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Chill pill >>Mixmaster Morris's psychedelic subversion by MATEO
For the Mixmaster (who got his name from an early pirate radio show he produced), the transition from his punk rock roots to the world of electronic music was perfectly natural, leading him to Britain's fledgling house scene. "When house music started, the world changed quite a bit," he laughs. "Fifteen years ago it was like, 'Wow, if only I could get people together and get them to hear music like this and elevate their consciousness, the world will move off its axis.' A few years later it was really easy to do that." It didn't take long, however, before that vision began to sour. Despite the revolution in dance music, there has been very little change within the monolithic music industry and, with a few exceptions, the majors continue to push the commercial over the creative. "From their point of view, Robert Miles sells 14 million and Carl Craig sells 14 thousand, so Miles must be a thousand times better!" By 1990, Morris decided it was time for change. "I started branching out [from house music] at that point and wanted to build a new psychedelic movement." He hooked up with first The Shamen and then The Orb, DJing in the chill-out rooms at their shows, spinning tracks from techno's hallucinatory, experimental fringes. This led to many more gigs where his eclectic taste and encyclopedic knowledge of music quickly made him one of the most popular DJs in the world. Morris has held court at Berlin's Love Parade six years running, as well as five years at the Glastonbury Festivals. To say nothing of his two UK Top 5 albums (as the Irresistible Force) and his own page in the UK's beat bible Mixmag. Despite the accolades, it's been years of uphill battles, but Morris now sees his efforts, as well as those of many of his peers, as starting to come to fruition: "There's a lot of interesting things going on right now," he claims. "It doesn't have much to do with techno, but more to do with hip hop and jazz and funk. [Mo' Wax's] James Lavelle's influence is being spread to the other major labels." But acceptance by the commercial music juggernaut is not really on his agenda, as he says he'd "much rather be hated by all the industry people and loved by all the cool people, because that's the sign you're doing something right. I'm not bothered if Boy George doesn't play my records--I wouldn't expect him to." At Isart tonight (Feb. 26) with DJs Wig and Luv, 9pm, $8
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"The real legacy of punk rock," explains Mixmaster Morris, "wasn't safety pins through your nose, it was the freedom to make your own music." Morris has devoted the last two decades to spreading punk's DIY gospel, albeit in a fashion that might leave punk purists a little bewildered. As the world's premier chill-out DJ, he has done arguably more than any other person to bring innovative electronic music to the masses, entirely without the help of the mainstream music industry.