Mixmaster Morris
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Ambient DJ and underground musician Mixmaster Morris was born in Brighton but started his DJ career in 1985 with his "Mongolian Hip Hop Show" on pirate radio in London. Morris began releasing material as Irresistible Force in 1987 and 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 for two years until the tragic death of bass player Will Sinott.
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.
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, but nowadays can be heard 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.
Over the years he has played in over 50 countries at myriad clubs and raves, particularly outdoor festivals like the Full Moon party in the Mojave Desert,Glastonbury Festival, Rainbow 2000 in Japan and Berlin's Love Parade. He also ran very successful downtempo night Nubient for 3 years in Brixton. In 1994 he was one of the founders of 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, and play at most of Ibiza's famous chillout bars like Cafe del Mar,Cafe Mambo. Kumharas, Las Dalias. Morris became friends with Ibiza chillout stalwarts like Rob da Bank, Chris Coco, Pathaan, Lenny Ibizarre, Jose Padilla
Nowadays he appears 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 music for a new series of the BBC's Doctor Who.
External links
- Mixmaster Morris' Blog (http://r0gue.net/morris)
- Ninja Tune record label (http://www.ninjatune.net)
- The Big Chill website (http://www.bigchill.net)
- Solid Steel Radio Show (http://www.solidsteel.net)