
Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the 1980s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, which featured cut-up samples of hip-hop, soul, funk, spoken word and various other types of music, as well as video and multimedia. According to Spin, "in '87 Coldcut pioneered the British fad for 'DJ records'".
Ninja Tune is an English independent record label based in London with a satellite office in Los Angeles. It was founded by Matt Black and Jonathan More and managed by Peter Quicke and others.
Downtempo is a broad label for electronic music that features an atmospheric sound and slower beats than would typically be found in dance music. Closely related to ambient music but with greater emphasis on rhythm, the style may be played in chillout clubs or as "warm-up or cool-down" music during a DJ set. Examples of downtempo subgenres include trip hop, ambient house, chillwave, psybient and lo-fi hip hop.
The Big Chill was an annual festival of alternative, dance and chill-out music and comedy, held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle during early August. The 2011 line-up included The Chemical Brothers, Kanye West, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Jessie J, Robert Plant, Calvin Harris, Neneh Cherry, Aloe Blacc, Chipmunk, Katy B & Example. The festival has not been staged since 2011.
Ambient house is a downtempo subgenre of house music that first emerged in the late 1980s, combining elements of acid house and ambient music. The genre developed in chill-out rooms and specialist clubs as part of the UK's dance music scene. It was most prominently pioneered by the Orb and the KLF, along with artists such as Global Communication, Irresistible Force, Youth, and 808 State. The term was used vaguely, and eventually fell out of favor as more specific subgenres were recognized.
Café del Mar is a bar located in Sant Antoni de Portmany, Ibiza, established in 1980. In 1999, it founded the record label Café del Mar Music, known for its series of chillout CDs.
Hexstatic are an English electronic music duo, consisting of Stuart Warren Hill and Robin Brunson, that specializes in creating "quirky audio visual electro." Formed in 1997 after Hill and Brunson met while producing visuals at the Channel 5 launch party, they decided to take over for the original members of the Ninja Tune multimedia collective Hex that had disbanded around the same time. They soon collaborated with Coldcut for the Natural Rhythms Trilogy, including the critically acclaimed A/V single "Timber".
Chill-out is a loosely defined form of popular music characterized by slow tempos and relaxed moods. The definition of "chill-out music" has evolved throughout the decades, and generally refers to anything that might be identified as a modern type of easy listening.
Balearic beat, also known as Balearic house, Balearic, Ibiza house or Ibizan chillout, is an eclectic blend of DJ-led dance music that emerged in the mid-1980s. It later became the name of a more specific style of electronic dance/house music that was popular into the mid-1990s. Balearic beat was named for its popularity among European nightclub and beach rave patrons on the Balearic island of Ibiza, a popular tourist destination. Some dance music compilations referred to it as "the sound of Ibiza", even though many other, more aggressive and upbeat forms of dance music could be heard on the island, such as Balearic trance.
Return to the Source (RTTS) was a London-based Goa trance club and offshoot record label run by partners Chris Decker, Mark Allen, Janice Duncan and Phil Ross. Along with the recurring Escape from Samsara party, which also had a monthly Friday night slot at The Fridge in the mid-1990s, it was an early mainstay of trance in its underground days and through its breakout in the late 1990s. According to Allmusic, its "compilation series of the best trance music on the scene...brought Goa trance to the mainstream hordes".
Chillout Sessions is a series of compilations released by Ministry of Sound that focus on songs from the chillout genre. Songs on Chillout Sessions compilations vary in style from lounge to electronica and are released by many different artists.
Groovera was an independent, multi-channel, commercial-free, and listener-supported web-based radio station dedicated to "chill-out music". It was founded in 2005 by Timothy James Quigley, widely known as Tommy Ohmz, in his Seattle, Washington, living room initially as FrostByte Groove Lounge. Specifically, Groovera featured mixes of downtempo, future lounge, nu-jazz, vaporwave, ambient pop, trip hop, psybient and neo-soul, as well as other related and contributing genres. Groovera went offline temporarily in May 2012 and announced on Facebook on June 19, 2012, that Groovera had resumed operation and introduced three new channels: Exotic Lounge, Chill Surreal, and Soul Nouveau. Groovera introduced the VIP Lounge in March 2016 as a way to reward Groovera's contributors and supporters. Groovera New Modern Radio came to an official halt on the eve of what would have been the founder and general manager Tommy Ohmz's 50th birthday, July 29, 2020, at 12:08:13 p.m. Tommy Ohmz was in the process of renewing the Groovera Trademark with his California based attorney at the time of his untimely passing. As of February 2021, the Groovera web site is listed as "under construction". Groovera is no longer in operation.
Rising High Records was a leading British record label, established in 1991, specializing in rave, techno and ambient chillout music. Founded by Caspar Pound, who had chart success with A Homeboy, a Hippie and a Funki Dredd, the label went on to be at the forefront of dance music in the 1990s. The label was formed at F2 studios in London with studio owner Rob Mcluhan. Pound had recorded "Total Confusion" at F2 and decided to form his own label in partnership with the studio, teaming up with the in-house producer Pete Smith to form The Hypnotist. The label's first release "Rainbows in the Sky" became an instant hit, and was quickly followed by "The House Is Mine" and "Hardcore You Know the Score", three tracks that defined the sound of techno through the decade. Vocals and samples for all three were provided by Andy Higgins, who also ran the export and production of the label in the early years, according to Colin Larkin in The Guinness Who's Who of Rap, Dance and Techno.
DJ Awards is a celebration of electronic music, and aims to recognise and honour DJs and individuals who have influenced electronic dance music worldwide.
Alex Tronic is Scottish electronic musician, award winning DJ, producer and label owner Paul Croan, who is based in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland. Croan works from his private recording studio also based in Edinburgh. MusicTech magazine describe the studio as a "Vintage Synth treasure trove. His debut album To Infinity was championed by Radio 1 and the track "Chiller" made iTunes top 20. The latest single The Strangest Times was championed by Guy Monnington on Amazing Radio who included the track in his `Against the grain playlist` The video for the track was shortlisted for video of the year by The Weekender magazine.
Torsten Stenzel is a German music producer, composer and Honorary Consulate of Germany. Classically trained from an early age his roots are within the field of Electronic Dance Music. His interest for music first started at age five when he received piano lessons by academic piano teacher Andre Terebesi. He is the father of multi-platnium international recording artist Au/Ra.
The Smokering is a Los Angeles, California music production duo Ed Vichnick and Jason D. Kuhar. Their music blends elements of downtempo, chill-out, hip hop, classical, dub, acid jazz, reggae, Indian classical, Middle Eastern, and ambient music.
DJ Food is an electronic music project currently headed by Kevin Foakes. It was conceived in 1990 by Jonathan More and Matt Black of Coldcut and the Ninja Tune record label. It has since included various lineups of More, Black, Patrick Carpenter, Foakes, and others, before finally being formed only of Foakes.
Deep & Chilled Euphoria is a DJ mix album digitally mixed by British DJ Red Jerry as part of the Telstar TV's Euphoria series of DJ mixed dance music compilations. Released as a sequel to Jerry's previous installment in the series, Chilled Euphoria (2000), Deep & Chilled Euphoria features more of a "chill" sound than its predecessor, and features an array of ambient music from different artists. The album was described in its liner notes as "an attempt to enhance the experiences that exist in meditative states" where "rapidly produced states of deep relaxation increase suggestibility, receptivity to new information and enhance access to subconscious material," as was discovered in a 1950s study by neurologist William Grey Walter referred to in the liner notes.
Chilled Euphoria is a DJ mix album digitally mixed by British DJ Red Jerry as part of the Telstar TV's Euphoria series of DJ mixed dance music compilations. Chilled Euphoria features chill-out music, in the form of genres such as ambient music and trip hop, cross-licensed from different artists. The album was intended to be played in "post club sessions", where people chill-out in their homes listening to the album after returning home from a dance nightclub at 8 am. Some of the remixes on the album were exclusive to the album and previously unreleased, and five of them were compiled onto a double EP used to promote the album.